winners and five Oaks winners. His racing silks were dark green with a black cap. Politics Wyndham was a member of the Whig party. In 1787, he bought the pocket borough of Midhurst and used it to return his two younger brothers, Charles and Percy, to the House of Commons. Charles only served in one parliament for Midhurst and by 1796 the seat had been sold to Lord Carrington. When the party split in 1792 over the French Revolution he sided with the more conservative faction which supported Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger in his condemnation of the "wicked and seditious" writings of radicals such as Thomas Paine. He opposed the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1832 which introduced the harsh workhouse system. When the Sussex Poor Law Commissioner William Hawley visited Petworth House in October 1835 he was politely received but was informed that the earl considered the Act "one of the worst measures that could have been devised". While Egremont remained aloof from day-to-day affairs, his secretary Thomas Sockett, Rector of Petworth, was deeply involved with poor relief and emigration, and became engaged in bitter disputes with the commissioner over the provision of relief to Petworth paupers and the running of the Petworth Emigration Scheme. The national press reported the matter and Sockett, together with other witnesses from Petworth, gave evidence to a House of Commons select committee in March 1837. Military The county Yeomanry was revived in 1794 "in case of invasion or internal commotion", reflecting aristocratic nervousness following the French revolution. Composed of landowners and tenant farmers this cavalry force was naturally commanded by the most powerful landowners. In Sussex, this took the form of the Sussex Troops of Gentlemen and Yeoman Cavalry, with the earl himself as Colonel, as well as commanding the Petworth Troop. Volunteers provided their own horse while the government paid for maintenance and basic equipment. Wyndham himself bought extra arms, helmets, cloaks and feathers from London. Volunteers gained exemptions from taxes on horses, hair powder and from road tolls. By 1798 the Petworth Troop had fifty-two members. Petworth Wyndham financed the building of a market house at Petworth in 1793 on the market square where bulls had previously been tied to a stake for baiting by dogs. The earl ended this cruel practice and also the practice of "throwing at cocks", which involved throwing wooden staves at cockerels, the thrower