thumb|right|250px|[[The Wyndham Sisters: Lady Elcho, Mrs. Adeane, and Mrs. Tennant|The Wyndham Sisters, by John Singer Sargent, 1899 (Metropolitan Museum)]]

The Souls was a small loosely-knit but distinctive elite social and intellectual group in the United Kingdom from 1885 to the turn of the century. Many of the most distinguished British politicians and intellectuals of the time were members. The original group of Souls reached its zenith in the early 1890s and had faded out as a coherent clique by 1900.

Formation

The group formed as a response to the damper on social life caused by the political tension of the Irish Home Rule debate. Existing social circles were rent by angry arguments between proponents and opponents of the Gladstone ministry's efforts in 1886 to bring about full Home Rule. Many people in society wanted a salon where they could meet without fighting about politics. Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, a member of the group, described the aims and objectives of The Souls, and above all, of what they wanted to avoid.<blockquote>In my disappointment about Egypt I turned with redoubled zest to my social pleasures of the year before, and at this time saw much of that interesting group of clever men and pretty women known as the Souls, than whom no section of London Society was better worth frequenting, including as it did all that there was most intellectually amusing and least conventional. It was a group of men and women bent on pleasure, but pleasure of a superior kind, eschewing the vulgarities of racing and card-playing indulged in by the majority of the rich and noble, and looking for their excitement in romance and sentiment.</blockquote>

The name reportedly came from Lord Charles Beresford, who said: "You all sit and talk about each other's souls—I shall call you the 'Souls'".

Members

The original Souls included the following people. It is important to note that most or perhaps all of the women in this list were members of The Souls on their own merits before they married other members.

The Balfours

  • Arthur Balfour (1848–1930), Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1902–1905
  • Edith Sophy Balfour (1865–1948), who was Alfred Lyttelton's second wife. A novelist, playwright, World War I-era activist, and Justice of the Peace, in August 1917 she was among the first people honoured with the Order of the British Empire by King George V, for her work with refugees.

The Wyndhams

Percy Wyndham, his wife, Madeline Caroline Frances Eden Campbell, their two sons and three daughters and the children's spouses were all original members of The Souls. Through their mother, the children were descended from Irish nationalist Lord Edward FitzGerald. Wyndham commissioned the now-famous painting of his daughters, The Wyndham Sisters by John Singer Sargent. The trio are the centre of the 2014 book Those Wild Wyndhams by Claudia Renton.

  • Hon. Percy Scawen Wyndham (1835–1911) was a soldier, Conservative Party politician, collector and intellectual. He held the same seat in Parliament from 1860 to 1885.
  • Madeline Caroline Frances Eden Campbell Wyndham, (1846–1920) married the Hon. Percy Scawen Wyndham in 1860. Through her, their children were descended from Irish nationalist Lord Edward FitzGerald.
  • George Wyndham, (1863–1913), the Wyndhams' elder son, served in the Coldstream Guards, became private secretary to Arthur Balfour and in 1889, was elected unopposed to a seat in the House of Commons that he held until his death in 1913. He served as Under-Secretary of State for War, Chief Secretary for Ireland, and then was taken into the Cabinet and sworn a member of the Privy Council in 1902. He furthered the 1902 Land Conference and saw the transformative Land Purchase (Ireland) Act 1903 into law. Within years of the Acts, former tenants owned most of the land, thanks to support from government subsidies.
  • Guy Percy Wyndham (1865–1941), the Wyndham's second son, was an officer in the British army
  • Madeline Pamela Constance Blanche Wyndham, (1869–1941), the Wyndham's second daughter, married British Army officer Charles Adeane. After retiring from the Army, he was Justice of the Peace and Lord Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire from 1915 until his death in 1943. In 1917, he was appointed President of the Royal Agricultural Society. The couple had seven children, two sons and five daughters. Their eldest daughter, Pamela, was the mother of professional jazz musician and broadcaster Humphrey Richard Adeane Lyttelton, also known as Humph.
  • Pamela Adelaide Genevieve Wyndham Glenconner Grey (1871–1928), the senior Wyndhams' youngest child, was an author and editor. In 1919, Wyndham published Edward Wyndham Tennant: Memoirs of his Mother... her memories of her war-poet son, killed on the Somme in 1916. She published poems, prose and children's literature, and edited poetry and prose anthologies. She numbered among her friends Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Edward Burne-Jones, and Edith Olivier. Her first husband was Margot Asquith's brother, Edward Tennant, 1st Baron Glenconner. They had five children, including Stephen Tennant (1906–1987), known as the brightest of the Bright Young Things of 1920s London, and his elder brother, David Tennant (1902–1968) who founded the Gargoyle Club in Soho in 1925. Her second marriage, in 1922, to the eminent British Liberal statesman Sir Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon, had no issue.