Talk:William Barrington, 2nd Viscount Barrington

Rewrite for clarification necessary

To me this article seems extremely convoluted; it presupposes a degree of familiarity with 18th century British politics we cannot generally expect from our readers, it provides too little context, and at time it's even unclear who specific statements refer to. Some examples:

• "In March 1740 he was returned to the House of Commons as Member of Parliament for Berwick-upon-Tweed..." - "was returned"? Is that some techincal term for "was elected", or had he previously been a Member of Parliament?
• "With the exception of Lord Carteret, the energetic foreign minister, Barrington, having deserted the whigs found his new allies pitiable reformers." - Who are those "new allies"? It's obviously not the whigs he deserted, but since just a few sentences later Barrington was "among the opposition peers consulted for a new ministry in 1744... removing Carteret, now earl Granville, and his Tory friends from office" he by then apparently was in opposition to his formerly "new allies"? We have the Tories storming out in protest at a Barrington speech, and thereafter "A decisive move came when he identified with Lord Cobham"? I assume Cobham was a whig; did Barrington identify with the whigs only after the tories storming out of his speech? And why was his self-identification critical? Why was it more critical than the tories, presumably his short-term "new allies" of a few years ago, storming out of his speech?
• "Grenville was impressed by the young MP; refusing the offer of a 'lord of trade' the future peer could do 'whatever he pleases.'" - Is "Grenville" the same person as "Carteret, now earl Granville", and if so, is the correct spelling "Granville" or "Grenville"? Is the "future peer" Barrington (and if so, why is he referred to so obliquely)? Who offered him a "lord of trade" and why would accepting the offer have restricted his freedom to do whatever he pleased?
• That confusion regarding Barrington's allegiance goes on, whith him being labeled a whig despite being attacked for being a tory.
• "In the light of his compassion, the story of Colonel Monro's Arabian horse seemed typical of the man's discreet delicacy..." - whose discreet delicacy, Barrington's or Colonel Monro's? Who is Colonel Monro, and what's the story behind the Arabian horse? Is this some personal anecdote, or is it in any way relevant to Barrington as secretary at war?
• "He had shown no disobedience to His Majesty the King, when General Fowke was tried at court martial for allegedly abandoning his post." - Who was General Fowke, which post was he alleged to have abandoned, and why was his court-martial a test of obedience to the king (whom we do not need to refer to with honorifics)? Is this supposed to say something along the lines of "When George III wanted to have General Fowke punished [or exonerated?] at a highly politicized court-martial, Barrington, one of the judges, went along with the king's wishes despite the evidence [or despite pressure from the tories/the whigs/the military establishment/...]"?
• "Meanwhile the Prime Minister insisted on quizzing Granby on the battlefield with young Barrington in tow learning how to disappoint generals for the future." - Huh? Firstly, this seems to have happened in 1756 or later, when "young Barrington" was 39 or in his 40s - not quite what I'd call "young". Secondly, who is Granby, and where was the battlefield? Why was being quizzed by the Prime Minister a disappointment for the general?

I could go on, but I think this list of examples suffices to illustrate the issues I see with this article. Huon (talk) 19:01, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Convoluted writing style as well as too much assumed context

I don't know if the problems I see in this article today actually reflect partially successful attempts to revise the article since the 2016 comments above, but I might try a mild rewrite myself, which is a significant leap in my quantity of editing, so stand by unless someone else wants to tackle in the next week. I'm assuming not, since third-tier 18th century British statesmen are not especially urgent topics and aren't going anywhere.

I appreciate the concern that the article as is may be too assuming of familiarity with the period, although many wiki articles assume a good deal of familiarity with their subject and that's not itself a dealbreaker [consider almost any of the better written scientific articles- they demand a fair bit of the reader, and many historical articles have done so in the past - The Holy Roman Empire used to be longer and better]. I do agree they can be written more clearly than this one and links certainly help in these cases.

A lot of it as currently written does two things at once- assumes a lot of context, and has weird syntax: "A critical year was 1744 for the young aspiring minister: perhaps the pressure of Jacobitism, the return of the Army from Flanders, and the whiff of Jacobite conspiracy forced a change of allegiance." I took it as revisions by an editor very familiar with the subject, but writing in a second or third language, well but in an odd style. I will try to make only modest, clarifying changes asap. Random noter (talk) 19:21, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Just looked at Huon's comments again. Yeah, I had more than a few WTF moments with passages like those. Random noter (talk) 19:23, 11 December 2020 (UTC)