On 6 July 1846, on Lord John Russell's assumption of office, Wyse was appointed secretary for the board of control (India). At the general election in 1847 he was defeated at Waterford owing to his refusal to join the Young Ireland physical force movement. He retained his place at the board of control until January 1849, when Lord Palmerston conferred on him the diplomatic post of British minister at Athens. Wyse, who was made a privy councillor on 8 Feb. 1849, arrived in Athens in June, and the remainder of his life was identified with the affairs of Greece.
The relations of the British government with Greece were very strained when Wyse became minister. For years the Greek government had refused to consider several serious claims made by the English government on behalf of English subjects—Don Pacifico and George Finlay among others—who had been outraged by Greek subjects [see Pacifico, David, and Finlay, George]. In view of the recent obduracy of the Greeks, Lord Palmerston, within a year of Wyse's settlement at Athens, sent the fleet, under the command of Sir William Parker, to the Piræus in January 1850, and ordered Wyse, should an ultimatum prove unsuccessful, to go on board the admiral's ship (Finlay, Hist. of Greece, vii. 209–14). France intervened in behalf of Greece, and peace between England and that country was at one moment jeopardised, but it ended in a signal triumph for Lord Palmerston [see Temple, Henry John, third viscount], who, in his famous defence of his policy in the House of Commons, warmly praised Wyse's management of the difficult task of bringing King Otho and his ministers to reason; a C.B. was bestowed upon him in approval of ‘the skilful manner in which he had conducted the negotiations and brought them to a successful issue.’ When the struggle ended, Wyse devoted himself to helping the Greeks in literary and artistic undertakings, and strenuously urged upon them the obligation of honesty in all mercantile and political relations.
On the approach of the Crimean war, however, when the Greeks attempted to aid Russia by invading Turkey, Wyse advocated and obtained a joint occupation of the Piræus by English and French troops; and, securing a ministry favourable to tranquillity, he and the French envoy virtually governed Greece until the return of peace. For the successful management of these delicate proceedings he was made K.C.B. on 27 March 1857, and from the rank of minister plenipotentiary was raised to that of envoy extraordinary. Greece had never paid any interest on the loan that had been guaranteed by the three protecting powers—England, France, and Russia—in January 1833. Consequently in 1857, on Wyse's proposal, the British government caused a commission to be appointed by the three interested powers to inquire into the financial resources of the country. Experts were sent out by England and France—Russia was only represented by her envoy. The meetings, which were distributed over two years, were held at the British legation under Wyse's presidency. Several of the reports were written by him, and they covered all aspects of the economic and social condition of the country. One of Wyse's most important contributions was his report on education. For the purposes of the commission he travelled through the greater part of Greece and recorded his experiences in two works that were published after his death, one entitled ‘An Excursion in the Peloponnesus’ (1865, 2 vols.), and the other ‘Impressions of Greece’ (1871). These works were edited by his niece Miss Winifrede M. Wyse, who resided with him at Athens, and accompanied him on these travels.
Wyse died at Athens on 16 April 1862. The king ordered a public funeral, and, with the queen, stood on the balcony of the palace as the procession passed; the French envoy, M. Bourée, pronounced an affectionate eulogium at the grave. His portrait, painted in 1846 by John Partridge (1790–1872) [q. v.], was exhibited in 1868 at the third loan exhibition at South Kensington (No. 390).
Wyse had remarkable oratorical gifts. His range of reading was wide, especially in modern languages. In addition to French and Italian, which he early spoke like a native, he learned, when travelling in the East, sufficient Arabic to translate with a master the ‘Catechism of the Druses;’ at the age of forty he taught himself German and Anglo-Saxon (of which he wrote a grammar), and subsequently Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and Danish. He published a translation from the Anglo-Saxon of ‘The History of King Lear and his Three Daughters,’ and from the German of Tieck he rendered ‘Little Red Riding Hood,’ a drama in five acts. At Athens he re-read the Greek classics and the twelve volumes of sermons by St. John Chrysostom, of whom he was a great admirer; while modern Greek literature was thoroughly familiar to him. For his own amusement he commemorated in verse almost every passing event, and he devoted his leisure during his later years to a work on the antiquities of Athens, which was not published.
Wyse's marriage (March 1821) with
