Family and Education

b. c.1642, 2nd s. of Sir Thomas Whitmore, 1st Bt., of Apley Park by Elizabeth, da. and h. of Sir William Acton, 1st Bt., ld. mayor of London 1640-1; bro. of Sir William Whitmore, 2nd Bt.. educ. M. Temple, entered 1652; Queens’, Camb. 1657. m. bef. May 1665, Frances, da. and coh. of Sir William Brooke of Cooling Castle, Kent, 3da. KB 23 Apr. 1661.1

Offices Held

Commr. for assessment, Salop 1661-80, Kent 1677-8 Surr. 1679-80; j.p. Salop 1674-d., commr. for recusants 1675.

Gent. of privy chamber 1669-d.2

Biography

Whitmore was returned after a long contest for the family borough of Bridgnorth at a by-election in 1663. In the Cavalier Parliament he was appointed to only six committees, four of these being the committee of elections, but he acted as teller on 23 Mar. 1664 for delaying a second reading of the bill to repeal the Triennial Act. Sir Thomas Osborne listed him with his brother among the Members to be engaged for the Court by the Duke of Buckingham in 1669, in which year he was appointed a gentleman of the privy chamber. Whitmore was not included in any other such list, but, unlike his brother, he was listed by Shaftesbury as ‘doubly vile’ in 1677 and as ‘vile’ in 1679. Totally inactive in the three Exclusion Parliaments, he was absent from the division on the first exclusion bill. He was buried at St. Paul’s, Covent Garden on 21 May 1682.3

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: J. S. Crossette

Notes

• 1. CSP Dom. 1664-5, p. 374; Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 4), iv. 276-7.
• 2. Carlisle, Privy Chamber, 183.
• 3. Huntington Lib. Q. xii. 130.