Family and Education

b. c.1629, 1st s. of Richard Whithed of Norman Court by 1st w. Margery, da. of John Culliford of Encombe, Dorset; bro. of Richard Whithed. educ. I. Temple 1646. m. (1) c.1654, Sarah, da. of Richard Norton of Southwick, Hants, 1s. 2da.; (2) 11 Sept. 1665, Anne, da. of Robert Mason, recorder of London 1634-5, wid. of Richard Jones of Welford, Berks. s.p. suc. fa. 1663.1

Offices Held

Freeman, Lymington 1646-62, Portsmouth and Winchester by Apr. 1660; commr. for assessment, Hants 1657, Jan. 1660-80, militia Mar. 1660; j.p. Hants Mar. 1660-70. by 1673-6, Andover 1674, Dorset and Wilts. 1675-80; capt. of militia horse, Hants Apr. 1660; commr. for wastes and spoils, New Forest 1672-3, 1679, recusants, Hants 1675; sheriff, Hants 1677-8.2

Lt.-col. Richard Norton’s Ft. 1667.

Biography

Whithed’s ancestors acquired Norman Court, on the Wiltshire border nine miles from Stockbridge, in 1433. His grandfather sat for the county in 1625, and his father in the Long Parliament until Pride’s Purge, though he continued to hold local office during the Interregnum. Hated by the Cavaliers for his severity, he did not stand in 1660; but Whithed, who had served under him as a very young man, was returned for Portsmouth on his father-in-law’s interest, probably unopposed. He was listed by Lord Wharton as a friend, but was not active in the Convention. He made no recorded speeches, and was appointed to only four committees, those for the naturalization bill, settling ecclesiastical livings, stating the debts of the army and navy, and the marital separation bill. At the general election of 1661, he stood for Stockbridge, which his brother had represented in 1659. He was involved in a double return, which was decided in favour of his opponent, the Cavalier Robert Phelips. He served in the army during the second Dutch war, but he presumably sympathized with the dissenters, as he was removed from the commission of the peace on the passing of the Conventicles Act in 1670, and again in 1676 at the instance of the bishop of London. In the autumn Sir Robert Holmes, who managed the court interest in the Isle of Wight, reported that Whithed, ‘an ill man that has been lately turned out of the commission of the peace’, had been invited to contest a by-election at Newtown, probably by his kinsman Robert Dillington. However he is not known to have stood again until the dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament.3

Whithed stood for Stockbridge in the three Exclusion elections. He was successful at the first, and marked ‘honest’ on Shaftesbury’s list. He was moderately active in 1679, being appointed to ten committees, including those for taking disbandment accounts, preventing illegal exactions, searching for precedents for the punishment of false election returns, providing for security against Popery, inquiring into the abuses of the Post Office, and continuing the prohibition of cattle imports from Ireland. He voted for the exclusion bill. He was defeated by another member of the country party, William Strode II, in August, but regained the seat on petition. He was totally inactive in the second Exclusion Parliament. In 1681 he was defeated by Essex Strode, and his petition had not been heard when the Oxford Parliament was dissolved. On 14 July 1683 Holmes wrote:

Whithed that lives in Hampshire is come into the Isle on pretence of gossiping [i.e. standing as godfather] with (Sir) Robert Dillington. I have sent to him to get out of the Isle and, if I heard any more of his coming over here without acquainting me, I would lay him by the heels. He is a very great rogue, nobody can be over-watchful of him; but I do not value him or all the rest of his gang.

Whithed drew up his will in July 1684, and it was proved on 2 Dec.4

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Authors: M. W. Helms / Paula Watson

Notes

• 1. B. Whitehead, Hist. Whitehead Fams. 20-23; Wilts. Par. Reg. xi. 11.
• 2. E. King, Old Times Revisited, 189; Parl. Intell. 30 Apr. 1660; PC2/64/97; R. East, Portsmouth Recs. 356; Winchester corp. assembly bk. 4, f. 137; Cal. Treas. Bks. iii. 1204, iv. 124; vi. 199.
• 3. VCH Hants, iii. 429; iv. 522-3; Keeler, Long Parl. 391-2; CJ, viii. 252-3, 285; HMC Finch, ii. 45; Bath mss, Coventry pprs. 5, f. 83.
• 4. CJ, ix. 639, 659, 708; CSP Dom. July-Sept. 1683, p. 118; PCC 168 Hare.