Richard Whittington
Mayor of Oxford 1558/9 and 1566/7
Richard Whittington (or Whitington/Whittyngton/Whyttyngton/Whittingdon/Whittenton) (d.1578) was a mercer. Anthony Wood writes in his diary that "the house where Orum the fishmonger now lives (now — Paynton’s, Town Clerk) was once belonging to this Whittington, for in the windows of the parlour is painted a Whiting over a Tun, and R.W. by it".
Whittington was elected on to the Common Council on 29 September 1536, and was elected a Chamberlain in September 1539 and a Bailiff in September 1542. Around this time he married Eleanora or Ellenor, and they had a daughter, Ursula.
In 1546 Anthony Wood records the following payment in connection with the destruction of Osney Abbey: "Item, to Whittington for singing-bread, for frankynsense, for girdles for albis, 6s. 7d.
On 26 April 1548 Whittington and three others were awarded the custody of the armour:
Md that … Rychard Whyttyngton … shall have the custody of xxiiij payer of harnes complete, wythe xxiiij sowards and xxiiij daggers, xij bowes and xij sheffs of arrowes, wythe vj other old payer of harnes; also that the foreseyd iiij men shall have yn ther custodye all suche money as ys gathered to that use onlye, to be yn a redynes at all tymes, yf nede requyer, to set forward the Towne sowdyars. And the seyd iiij men have receyvyd yn hand the some of xvijli ixs iiijd.
On September 1554 Whittington was elected one of the Mayor’s Assistants, and in 1556 was made an Alderman.
On 29 September 1558 Whittington was elected Mayor, and on 15 January 1559, he attended the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth I in the Mayor’s customary role of butler, presenting the following bill for reimbursement on 11 January:
Md that I Richard Whittyngton, Mayre of Oxford, made sute unto my lorde of Arundell for the office in the buttery the xj daye of January, 1558, for or liveryes and suche things as belonge to that office. Item, iij gownes and iiij cotes, one gowne for the Mayre, and two for ij Bayllies, and iiij cotes for foure men that he appoynted of the same Towne, besydes his servaunt and other that were wth hym at the tyme.
In 1566 Whittington was elected Mayor a second time.
In September 1572 Whittington paid a contribution of 10 shillings to make up the Ship money.
In 1574/5 Whittington’s apprentice, Thomas Bonham, was admitted free.
Richard Whittington was buried in St Martin’s Church on 15 May 1578, and his wife Eleanor was buried there on 30 April 1588. Anthony Wood writes of that church:
Among severall monuments that are defaced, and their brass most sacrilegiously stolen away, must be remembred that which is partly lost of that somtimes noted citizen Richard Whittingdon, alderman, who dying the 13 of May 1579 was here buried two dayes after by his son-in-law Thomas Tatham [?Tatham had died in 1557]. His armes that were taken away were "a fess between three annulets" without colours; and the rebus of his name, which is to this day in an house where he formerly lived (inhabited now by a fishmonger) near Quatervois, is a fish called a whiting on a tun. Ellenor his widdow was buried here 30 Apr. 1588.
When St Martin's Church was demolished in 1896, his bones were transferred with the rest to an unknown communal grave in Holywell Cemetery.
Whittington’s daughter Ursula first married Thomas Tatham, M.A. of Lincoln College (brother of John Tatham, later Rector of Lincoln), and they had one daughter, Elizabeth, who married William Marten. Tatham died in 1557, and Ursula soon married William Levins, and they had eleven children.
See also:
- MS Wills Oxon 185.544