WHITAKER, Henry (1621-96), of Motcombe, Gillingham, Dorset.

The Whitakers, originally a Wiltshire family, were recent arrivals in Shaftesbury. Henry’s father, William Whitaker*, a prominent Middle Temple barrister, made an immediate impact on his adopted home town: he represented Shaftesbury in Parliament five times after 1624, was elected recorder of the borough in 1627, and married into the Hooper family of nearby Boveridge.21Hutchins, Dorset, iii. 17, 384. By 1641 the Whitakers had acquired a country estate at Motcombe, as well as property in Shaftesbury.22E179/105/335, m. 1-2; E179/105/336, m. 5. Although he was only a younger son, Henry Whitaker was educated expensively, being admitted to the Middle Temple in February 1636, and matriculating at Oxford in 1637, before returning to the inns of court in 1640.23M. Temple Admiss.; Al. Ox. He continued his studies there until June 1645, when he was called to the bar, and he practised as a barrister until October 1648, when he resigned his chambers in favour of his cousin, Edward Hooper.24MTR ii. 935, 947, 959, 969, 973.

Henry Whitaker’s decision to abandon his legal career may have been prompted by the death in October 1646 of his father. His elder brother, William, seems to have been completely ineffectual (perhaps through illness), and Henry was granted the probate of his father’s will in November 1646.25PROB11/198/72. Thereafter, it was Henry who took charge of the family’s financial affairs: in April 1647 he completed a loan to Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper* which his father had negotiated before his death, and in June of the same year he paid local assessments on his mother’s behalf.26Christie, Shaftesbury, i. appx. i. pp. xxxix, xli; Bodl. Gough Dorset 14, f. 14v. When William Whitaker junior drew up his will in 1651, he also deferred to his younger brother, who acted as his executor.27PROB11/228/341. It was only on his brother’s death in 1653 that Henry Whitaker became a free agent, but he had been consolidating his financial position long before that. In the late 1640s he had acquired further land in Motcombe, and in the following decade he invested in other areas, including his wife’s home parish of Holsworthy in Devon.28Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 380; C54/3869/6. In 1649 Whitaker was also involved in a legal dispute over his wife’s right to personal property belonging to her late father.29C3/467/78.

In the 1650s Whitaker was also able to regain some of his father’s political influence in Shaftesbury, and in 1653 he was elected recorder of the borough.30Hutchins, Dorset, iii. 17. Whitaker also came into contact with the political group which was forming around Ashley Cooper at this time. James Baker*, an ally of Ashley Cooper and a native of Shaftesbury, may have facilitated this process, and by the autumn of 1658 Whitaker was in close alliance with other members of this circle, including his kinsman Robert Coker* and the moderate Presbyterian, John Fitzjames*. Whitaker’s position as recorder of Shaftesbury made him a valuable ally, and Fitzjames hoped to secure his backing in the county elections in January 1659, telling him that ‘if your town and neighbours are unanimous, I am confident you may do what you please’.31Alnwick, Northumberland MS 552, f. 51. The election of Baker and Whitaker as MPs for Shaftesbury, shortly afterwards, confirmed the influence of the recorder over the populace. Although Whitaker duly attended Parliament he played only a minor role, and was named to only one committee, for the maintenance of ministers in Wales, on 5 February 1659.32CJ vii. 600b.

The Restoration further strengthened Whitaker’s position in Shaftesbury, where he continued as recorder, and he was elected as MP in 1661 and 1679. The return of the king also presented new opportunities to increase his influence in the county. Of especial importance in this process was the marriage of his cousin, Mary Brune (whose mother was a Hooper) to Sir Ralph Bankes*, in 1661.33Dorset RO, D/BKL, box 8C/61, ‘Liber Johannis Banckes’, unfol. Whitaker grew very close to the Bankes family in the 1660s and would later join Edward Hooper, and his old ally Robert Coker, as trustee of Sir Ralph Bankes’s estates.34PROB11/354/126. This connection with the Bankes family also encouraged Whitaker’s inclusion in loyalist commissions, such as that to purge the Dorset corporations in October 1662, and he served on these with other former royalists including members of the Strangways, Naper and Tregonwell families; a similar group would dominate the commission of the peace for Dorset until the 1680s.35Dorset RO, DC/BTB/H1, p. 469; DC/LR/D2/1, unfol.: commn. 10 Oct. 1662; D/BKL, box 8C/64, unfol.; Hutchins, Dorset, i. 22. After Bankes’s death in 1677 Whitaker shifted his political position, aligning himself with his ally from the 1650s, Ashley Cooper – now 1st earl of Shaftesbury. Under the earl’s influence, Whitaker supported the Exclusion Bill in 1679, and, possibly as a result, he lost the recordership of Shaftesbury when the charter was surrendered in 1683.36HP Commons 1660-1690.

Whitaker’s attempts to consolidate the family estates during the interregnum had continued during the Restoration period: by 1682 further land in Motcombe had been bought from the Weld family, and other property had been acquired in Gillingham.37PROB11/446/138. This brought a modest improvement in the finances of the Whitakers: Henry’s will, drawn up in 1682, included bequests of £1,000 to each of his five daughters as marriage portions, compared with £700 for three younger children which his father had provided 40 years before.38PROB11/446/138; 11/198/72. Whitaker died in 1696, at the age of about 75, and was buried with his wife at Motcombe on 4 June of that year.39Dorset RO, Motcombe par. reg. The family continued its close connection with Shaftesbury: Henry’s grandson and namesake would be returned as MP for the borough in 1711.