WHETHAM, Nathaniel II (1633-76/7), of Chard and the Inner Temple.

Whetham’s parliamentary and public career rested entirely on that of his father in the particular political and constitutional conditions of the 1650s. Baptised at St Dunstan-in-the-West on 25 September 1633, Whetham was the eldest son of Nathaniel Whetham of Fleet Street, then a baker to the Inner Temple.10St Dunstan-in-the-West par. reg. During the civil wars Whetham senior served as an army officer and as governor of Northampton for Parliament. Doubtless his military profile and contacts brought his son to the attention of the parliamentarian visitors of Oxford University, who in February 1649 enabled Whetham junior to gain admittance to Corpus Christi College; he was to graduate from Wadham College two years later.11Al. Ox. In 1654 he was admitted to the Inner Temple, to which his father had briefly returned before taking up another governorship in Southampton.12I. Temple database. However, it was the promotion of Whetham senior to the council of Scotland in 1655 which enabled Whetham junior to secure a seat in Parliament for Elgin and Nairn in 1659.

At this date Whetham was only 25 years old, and without experience of public office, although he might have seen military service. Unsurprisingly, the impression he left on the records of Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament was slight. His sole committee appointment (alongside his father) was to consider a petition from Edinburgh financier Sir William Dick, and he made no recorded speech during the session.13CJ vii. 637b. Following the dissolution of the protectorate, in November 1659 Whetham was admitted as a burgess of Portsmouth at a point when his father was holding the port for the Rump against the army.14Portsmouth RO, CE1/7, p. 136. He may already have been serving under Colonel Unton Croke II* of Oxford and the Inner Temple, who had had a posting in Scotland and in whose regiment Whetham was recorded as a captain in January 1660.15CJ vii. 807b. By this time he was almost certainly already married to one of the daughters of Adrian Scrope*, Croke’s local associate and one of Whetham senior’s fellow councillors in Scotland.16Whetham, Col. Nathaniel Whetham, 228; ‘Thomas Whetham’, HP Commons 1715-1754.

After the Restoration in 1660, Whetham senior was removed from office, Croke was a marked man for his role in the crushing of Penruddock’s rebellion, and Scrope was executed as a regicide. Whetham junior finally completed his legal education with his call to the bar in 1665, some nine years after his younger brother Joseph (bap. 1639) received a similar call (perhaps a mistakenly recorded admittance).17I. Temple database; St Dunstan-in-the-West par. reg. Whetham succeeded his father in 1668, but died intestate less than a decade later, sometime between 6 March 1676, when he gained probate of Joseph’s will, and October 1677.18PROB11/329/64; PROB11/350/336; PROB6/52, f. 93. His son Thomas Whetham† had a successful career as an army officer before sitting in Parliament for the Devon seat of Tavistock in the 1720s.19HP Commons 1715-1754.