WHELER, Humphrey, of Droitwich, Worcs.

Wheler’s antecedents and connexions have not been ascertained. He was presumably connected with the Droitwich family of that name, which twice provided the borough with bailiffs in the Elizabethan period, but he is not mentioned in any of their available wills, and his own has not been found. It remains possible, therefore, that the MP was Humphrey Wheler, heir to the Ludlow family, a lawyer who married the daughter of Francis Brace.

Humphrey Wheler of Droitwich was on good terms with Robert Cecil later Earl of Salisbury, at whose command in 1605 Francis Tresham paid Wheler the better part of a debt of £1,000. In 1610 Wheler wrote to Salisbury concerning the apprehension of Richard More. He must have been moderately prosperous as his daughter married William Savage of Broadway, a county gentleman2Vis. Worcs. (Harl. Soc. xxvii), 145; (xc), 101; PCC 32 Drake, 78 Kidd, 2 Darcy, 22 Savile, 34 Dixy, 63 Nevell, 37 Pyckering, 21 Bolein, 58 Hayes; Worcs. Wills and Admons. (Brit. Rec. Soc. Index Lib. xxxii), 223; Genealogist, xxv. 209; Vis. Salop (Harl. Soc. xxix), 497; Vis. London (Harl. Soc. viii), 341, 342; HMC Hatfield, iv. 7; xvii passim; CSP Dom. 1591-4, pp. 314, 419; 1603-10, p. 609; Q. Sess. Pprs. 1549-1643 (Worcs. Hist. Soc.) ii. 47; Habington’s Worcs. (Worcs. Hist. Soc.), i. 471.