WHITEWAY, John (1614-bef. 1680), of Dorchester, Dorset.

The Whiteways were recent arrivals in Dorset. According to Denis Bond*, William Whiteway, John’s father, had arrived in Dorchester only in 1585, but thanks to his success in the wool trade he soon rose to become an important member of the corporation, and sat as MP for the borough in 1624 and 1625.25Dorset RO, D/BOC/22, f. 35. William Whiteway was also a member of the Dorchester Company and a friend of the godly minister, John White. 26F. Rose-Troup, John White, Patriarch of Dorchester (1930), 448. John Whiteway, who married White’s niece in 1638, took over the family business, was elected capital burgess after the death of his father in 1641, and inherited lands in the borough from his nephew later in the decade.27Dorset RO, D/DOB/16/3, f. 33v; Dorset RO, D/COO:H/T32. On the outbreak of civil war in 1642, Whiteway became a captain of a militia company raised to defend Dorchester. He led his men against the royalists at Babylon Hill near Yeovil in September of that year and had been promoted to major by the time Dorset was overrun by the royalists in August 1643.28Bayley, Dorset, 99; Mayo, Dorset, 132; Bodl. Gough Dorset 14, f. 86; J.W., Happy Newes from Sherborne (1642, E.116.39); D. Underdown, Fire from Heaven (1993), 200, 288. According to the 1641 assessments Whiteway was one of the wealthiest men in Dorchester, and from August 1642 until June 1643 he was one of the most important contributors to the parliamentarian war effort in the county.29E179/105/331, f. 1; Bodl. Gough Dorset 14, ff. 82v, 84v, 86. With the arrival of the 3rd earl of Essex’s army in the summer of 1644, the parliamentarians retook control of Dorset, and Whiteway was able to resume his career. Over the next two years he helped to finance the siege of Corfe Castle and lent money to the local commander, Colonel William Sydenham*, and the garrisons of Weymouth and Dorchester.30Bodl. Gough Dorset 14, ff. 11v, 12, 13v, 14v, 16, 28v, 37; Dorset Standing Cttee, ed. Mayo, 15.

After the first civil war, Whiteway became an important figure in the county administration. He sat regularly on the Dorset county committee from September 1646; he was appointed as a magistrate in March 1647; and later in the same year he was elected mayor of Dorchester in 1647.31Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 1, 8; C231/6, p. 78; Dorset RO, D/DOB/16/3, f. 34. Whiteway favoured harsh penalties against the defeated royalists. In May 1646 he wrote to the Committee for Sequestrations accusing Henry Hastings of giving money to the king’s army, and in June he advocated the most stringent penalties against Lady Bankes, ‘finding her active in the defence of Corfe Castle against the Parliament’.32SP20/12/25, p. 72; Bankes, Corfe Castle, 223. In May 1647 he signed a letter warning Parliament of potential royalist risings in the west, and in July 1648 joined Sydenham and others in securing military control of the north of the county after the second civil war.33Bayley, Dorset, 350; Bodl. Gough Dorset 14, f. 49v. He was also one of a committee, with his friends the county treasurer, Richard Burie, and the moderate Presbyterian, John Fitzjames*, to decide on the fate of the 1st earl of Bristol’s estate in December 1648.34Alnwick, Northumberland MS 548, f. 44.

Unlike many Dorset parliamentarians, Whiteway supported the commonwealth regime, soon becoming one of the principal agents of the government in the locality. He was active as a magistrate in January 1649 and in the same month Fitzjames expressed the hope that Whiteway would use his influence with Burie to secure the repayment of money he was owed.35Christie, Shaftesbury i. appx i. p. li; Northumberland MS 548, f. 47v. Whiteway attended meetings of the county committee from January 1649; he was named to the Dorset assessment commissions in April and December 1649 and December 1652; and he was involved in the collection of the tax in May 1653, working with Major-general John Disbrowe*.36Dorset Standing Cttee ed. Mayo, 488; A. and O.; Northumberland MS 550, f. 2. In August 1651 he was recruited to the Dorset militia commission at the behest of the local commissioners and in November 1653 he was nominated to the county’s commission for investigating piracy.37CSP Dom. 1651, p. 369; 1653-4, p. 275; C181/6, p. 33. As a magistrate he was involved in investigating various royalist plots in the county in February 1652, October 1653 and May 1654, working with John Trenchard*, John Bingham*, Burie and others.38CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 139; 1653-4, p. 202; 1654, p. 162. Whiteway’s support for the regime was further encouraged by his involvement in the Irish Adventure. In August 1653, Whiteway, in collaboration with Burie, was alloted a share of the plantation, in satisfaction of money lent to the war effort during the 1640s.39CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 443. This allotment was for over 2,000 acres in county Limerick, as repayment of an investment totalling £1,000.40Bottigheimer, Eng. Money and Irish Land, 200, 212.

Whiteway’s local importance no doubt contributed to his being chosen as MP for Dorchester on 17 July 1654, when he was elected ‘at the town hall by the voices and consent of all that were present upon a full and fair summons’.41Dorset RO, D/DOB/16/3, f. 44v; C219/44, unfol. He was named to only four committees in this Parliament, but these reflected his range of interests in Ireland, trade and religion. He was named to the committee to consider the affairs of Ireland and its settlement on 29 September, and he was added to the committee for privileges when it considered the conduct of Irish elections on 5 October.42CJ vii. 371b, 373b. On 6 October he was named to the committee to consider the encouragement of the trade in corn and dairy products, and after a gap of over two months, on 12 December he was appointed to the committee ‘to consider of the particular enumeration of damnable heresies’.43CJ vii. 374b, 399b. Whiteway probably left Westminster shortly afterwards, and he had certainly returned to Dorchester by 24 December, when Fitzjames wrote with news of the first reading of the bill on the constitution of the government and other parliamentary business.44Northumberland MS 551, f. 14.

Whiteway continued to be an influential figure in Dorset affairs during the mid-1650s. He was among the militia commissioners appointed by the protector to investigate royalist conspiracies in the county during the Penruddock rising of March 1655.45SP25/75A, f. 14. He was also active in the settlement of a godly ministry and suppressing sectaries. He had been appointed to the Dorset commission for ejecting scandalous ministers in August 1654, and in the spring of 1655 he collaborated with John Bingham and Henry Henley* in removing unacceptable schoolmasters and ministers.46CSP Dom. 1655, p. 144. In August of that year Fitzjames asked Whiteway to use his influence with the Presbyterian minister of Dorchester, Stanley Gower, to secure the appointment of James Munden as minister of Burton and Holnest, ‘that by your favour he may be examined by Mr Gower, and if he deserves it, may receive a testimonium under his hand’. Fitzjames added that this request came ‘from my good friend, Hugh Peters’, an Independent minster.47Northumberland MS 551, f. 28. Like other Dorset Presbyterians, by 1657 Whiteway had gained a reputation as ‘a great enemy to Friends and a prosecutor’ of Quakers, who had ‘caused a Friend to be whipped and sent home ... for coming to a meeting in that town [Dorchester], and sent another to prison for going to the steeple house to declare against their wickedness’.48SP18/130, f. 46.

Whiteway was again elected for Dorchester in the elections to the second protectorate Parliament, held in August 1656. During this Parliament he was named to committees on private land petitions (3 Oct.), public faith debts (1 Jan. 1657), the petition of the City of London (1 Apr.), the sale of forest land (30 Apr.) and the bill for taxing building in the London suburbs (8 May).49CJ vii. 433a, 477b, 516b, 528a, 531b. Whiteway took a particular interest in Irish business. He was added to the committee for Irish affairs on 22 December, when it considered the petition of a number of claimants to Irish land, including Sir Hardress Waller*.50CJ vii. 472b. As the report of 16 February made clear, Waller had been granted county Limerick lands worth £1,200 p.a. in 1653; but these included property claimed under the Adventurers’ Act by Whiteway’s business partner, Richard Burie. The Commons resolved that the matter would be settled through the mediation of Sir William Waller* on the one side, and Whiteway on the other.51CJ vii. 492b. It was not until 29 June 1657 that the court of chancery passed an act confirming land grants in county Limerick to Waller, Whiteway and Burie.52C204/35. In the meantime Whiteway was named to two committees of importance to the future of the adventure scheme, on the bill for the attainder of Irish rebels (30 Mar.) and concerning grants of forfeited estates (29 Apr.).53CJ vii. 515a, 526b.

Whiteway attended the second sitting of this Parliament, being added to a committee for the repair of highways on 4 February 1658.54CJ vii. 592a. He was again elected mayor of Dorchester in the autumn of 1658, and at the beginning of 1659 was again chosen as MP for the borough in Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament, although he did not play an active role in this assembly.55Dorset RO, D/DOB/16/5, p. 51; D/DOB/16/3, f. 47. He continued to be involved in local government under the restored Rump. He was named to the local assessment commission in July 1659 and in August joined James Dewy I* as an examiner of allegations that Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper* had been involved in the royalist conspiracy headed by Sir George Boothe*.56A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 160; CJ vii. 768b. Whiteway continued to exercise considerable influence in Dorchester in the months before the Restoration, and was elected as MP with Denzil Holles* in April 1660, defeating another local candidate, James Gould*.57D/DOB/16/5, p. 84. Although he was not active on committees or in debates during this Parliament, he was in close contact with the borough concerning the appointment of a new minister in the town, and, on his return to the borough he was elected as one of the two bailiffs.58D/DOB/16/5, pp. 92, 94.

Whiteway was removed from the corporation in the purge of October 1662, and he apparently played no further role in Dorchester politics.59D/DOB/16/5, p. 140. He remained resident in the town, playing a minor role in its affairs until at least 1670, but by that time both his social status and his financial position were looking increasingly shaky.60Dorset Hearth Tax, 4; Underdown, Fire from Heaven, 200, 242, 244. His second marriage, to the widow of the former MP for Plymouth, Timothy Alsop, in 1667, was followed by a convoluted, and costly, legal dispute over the estate of her former husband.61C5/513/79, 81, 83; C7/128/124; C7/326/8; C7/517/32, 58. By the time he made his will in 1674 Whiteway had hit rock bottom: he had abandoned Dorchester and was now living in Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire, probably in a house belonging to his new wife; his finances were in tatters, and he left instructions that all the family’s Dorset lands were to be sold off to pay his debts and to raise modest legacies for his six children; and the absence of any mention of Irish estates in Whiteway’s will suggests that he had sold them off long before. Whiteway had died by February 1680, and none of his descendants sat at Westminster.62PROB11/362/174.