WHITAKER, Henry (c.1686-1746), of Motcombe, Dorset

The Whitaker family’s principal seat, which had been purchased in 1648, was at Motcombe, near Shaftesbury. The Member’s great-grandfather, William†, and his grandfather, Henry†, had been recorders of Shaftesbury and also represented the town in Parliament. The latter had been an Exclusionist, but Whitaker himself, like his father, was a Tory. Returned for Shaftesbury on the interest of his fellow Tory, Edward Nicholas*, at a by-election in 1711, he was a member of the October Club and was listed among the ‘worthy patriots’ who detected the mismanagements of the previous administration. In 1712 he was one of a number of Tories added to the Dorset commission of the peace by Lord Harcourt (Simon I*). Re-elected in 1713, he was marked as a Tory in the Worsley list. Whitaker did not stand again for Parliament and died in 1746, passing his estates to his brother, Walter.2 B. Rand, Shaftesbury, 344; Keeler, Long Parl. 389–90; L. K. J. Glassey, Appt. JPs, 212.