Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Whitlock, William
WHITLOCK, WILLIAM (d. 1584), historian of Lichfield, was educated at Eton College, and elected to King's College, Cambridge, in 1537. He graduated B.A. in 1541–2, commenced M.A. in 1545, and proceeded B.D. in 1553. On 18 Dec. 1558 he was presented by King's College to the vicarage of Prescot in Lancashire. On 2 July 1560 he was admitted to the rectory of Greenford Magna in Middlesex, on the presentation of Sir Edward Thornton, and on 10 Jan. 1560–1 he was collated to the prebend of Curborough in Lichfield Cathedral. He died in or before February 1583–1584. He was a friend of John Twyne [q. v.]
Whitlock is chiefly remarkable for his additions to the manuscript chronicle of Thomas Chesterfield [q. v.] This record of the bishops of Coventry and Lichfield extended to 1347. Whitlock added many details to the existing chronicle, and compiled a supplement continuing it to 1559. His manuscripts were used by Henry Wharton [q. v.] in 1691 in his ‘Anglia Sacra,’ who printed in that work Whitlock's additions to Chesterfield's manuscript under the title ‘Additamenta ad Historiam veterem Litchfeldensem,’ and his supplement under the title ‘Continuatio Historiæ Litchfeldensis ab anno MCCCLIX ad annum MDLIX.’ The earlier date is misleading, as Whitlock's chronicle begins after 1347. Whitlock's manuscripts are preserved in the Bodleian Library (MSS. Nos. 770 and 865), and in the Cottonian manuscripts at the British Museum (Vesp. E. 16 and Cleopatra D. 9).
[Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. i. 485; Harwood's Alumni Eton. p. 156; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. 1798; Le Neve's Fasti Eccles. Anglicanæ; Simms's Bibl. Stafford. 1894; Harwood's Hist. of Lichfield, pp. 223, 246; Cole's Collections in Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 5815, f. 10; Newcourt's Repert. Eccles. Londin. i. 615; Willis's Survey of Cathedrals, 1742, ii. 433, 461; Wharton's Anglia Sacra, 1691, vol. i. preface, p. xxxvi.]