or that at this time he was suffering from disease of the brain.
Whitbread died by his own hand on 6 July 1815, having cut his throat at his town house, 35 Dover Street. At the inquest, held the same day, the jury found that he was in a deranged state of mind at the time the act was committed; his friend Mr. Wilcher gave evidence that his despondency was due to belief that his public life was extinct. He was buried at Cardington in Bedfordshire. His widow died on 28 Nov. 1846. Whitbread died possessed of five-eighths of the brewery, his father by will having made it compulsory on him to retain a majority of the shares" in his own hands. He left two sons William Henry (d. 1867), M.P. for Bedford 1818-37; and Samuel Charles and two daughters, Elizabeth (d. 1843), who married William, eighth earl Waldegrave; and Emma Laura (d. 1857), who married Charles Shaw-Lefevre, viscount Eversley [q. v.]
In the opinion of a good judge of character, Whitbread 'was made up of the elements of opposition' (Ward, Diary, ed. Phipps, i. 403). His eloquence was more suited for attack in debate than defence. Lord Byron considered him the Demosthenes of bad taste and vulgar vehemence, but strong and English; his peculiar and forcible Anglicism was also noted by Wilberforce, who, however, thought 'he spoke as if he had a pot of porter to his lips and all his words came through it' (Wilberforce, Life, v. 339). He was, in the words of Romilly, 'the promoter of every liberal scheme for improving the condition of mankind, the zealous advocate of the oppressed, and the undaunted opposer of every species of corruption and ill-administration;' but too vain and rash to acquire any real ascendency over the minds of well-educated men (Holland, Memoirs of Whig Party, ii. 237). Whitbread was frequently portrayed by both Rowlandson and Gillray in their political cartoons, and is invariably distinguished by a porter-pot or some reference to Whitbread's 'entire.'
A half-length portrait of Whitbread was painted by Thomas Gainsborough. An engraved portrait, from an original drawing, appears in Adolphus's 'Memoir of Caroline' (i. 461); and another engraved portrait, by W. Ward, after the painting by H. W. Pickersgill, was published on 27 June 1820.
[Hansard, 1806-15, passim; Annual Register; Hone's Tributes of the Public Press to the Memory of the late Mr. Whitbread, 1815; Authentic Account of the Death of Mr. Whitbread, 1815; Sir F. Grey's Life of Lord Grey; Le Marchant's Life of Earl Spencer (which contains a short biography of Whitbread, pp. 172-80); Diary and Correspondence of Lord Colchester; Edinburgh Review, April 1838; Memoirs of the Life of Sir S. Romilly; Moore's Memoirs.]
WHITBREAD, THOMAS (1618–1679), Jesuit. [See Harcourt, Thomas.]
WHITBY, DANIEL (1638–1726), polemical divine and commentator, son of Thomas Whitby, rector (1631–7) of Rushden, Northamptonshire, afterwards rector of Barrow-on-Humber, Lincolnshire, was born at Rushden on 24 March 1638 (manuscript note in British Museum copy, 3226 bb., 36, of his Last Thoughts, 1728). After attending school at Caster, Lincolnshire, he became in 1653 a commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, matriculating on 23 July, when his name is written Whitbie. He was elected scholar on 13 June 1655; graduated B.A. on 20 April 1657, M.A. on 10 April 1660, and was elected fellow in 1664. In the same year he came out as a writer, or rather compiler, against Roman catholic doctrine, attacking Hugh Paulinus or Serenus Cressy, D.D. [q. v.] He was answered by John Sergeant [q. v.], to whom he replied in 1666. Seth Ward [q. v.], bishop of Salisbury, made him his chaplain in 1668, giving him on 22 Oct. the prebend of Yatesbury, and on 7 Nov. the prebend of Husborn-Tarrant and Burbage. In 1669 he became perpetual curate of St. Thomas's and rector of St. Edmund's, Salisbury. He next wrote on the evidences (1671). On 11 Sept. 1672 he was installed precentor at Salisbury, and at once accumulated B.D. and D.D. (13 Sept.) He resumed his anti-Romish polemics in 1674, and continued to publish on this topic at intervals till 1689.
Considerable popularity had attended Whitby's earlier controversial efforts; he lost it by putting forth anonymously, late in 1682, 'The Protestant Reconciler,' pleading for concessions to nonconformists, with a view to their comprehension. A fierce paper war followed, in which Lawrence Womock [q. v.], David Jenner [q. v.], and Samuel Thomas [q. v.] took part. In contemporary pamphlets Whitby, nicknamed Whigby, was unfavourably contrasted with Titus Oates; ironical letters of thanks were addressed to him, purporting to come from Minister anabaptists and others. The university of Oxford in convocation (21 July 1683) condemned the proposition 'that the duty of not offending a weak brother is inconsistent with all human authority of making laws concerning indifferent things,' and ordered Whitby's book to be forthwith burned by
