The
Venerable Oliver Whitby ( 1602-1679) was an
Anglican
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...
priest in England during the 17th century, who became
Archdeacon of Chichester.
Origins and education
Born about 1602, the son of a clergyman in
Bedfordshire, he entered
Trinity College, Oxford, in 1619 and graduated BA in 1622, moving to
Hart Hall where he gained an MA in 1624. Later, in 1643, he was awarded a BD by Trinity.
Career
In 1642, as England sank into
civil war, he was curate of the prosperous parish of
Petworth
Petworth is a small town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Chichester (district), Chichester District of West Sussex, England. It is located at the junction of the A272 road, A272 east–west road from Heathfield, East Sussex ...
in
Sussex
Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...
, where the
Bishop of Chichester, Dr
Henry King was rector. He reported that:
Later, while preaching in Petworth church, he was shot at with a pistol. Though the ball missed him, he abandoned his position and hid in a modest house for six months. When tracked down by his opponents, for some days he hid in a hollow tree where his landlady brought him food on the pretence of gathering firewood. In danger and without income, it was not until the Restoration in 1660 that he was able to resume ecclesiastical duties.
He held
incumbencies at
St Nicholas Olave
St Nicholas Olave was a church in the City of London, on the west side of Bread Street Hill in Queenhithe Ward. It was destroyed in the Great Fire of London and was never rebuilt. Instead the parish was united with that of St Nicholas Cole Abbe ...
in the
City of London and then at three parishes in Sussex:
Ford in 1662;
Climping
Climping (also spelt as Clymping) is a village and civil parish containing agricultural and natural sandy land in the Arun District of West Sussex, England. The parish also contains the coastal hamlet of Atherington. It is three miles (5 km) ...
in 1662; and
Selsey in 1667.
[ He was appointed to the prebend of Waltham in 1660, to the wardenship of the Hospital of St. Mary in Chichester in 1666, and became Archdeacon of Chichester in 1672.][
He was buried in Chichester on 6 August 1679.
]
Family
Around 1663, he married Ann Ford (1630-1691), daughter of John Ford (1606-1681) and his wife Anne Smith (died 1631). His wife was the widow of Benjamin Hyde and mother of Anne Hyde, great-grandmother of the naturalist, the Reverend Gilbert White. They had six children.
His eldest son, Oliver Whitby (1664-1703), became a lawyer in Chichester and died unmarried, leaving his money for the foundation of a school to educate poor boys from Chichester, from West Wittering, and from his mother's home parish of Harting. He specified the uniform they were to wear and the principal subjects they were to study – reading, writing, and mathematics. The school lasted until 1950.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Whitby, Oliver
Archdeacons of Chichester
17th-century English Anglican priests
Alumni of Trinity College, Oxford
1679 deaths
People from Climping
People from Selsey