William Whitaker (c. 1580 – 1646) was an English lawyer and politician who sat in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

from 1640 to 1646. He was the son of Henry Whitaker, the MP for Westbury in 1586. Whitaker attended

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn ...

and was appointed

recorder Recorder or The Recorder may refer to: Newspapers * ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper * ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US * ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a news ...

Shaftesbury Shaftesbury () is a town and civil parish in Dorset, England. It is situated on the A30 road, west of Salisbury, near the border with Wiltshire. It is the only significant hilltop settlement in Dorset, being built about above sea level on a ...

in 1627. In 1624 he had entered Parliament as member for

and was re-elected in 1625. In 1640, Whitaker was again elected for Shaftesbury in the Short Parliament in April and the

Long Parliament The Long Parliament was an English Parliament which lasted from 1640 until 1660. It followed the fiasco of the Short Parliament, which had convened for only three weeks during the spring of 1640 after an 11-year parliamentary absence. In Septem ...

in November, sitting until his death in 1646. In 1646 Whitaker helped establish

Shaftesbury Grammar School Shaftesbury School is a coeducational secondary day and boarding school located in Shaftesbury in the English county of Dorset. Previously a voluntary controlled Church of England school administered by the Diocese of Salisbury and Dorset ...

.Nicholas Carlisle ''A concise description of the endowed grammar schools in England ..., Volume 1''
/ref> Whitaker married Honor Hooper, daughter of Thomas Hooper of Boveridge. His son Henry Whitaker was later MP for Shaftesbury.

References

1580s births 1646 deaths English lawyers 17th-century English lawyers English MPs 1624–1625 English MPs 1625 English MPs 1640 (April) English MPs 1640–1648 {{17thC-England-MP-stub