William Whitton

Mary P. Whitton and Wm. Morgan counterclaimed unsuccessfully as executors of Wm. Whitton for a mortgage on Brotherston's estate in St Kitts (claim no. 717). Costs were awarded against them in favour of Archibald Paul (q.v.).

1. "William Whitton Esquire, of the Parish of Saint Andrew Holborn in the County of Middlesex Widower, and Mary Philippa Alldridge of Reading in the County of Berks Spinster, were married in this Church by Licence on the Eighteenth day of January in the Year One thousand eight hundred and Two. By me John Lake Curate. This marriage was solemnised between us Wm Whitton M.P. Alldridge In the Presence of us Thomas Alldridge Mary Hill."

2. “On the 27th ult. at Stone-Wall, near Tonbridge, in Kent, William Whitton, Esq. an eminent solicitor.—He was a man of great worth and strict integrity, possessing great ability in his profession, and of unbounded friendship. The poor, his family an friends, have sustained a great loss by this good man’s death. He lived beloved, and will be long lamented by all who knew him.”

3. Memorial inscription in Chiddingstone churchyard: "Altar within rails with entrance to vault south side - William WHITTON of Stone Wall [near Edenbridge] in the County of Kent died 27 July 1832 in his 69th year also Mary Philippa Whitton his widow died 11 January 1849 in her 83rd year. North side – Caroline Woolmer WINHAM wife of the Rev. Daniel Winham of Tunbridge Wells & niece of the late William Whitton Esq. of Stone Wall died 3 May 1851 aged 34 years. West End: Elizabeth ARUNDELL niece of the late William Whitton of Stone Wall died 1 June 1839 aged 25 years".

4. William Whitton was agent to Sir Timothy Shelley and managed the affairs of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Stonewall was advertised for sale on 23/07/1816 (Maidstone Journal) and owned by William Whitton in 1818 (Chiddingstone Overseers' Assessment). Whitton participated in local life; he was surveyor for the parish in 1822 and visitor to Chiddingstone Workhouse 1826-27. His estate (in Chiddingstone only) included: Stonewall, Frienden Farm, Brookers Farm, Bore Place North Farm, Bore Place South Farm, the Blue Boar and a large number of cottages. From 1836 the estate was sold off piecemeal, Stonewall passing to Edmund Wakefield Mead Waldo.

T71/1295 St Kitts claim no. 717 (Brotherston's).

1. Ancestry.com, London, England, Marriages and Banns, 1754-1921 [database online].

2. The Belfast News-Letter (Belfast, Ireland), 07/08/1832, Issue 9928.

3. http://www.kentarchaeology.org.uk/Research/Libr/MIs/MIsChiddingstone/01.htm [accessed 01/05/2013].

4. Roger Ingpen, Shelley in England. New facts and letters from the Shelley-Whitton papers (London, 1917). Email from Lionel Cole, 14/09/2014, sourced to the Maidstone Journal and the Chiddingstone Overseers' Assessment.

We are grateful to Lionel Cole for his assistance in compiling this entry.