WHITTINGTON, RICHARD (d. 1423), mayor of Lon don, described himself as son of William and Joan (Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, vi. 740). This enables him to be identi fied as the third son of Sir William Whittington of Pauntley in Gloucestershire, who married after 1355 Joan, daughter of William Mansel, and widow of Thomas Berkeley of Cubberley. Richard was a mercer by trade, and entered on his commercial career under favourable circumstances. He married Alice, daughter of Sir No Fitzwaryn, a Dorset knight of considerable property; his wife predeceased him. Whittington sat in the common council as a representative of Coleman Street Ward, was elected alderman of Broad Street in March 1393, and served as sheriff in When Adam Bamme, the mayor, died in June 1397, Whit tington was appointed by the king to succeed him, and in October was elected mayor for 1398. He had acquired great wealth and much commercial importance, and was mayor of the staple at London and Calais. He made frequent large loans both to Henry IV. and Henry V., and according to the legend, when he gave a banquet to the latter king and his queen in 1421, completed the entertainment by burning bonds for L6o,000, which he had taken up and discharged. Henry V. employed him to superintend the expenses for completing Westminster Abbey. But Whittington took no great part in public affairs. He was mayor again in 1406 1407, and in 1419-1420. He died in March 1423 bequeathing his vast fortune to charitable and public purposes. He joined in procuring Leadenhall for the city, and bore nearly all the cost of building the Greyfriars Library. In his last year as mayor he had been shocked by the foul state of Newgate prison, and one of the first works undertaken by his executors was its re building. His executors, chief of whom was John Carpenter, the famous town clerk, also contributed to the cost of glazing and paving the new Guildhall, and paid half the expense of building the library there ; they repaired St. Bartholomew's hospital, and provided bosses for water at Billingsgate and Cripplegate. But the chief of Whittington's foundations was his college at St.
Michael, Paternoster church, and the adjoining hospital. The college was dissolved at the Reformation, but the hospital or almshouses are still maintained by the Mercers' Company at Highgate. Stow relates that his tomb in St. Michael's church was spoiled during the reign of Edward VI., but that under Mary the parishioners were compelled to restore it (Survey, i. 243).
There is no proof that he was ever knighted. A writer of the next generation bears witness to his commercial success in A Libell of English Policy by styling him "the sunne of marchaundy, that lodestarre and chief-chosen flower." Pen and paper may not me suffice Him to describe, so high he was of price.
Popular legend makes Dick Whittington a poor orphan employed as a scullion by the rich merchant, Sir Hugh Fitzwarren, who ventures the cat, his only possession, on one of his master's ships. Distressed by ill-treatment he runs away, but turns back when he hears from Holloway the prophetic peal of Bow bells. He returns to find that his venture has brought him a fortune, marries his master's daughter, and succeeds to his business. The legend is not referred to by Stow, who would assuredly have noticed it if it had been well established when he wrote. The first reference to the story comes with the licensing in 1605 of a play, now lost, The History of Richard Whittington, of his love byrth, his great fortune. "The legend of Whittington," probably meaning the play of 1605, is mentioned by Beaumont and Fletcher in 1611 in The Knight of the Burning Pestle. When a little later Robert Elstracke, the engraver, published a supposed portrait of Whittington with his hand resting on a skull, he had in deference to the public fancy to substitute a cat ; copies in the first state are very rare. Thomas Keightley traced the cat story in Persian, Danish and Italian folk-lore as far back as the 13th century.