Author: Whitby, Thomas
Biography:
WHITBY, Thomas (1788-1861: ancestry.com)
Thomas Whitby published only two works, both poems: from Liverpool and London, The Priory of Birkenhead (1819); and from London Retrospection. A Rural Poem (1820), dedicated to William Bagot, second baron Bagot, of Staffordshire (1773-1856). Advertisements for Retrospection quoted a favorable review of the earlier book in the Monthly Magazine, and Whitby cited its reception as encouragement to carry on. Retrospection had at least one dismissive, sarcastic review, however, and one that offered only faint, patronizing praise (“appears to be a very amiable man who writes verses à la Bloomfield” (GM). Whitby did not show himself in print again. Both poems are set in rural Cheshire. In prefatory matter Whitby reveals that he had arrived in London in 1809 and that Retrospection had been written at that time partly to alleviate loneliness and homesickness. After 1820 he appears to have gone home, to have married Elizabeth Ryle on 26 Dec. 1833 at Over, and to have had two surviving children with her—Robert Maddock and Mary Elizabeth. He is probably the Thomas Whitby who was made mayor of Over in 1839. There are discrepancies between the parish registers of baptisms and deaths and the census records of 1841, 1851, and 1861, in which Thomas Whitby gives his birthdate as 1791 and his birthplace as Over, but it is almost certain that he was baptised in Tarvin, Cheshire, on 1 May 1788, the son of Thomas Whitby of Ashton (1758-1842) and Mary Maddock (not Haddock) of Over, who had married at St. Chad’s, Over, on 29 Nov. 1781. The census of 1841 includes both father and son as farmers at Over. Thomas Whitby (the younger) died on 31 May 1861 and was buried at Tarvin. His widow Elizabeth died at Birkenhead and was buried there on 9 Dec. 1880. (ancestry.com 15 May 2024; findmypast.com 15 May 2024; Star [London] 5 June 1819; “Bagot, William, second Baron Bagot,” ODNB 15 May 2024; MR 93 [1820], 437; GM 91:1 [Feb. 1821], 149-50; Liverpool Mail 5 Jan. 1839; Northwich Guardian 8 June 1861) HJ