Author: Whitehead, William
Biography:
WHITEHEAD, William (c. 1715-85: ODNB)
The second son of Richard Whitehead, a baker, and his wife Mary, he was baptised at St. Botolph’s in Cambridge on 12 Feb. 1715. The family was patronised by Henry Bromley, MP for Cambridgeshire and, thanks to him, William was educated at Winchester College. Richard Whitehead died in debt in 1730 but Mary kept the bakery going and William later paid off his father’s debts. William Whitehead began writing verse at Winchester and won a guinea in a competition sponsored by Alexander Pope. He was admitted to Clare College, Cambridge, on a Pyke scholarship—the gift of a baker for the orphan sons of bakers—and earned his BA in 1739 and MA in 1743, a year after he was made a Fellow. His first independent publication in what became a long and successful career as a poet and playwright was The Danger of Writing Verse: An Epistle (1741). Although Whitehead studied to become a clergyman he decided instead to accept a position as the London tutor to George Bussy Villiers, son of the Earl of Jersey; this meant resigning his Cambridge fellowship. In London he wrote for the theatre and, if plays such as The Roman Father (1750), Creusa (1754), and School for Lovers (1762) were derivative, they were popular and he enjoyed a good relationship with David Garrick. In 1754-56 he travelled in Europe with his pupil; on his return Lady Jersey negotiated a salaried position for him as secretary and registrar of the Order of the Bath. In 1757 he became Poet Laureate; this required him to write the annual birthday odes which he did every year until his death. His last play was a farce, A Trip to Scotland, published anonymously in 1770 but acknowledged in his 1774 Poems and Plays. The verse fables, Variety and The Goat’s Beard, were also published anonymously. Whitehead never married, citing financial reasons for not wanting to have a family. He died of an infection at home on 14 Apr. 1785 in Charles Street, London, and was buried in the South Audley Street Chapel. The main source for information about his life is the memoir by William Mason (q.v.), prefixed to the third volume of Whitehead’s Poems. (ODNB 9 Feb. 2022; ACAD 9 Feb. 2022; W. Mason, “Memoir,” Poems [1788]) SR
Other Names:
- W. Whitehead