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Richard Whittington

Richard Whittington is the most famous member of the Mercers’ Company, immortalised as Dick Whittington the pantomime figure. Everybody knows the story of Whittington from childhood, a highly romanticised ‘rags to riches’ tale of a boy and his cat going to London to seek his fortune.

 

The real Whittington was born in the 1350s in Pauntley, Gloucestershire, the youngest son of Sir William Whittington, a local land-owner. He was apprenticed to the Mercers’ Company, and became a successful Mercer, dealing in valuable imports such as silks and velvets. The major market for such wares was the Royal Court, and in 1389, for the first time, Whittington sold two cloths of gold to King Richard II for £11. This was followed by great quantities of luxury fabrics for the Royal Wardrobe. Richard II owed Whittington £1,000 when he was deposed in 1399. Whittington also supplied similar luxuries for the new king Henry IV.

 

Whittington played a prominent role in the Mercers’ Company, and was three times Master of the Company in 1395-6, 1401-2 and 1408-9. He regularly lent sums of money to the Crown, and invested heavily in the lucrative wool export trade. He became a City Alderman in 1393, and was four times Mayor of London (‘Lord Mayor’ was not a title used in Whittington’s lifetime), in 1397, 1397-8, 1406-7 and 1419-20.

 

Whittington died in March 1423. He was buried at his local parish church St Michael Paternoster Royal, and left assets estimated at £5,000 (around £5 million in modern terms.) His wife, Alice, daughter of Sir Ivo Fitzwaryn of Dorset, had died before him and they had no children. The executors of Richard’s will devoted his great wealth to the establishment of an almshouse (Whittington College, founded 1424), a college of priests (dissolved at the Reformation) and a number of other public works in the City of London, including the building of the first library for the Guildhall, building works for St Bartholomew’s Hospital, the rebuilding of St Michael Paternoster Church, and the rebuilding of Newgate Gaol.

 

                                             

 

Richard Whittington on his deathbed, March 1423.

Drawing from the 1442 copy of the Whittington Ordinances, Mercers'

copy.

Pen with touches of pink and white paint, in vellum.

 

The book measures 12 inches by 81/2 inches when open and consists of 20 folios of vellum in three gatherings of 4, 8 and 8 with a plain parchment cover. The text occupies fifteen folios and is prefaced by the illustration of Whittington on his death bed.

 

Text and Image © The Mercers' Company, Mercers' Hall, Ironmonger Lane, London EC2V 8HE. Not to be reproduced without prior permission.

 

 

 

 

Dedicatory verse at the end of the Whittington Ordinances, 1442.

 

This names John Olney, Geoffrey Feldyng, Geoffrey Boleyn and John Burton as Wardens of the Mercers' Company. They served as Wardens from Midsummer 1442 to Midsummer 1443.

 

The verse reads as follows:

 

Go litel boke go litel tregedie

The lowly submitting to al correccion

Of theym beyng maistres now of the mercery

Olney Feldyng Boleyn and of Burton

Hertily theym besekyng with humble salutacion

The to accepte and thus to take in gre               

For ever to be a servant with in yeire cominalte.

 

Text and Image © The Mercers' Company, Mercers' Hall, Iromonger Lane, London EC2V 8HE. Not to be reproduced without prior permission.