Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 61.djvu/167

 News.’ In 1851 he was a witness before the parliamentary commission appointed to inquire into the Newspaper Stamp Act, and he vigorously advocated the abolition of the stamp act, the advertisement duty, and the duty on paper. On the removal of these imposts he issued in 1855 the ‘Liverpool Daily Post,’ the first penny daily paper published in the United Kingdom, in the columns of which during 1861–4 he zealously advocated the cause of the northern states. The paper passed out of his hands some years before his death, but it has never ceased to hold a prominent place among the leading daily papers. ‘Whitty's Guide to Liverpool’ was published from the office in 1868.

The last few years of Whitty's life were spent in retirement at Prince's Park, Liverpool. He died there on 10 June 1873, and was buried at Anfield beside his wife, sister of E. B. Neill, London correspondent of the ‘Liverpool Albion.’ Edward Michael Whitty [q. v.] was their son.

[Athenæum, 14 June 1873, p. 763; private information.]  WHITWELL, JOHN GRIFFIN, (1719-1797). [See .]

WHITWORTH, CHARLES, (1675–1725), eldest of the six sons of Richard Whitworth of Blowerpipe, and afterwards of Adbaston, Staffordshire, who married, on 15 Dec. 1674, Anne, daughter of Francis Moseley, rector of Wilmslow, Cheshire, was born at Blowerpipe in 1675, and baptised at Wilmslow on 14 Oct. in that year. He was educated at Westminster (admitted as a queen's scholar in 1690), was elected to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1694, and became a fellow of that society in 1700, having graduated B.A. in 1699. He was initiated into the arts of diplomacy by George Stepney [q. v.], and while William III was still king he was, upon Stepney's recommendation, appointed to represent England at the diet of Ratisbon on 28 Feb. 1702 (cf. Addit. MS. 21551, ff. 27, 32). After Stepney, he is said to have understood the politics of the empire better than any Englishman. He was appointed envoy-extraordinary to Russia on 2 Sept. 1704, and retained the post for six years. In Sept. 1709 he congratulated the tsar on his victory of Pultowa. Peter seized the opportunity to demand the instant execution of all concerned in the arrest and imprisonment for debt of his London ambassador, Matvéiev. Whitworth explained how impossible it was for his royal mistress to comply with the tsar's wish; but, the offenders having received a nominal punishment and an act having been passed by parliament for preserving the privileges of ambassadors, Peter was appeased, and was gratified by the English envoy's addressing him as ‘emperor’ (the incident is fully treated by Voltaire in his Histoire de Russie, pt. i. chap. xix.). When Whitworth took his leave in May 1710 his ‘czarish majesty’ presented him with his portrait set in diamonds (Stowe MS. 223, f. 304). On his second mission to Moscow Catherine I, whom he had known in a much humbler station, was empress; Walpole tells on the authority of Sir Luke Schaub [q. v.] how, after dancing a minuet with the envoy, she ‘squeezed him by the hand, and said in a whisper, “Have you forgot little Kate?”’

Early in 1711 he was sent as ambassador to Vienna, but his efforts to overcome the remissness of the imperial court in making up their quota of troo[s for service under Marlborough were all in vain (, Despatches, ed. Murray, vol. v. passim). On 30 April 1714 Whitworth was appointed English plenipotentiary at the congress of Baden, where during the following summer were ultimately settled the terms of peace between the emperor and the French king (7 Sept.;, Traités de Paix, ii. App.). In 1716 he was appointed envoy-extraordinary and plenipotentiary at the court of Prussia. Next year he was transferred to The Hague (whence he sent accounts of rumoured Jacobite conspiracies), but returned to Berlin in 1719. On 9 Jan. 1720–1 he was created Baron Whitworth of Galway, and a little later, in February 1721–2, he was appointed, with Lord Polwarth, British plenipotentiary at the congress of Cambray (ib. iii. 132). He voiced the English protest against the recent secret treaty between France and Spain, and procured the adhesion of Dubois to another treaty between Great Britain, Spain, and France. Great Britain undertook to replace the Spanish ships destroyed by Byng off Syracuse in August 1718, but secured highly advantageous commercial con-