Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 61.djvu/168

 cessions. Whitworth's chaplain at the congress was Richard Chenevix [q. v.] This was his last diplomatic achievement. He settled in London, and was in 1722 returned to parliament as member for Newport in the Isle of Wight. His health, however, was not good; his physician, Dr. Arbuthnot, told Swift that he had practically cured the ambassador's vertigo by a prescription of Spa waters, but his illness recurred, and he died at his house in Gerard Street on 23 Oct. 1725. He was buried in the south aisle of Westminster Abbey on 6 Nov. (, Burials Register, p. 315). He married Magdalena Jacoba, countess de Vaulgremont, who died in 1734, but he left no issue and the peerage became extinct. His will, dated Berlin 2–13 March 1722–3, was proved on 1 Dec. by his brother, Francis Whitworth [see under ].

Macky describes the ambassador as a man of learning and good sense, handsome, and of perfect address. A three-quarter-length portrait by Jack Ellys (owned in 1867 by Countess De la Warr) depicts him holding the hand of his youthful nephew, and a paper addressed to him as plenipotentiary at the congress of Cambray (Cat. of National Portraits, 1867, No. 397). From a large quantity of notes and memoranda that he left in manuscript but one piece has been selected for publication, ‘An Account of Russia as it was in the year 1710, by Charles Lord Whitworth. Printed at Strawberry Hill, 1758.’ Horace Walpole, who wrote an advertisement for the book, obtained the manuscript through Richard Owen Cambridge [q. v.]; Cambridge bought it from the fine collection of books relating to Russia formed by Zolman, a secretary of Stephen Poyntz [q. v.] It was reprinted in the second volume of ‘Fugitive Pieces’ in 1762, and again in 1765 and 1771. Summary though Whitworth's treatment is of a subject so interesting, his book is of value, and is not unjustly compared by Walpole to Molesworth's account of Denmark. The author infers great feats for the Russian arms from the ‘passive valour’ and endurance of the peasantry. The account of the Russian naval yards (of which the personnel was almost entirely English) at the end of the volume is specially curious. Whitworth himself was instrumental in 1710 in sending over a number of English glass-blowers to Moscow.

Thirty volumes of Whitworth's official correspondence are preserved among the papers of Earl De la Warr at Buckhurst in Sussex. Many of his letters are among the Stair Papers (Hist. MSS. Comm. 2nd and 3rd Reps.).

[Walpole's account of Whitworth prefixed to the Account of Russia, 1758; George Lewis's Sermon preach'd at Wostram, 31 Oct. 1725, upon the death of Right Hon. the Lord Whitworth; G. E. C[okayne]'s Complete Peerage, viii. 131; Burke's Extinct Peerage, p. 582; Cole's Athenæ Cantabr. xlv. 335; Welch's Alumni Westmon. pp. 227, 239; Luttrell's Brief Hist. Relation, vi. 97, 491, 586, 590, 598; Boyer's Reign of Anne, 1735, pp. 397, 398, 483, 608, 664; Swift's Works, ed. Scott, iv. 343, xvi. 423; Parl. Hist. vi. 792; Wentworth Papers, p. 11; Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, ed. Park, v. 235, and Correspondence, iii. 181, 187; Pinkerton's Walpoliana, 1798; Hist. Reg. Chron. Diary, 1725, p. 45, cf. 1728 p. 46; Notes and Queries, 6th ser. iii. 429, 497, 7th ser. i. 89, 193; Monthly Review, xix. 439; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Stowe MSS. 223, 224, 227 (letters to Robethon); Addit. MSS. 28155 (letters to Sir J. Norris), 28902–16 (to J. Ellis), 32740 (to Lord Walpole).]  WHITWORTH, CHARLES (1714?–1778), author, born about 1714, was the eldest son of Francis Whitworth of Leybourne, Kent, the younger brother of Charles, baron Whitworth [q. v.] Francis Whitworth was M.P. for Minehead from May 1723. He was appointed a gentleman usher of the privy chamber to the king in August 1728, surveyor-general of woods and forests in March 1732, and secretary of the island of Barbados; these offices he held until his death on 6 March 1742.

Charles Whitworth entered parliament for Minehead at the general election of 1747, represented that pocket borough in two parliaments until 1761, and then sat for Bletchingly from 1761 to 1768, when he was once more returned for Minehead. In October 1774 he migrated to East Looe, but at the end of the year accepted the stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds, and was chosen for Saltash the following January. Whitworth was a great student of parliamentary customs; in May 1768 he was chosen chairman of ways and means, and, being reappointed at the meeting of the succeeding parliament in 1774, discharged its duties until his death. He received the honour of knighthood on 19 Aug. 1768 (, Catalogue of Knights), and his name appears in the list of those who voted for the expulsion of Wilkes in 1769. He was appointed lieutenant-governor of Gravesend and Tilbury fort (under Lord Cadogan) in August 1758 (Gent. Mag.), and this command he held for twenty years until his death. When the western battalion of the Kent militia was embodied on 22 June 1759, Whitworth became its major. Being chosen one of the vice-presidents of the Society for the En-