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George Downing Whittington

George Downing Whittington (1780-1807) was a Church of England priest and architectural historian. In a posthumous publication of 1809, he was the first to date the origin of Gothic to Abbot Suger's work at St-Denis.[1]

George Downing Whittington
Born1780
Died1807
OccupationChurch of England Priest
Period1805-09
SubjectThe history of architecture, travel in Spain and Portugal, religion
Notable worksA Dissertation on the External Evidences of the Truth of the Christian Religion, An Historical Survey of the Ecclesiastical Antiquities of France
Notable awardsHulsean prize,1804
Lady Margaret Downing (1722-78) by Thomas Gainsborough. By her will, she tried to benefit her Whittington relatives and second husband to the detriment of Cambridge University.
Downing College, Cambridge: built after Whittington's father lost his twenty-two-year legal battle.

Childhood

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Born at Westbrook Hay, near Hemel Hempstead, on 22 September 1780, George Downing Whittington was the eldest son of Jacob John Whittington and his wife, Harriet.[2][3] His father was a country squire and former Army Captain.[4][5] His mother was the daughter of the Rev. William Smythies, the Vicar of St Peter’s, Colchester, from 1760 to 1780.[6]

When George was about three, his parents moved to Kilverstone Lodge, near Norwich, and then in 1802, to Theberton Hall, Suffolk.[7][4] His father was an early member of the exclusive Swaffham Coursing Club.[8][4]

 
St Lawrence's Church, Knodishall, where Whittington was appointed curate in 1805 (by Adrian S Pye).

His father's wealth derived from the generosity of his aunt, Margaret Downing, and her husband, Sit Jacob Downing. In 1764, Sir Jacob left him £400 per annum and £1,000 for an army commission.[9] In 1778, Lady Margaret left him her estates in Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire and the residue of her personal estate.[10] However, his inheritance from his aunt included land previously owned by her husband's cousin, Sir George Downing. Under his will, when Sir Jacob died childless in 1764, this land should have passed to Cambridge University to found Downing College. For more than twenty years, George's father and Lady Margaret's second husband resisted the claim of the University, but in 1800, they finally lost.[4]

in about 1807, Jacob Whittington separated from his wife and created a settlement of £16,000 to support his wife and six children. In the final years of his life, George would have witnessed the breakdown of his parents' marriage.[4]

Education and clerical career

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George Downing Whittington attended Eton School and then St John's College, Cambridge, where he studied law.[3] He was admitted to the college as a fellow commoner on 17 April 1799 and admitted to Lincoln’s Inn on 18 October 1799.[3][11] His college friends included George Hamilton Gordon (4th Earl of Aberdeen from 1801), Philip Yorke (Viscount Royston), and Henry Raikes.[12] He obtained his degree in civil law in 1805.[13]

At Eton, Whittington acquired a love of classical literature and art in general. Although he was hardworking at Cambridge, he sometimes neglected his legal studies to pursue other branches of learning, including Gothic architecture.[14] In 1802 and 1803, he and Lord Aberdeen travelled through France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, studying early Christian buildings.[3]

In 1804, Whittington won the Hulsean prize for his essay on the physical evidence supporting Christianity.[15] By the time he received the award, he had taken Holy Orders, as he was ordained deacon by the Bishop of Norwich on 23 September 1804 and priest by the Bishop of Winchester in the Chapel Royal, St James’s, on 10 March 1805.[3]

After becoming a priest, he was licensed curate of Knodishall, Suffolk, a scattered village of about 300 people, three miles from the coast and close to his parents' home at Theberton Hall.[3][16][17]

Death

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Trumpington Street, Cambridge, where Whittington died in his lodgings. (detail from picture by N. Chadwick)

On 24 July 1807, he died of dysentery in his lodgings in Trumpington Street, Cambridge.[3][4] On 29 July, he was buried at St Michael’s Church.[18] His friends and family put a tablet with the inscription “G. D. Whittington, 1807” in the chancel, and his old college erected a tablet with a long Latin inscription in the college's ante-chapel.[3]

Posthumous publications

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On his return to England in 1803, Whittington began to prepare his findings for publication, but he died before he finished, and it was left to Lord Aberdeen and at least one other friend to complete the task.[19] The book was published in 1809, with a second edition in 1811.

Whittington initially aimed to refute the notion that the Gothic style originated in England, but he broadened the scope of his work to include a study of the rise and spread of the style in France. He completed an overview of church architecture in France and a description of particular buildings but left only fragments of a planned third section on the origins of Gothic architecture. However, he believed the style came from the East and was imported by the Crusaders.[20]

Some friends of Whittington also edited and published his account of his travels through Spain and Portugal, which appeared in 1808.

Works

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  • A Dissertation on the external evidences of the truth of the Christian religion, (1805).
  • Travels through Spain and Part of Portugal, with commercial, statistical, and geographical details (1808).
  • An Historical Survey of the Ecclesiastical Antiquities of France: With a View to Illustrate the Rise and Progress of Gothic Architecture in Europe, (1809); 2nd edition (1811).

References

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  1. ^ Buchanan, Alexandrina (2013). Robert Willis (1800-1875) and the Foundation of Architectural History. Boydell & Brewer Ltd. pp. 74–75. ISBN 978-1-84383-800-5.
  2. ^ The Lady's Magazine Or Entertaining Companion for the Fair Sex: Appropriated Solely to Their Use and Amusement. Baldwin, Cradock & Joy. 1780. p. 503.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Cambridge), St John's College (University of (1931). Admissions to the College of St. John the Evangelist in the University of Cambridge. College at the University Press. p. 555.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Postmus, Bouwe (July 2012). "Ellen Sophia Whittington's Generosity: the Sources of the Whittington Fortune". The Gissing Journal. XLVIII (3): 3–22.
  5. ^ "From the London Gazette 9 Feb 1780". Kentish Gazette. 16 February 1780. p. 3.
  6. ^ Smythies, R. H. Raymond (1912). Records of the Smythies Family. London: Privately Printed. pp. 41–42.
  7. ^ George's sister, Augusta, was born at Westbrook Hay on 2 December 1781, but his sister, Cecilia, was born at Kilverstone in 1783.
  8. ^ "Swaffham Coursing Meeting". Norfolk Chronicle. 22 February 1783. p. 3.
  9. ^ The will of Sir Jacob Garrard Downing, Baronet, proved in London on 10 February 1764.
  10. ^ The will of Lady Margaret Bowyer, proved in London on 5 October 1778. Lady Margaret Downing married Captain George Bowyer in 1768.
  11. ^ England), Lincoln's Inn (London (1896). The Records of the Honorable Society of Lincoln's Inn ... Lincoln's Inn. p. 566.
  12. ^ Royston (Viscount), Philip Yorke; Pepys, Henry (1838). The Remains of the Late Lord Viscount Royston: With a Memoir of His Life. J. Murray. pp. 87–94, 155–65.
  13. ^ "Cambridge, July 4". Sun (London). 9 July 1805. p. 4.
  14. ^ Lord Aberdeen's preface to An Historical Survey of the Ecclesiastical Antiquities of France, 1809, p. xiii.
  15. ^ register, Monthly literary (1805). The Monthly magazine. p. 90.
  16. ^ White, William (1844). History, Gazetteer and Directory of Suffolk, and the Towns Near Its Borders: Comprising ... a General Survey of the County and Separate Histories & Statistical & Topographical Descriptions of All the Hundreds, Liberties, Unions, Boroughs, Towns, Ports, Parishes, Townships, Villages and Hamlets ... the Seats of Nobility and Gentry, Magistrates and Public Officers ... author. pp. 380–81.
  17. ^ "Knodishall CP/AP through time | Statistics |". www.visionofbritain.org.uk. Retrieved 2024-03-08.
  18. ^ Venn, John (1891). The Register of Baptisms, Marriages and Burials in St. Michael's Parish, Cambridge: (1538-1837). Cambridge Antiquarian Society, sold. p. 162.
  19. ^ Lord Aberdeen's preface to An Historical Survey of the Ecclesiastical Antiquities of France, 1809, p. iii-iv.
  20. ^ Lord Aberdeen's preface to An Historical Survey of the Ecclesiastical Antiquities of France, 1809, p. iv, v, vi; and "Note from the Editors" p.171.
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