The Venerable Oliver Whitby (1602-1679) was an Anglican priest in England during the 17th century, who became Archdeacon of Chichester.[1]
Born about 1602, the son of a clergyman in Bedfordshire, he entered Trinity College, Oxford, in 1619 and graduated BA in 1622, moving to Hart Hall where he gained an MA in 1624. Later, in 1643, he was awarded a BD by Trinity.[2]
In 1642, as England sank into civil war, he was curate of the prosperous parish of Petworth in Sussex, where the Bishop of Chichester, Dr Henry King was rector. He reported that:
Later, while preaching in Petworth church, he was shot at with a pistol. Though the ball missed him, he abandoned his position and hid in a modest house for six months. When tracked down by his opponents, for some days he hid in a hollow tree where his landlady brought him food on the pretence of gathering firewood. In danger and without income, it was not until the Restoration in 1660 that he was able to resume ecclesiastical duties.[3]
He held incumbencies at St Nicholas Olave in the City of London and then at three parishes in Sussex: Ford in 1662; Climping in 1662; and Selsey in 1667.[2] He was appointed to the prebend of Waltham in 1660, to the wardenship of the Hospital of St. Mary in Chichester in 1666, and became Archdeacon of Chichester in 1672.[2] [1]
He was buried in Chichester on 6 August 1679.[4]
Around 1663, he married Ann Ford (1630-1691), daughter of John Ford (1606-1681) and his wife Anne Smith (died 1631). His wife was the widow of Benjamin Hyde and mother of Anne Hyde, great-grandmother of the naturalist, the Reverend Gilbert White. They had six children.
His eldest son, Oliver Whitby (1664-1703), became a lawyer in Chichester and died unmarried, leaving his money for the foundation of a school to educate poor boys from Chichester, from West Wittering, and from his mother's home parish of Harting. He specified the uniform they were to wear and the principal subjects they were to study – reading, writing, and mathematics. The school lasted until 1950.[5]
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