Family and Education

b. 1544, 1st s. of Edward Whorwood of Compton Hallows by Dorothy, da. of Thomas Bassett of Hintes. m. bef. 1563, Magdalene, da. of Rowland Edwards of London, at least 1s. 1da. suc. to estate of his fa.’s 1st cos. Lady Ambrose Dudley, da. of William Whorwood^†. Kntd. by 1614.

Offices Held

J.p. Staffs. c.1573-c.80, from 1596, sheriff 1574-5, 1596-7.

Biography

Whorwood had considerable estates in Shropshire, Staffordshire and Worcestershire, one of which, Tyrley, Staffordshire, he acquired from Thomas Throckmorton, a Catholic, who was often imprisoned and his estate under sequestration. Throckmorton had married Whorwood’s sister Margaret, and it is possible that Whorwood himself had Catholic sympathies, which might account for his being left off the commission of the peace between 1580 and 1596.1

However this may be, Whorwood was elected knight of the shire for the Parliament of 1572, during which his only recorded intervention was on 25 Jan. 1572 in favour of a bill to keep the assizes at Stafford, his name being entered as ‘Lockwoode’. As sheriff at the 1597 election Whorwood behaved ‘in very indecent and outrageous manner’ to obtain the return of his son-in-law John Dudley aliasSutton. When the defeated candidate brought a Star Chamber case against Whorwood, it is significant that one of the charges against him was that he released recusants, men and women, from Stafford gaol to vote at the election.2

Whorwood died 2 Nov. 1616.3

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: W.J.J.

Notes

• 1. J. C. Wedgwood, Staffs. Parl. Hist. (Wm. Salt Arch. Soc.) i. 371-2; CPR, 1553-4, pp. 53, 259, 284; 1554-5, p. 175; C142/354/104; Erdeswick’s Surv. Staffs. 377 seq.; Harl. 2143, f. 49; CSP Dom. 1611-18, pp. 259, 286; APC, xi. 350; Staffs. Q. Sess. Rolls. (Wm. Salt Arch. Soc.), ii. 72; Eliz. Chanc. Proc. (Staffs. Rec. Soc. n.s. ix), 51-2, 67-8, 72-3, 183-4, 187; Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. lxviii. p. 98; xvii. 228.
• 2. Trinity, Dublin, Thos. Cromwell’s jnl. f. 66; St. Ch. 5/L11/24, L11/34, M39/40.
• 3. C142/354/104.