Thomas Whately (1726 – 26 May 1772), an English politician and writer, was a
Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...
(1761–1768), who served as Commissioner on the
Board of Trade
The Board of Trade is a British government body concerned with commerce and industry, currently within the Department for International Trade. Its full title is The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of ...
, as
Secretary to the Treasury under
Lord Grenville
William Wyndham Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville, (25 October 175912 January 1834) was a British Pittite Tory politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1806 to 1807, but was a supporter of the Whigs for the duration of ...
, and as Under-secretary of State under
Lord North (1771–1772). As an MP he published a letter on the reasonableness of the
Stamp Act, 1765, which earns him a place in the events that led to the
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
.
He is probably best remembered for his ''Observations on Modern Gardening, illustrated by descriptions'' (London, 1770), the most important and successful contemporary book on the
English Landscape Garden
The English landscape garden, also called English landscape park or simply the English garden (french: Jardin à l'anglaise, it, Giardino all'inglese, german: Englischer Landschaftsgarten, pt, Jardim inglês, es, Jardín inglés), is a sty ...
style, translated into German and French by the following year.
Life
He was the eldest son of Thomas Whately of Epsom, Surrey and educated at
Clare College, Cambridge
Clare College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The college was founded in 1326 as University Hall, making it the second-oldest surviving college of the University after Peterhouse. It was refound ...
(1745). He entered the
Middle Temple
The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's I ...
in 1742 to study law and was
called to the bar
The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...
in 1751. He was an elder brother of the cleric
Joseph Whately of
Nonsuch Park, Surrey, and thus the uncle of
Richard Whately
Richard Whately (1 February 1787 – 8 October 1863) was an English academic, rhetorician, logician, philosopher, economist, and theologian who also served as a reforming Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin. He was a leading Broad Churchman, ...
. For many years he was in the close confidence of George Grenville, to whom he passed the political gossip. He also corresponded with
Lord Temple
Viscount Cobham is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain that was created in 1718. Owing to its special remainder, the title has passed through several families. Since 1889, it has been held by members of the Lyttelton family.
The barony a ...
,
Lord George Sackville
George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville, PC (26 January 1716 – 26 August 1785), styled The Honourable George Sackville until 1720, Lord George Sackville from 1720 to 1770 and Lord George Germain from 1770 to 1782, was a British soldier and p ...
, and
James Harris, M.P.
Whately sat in parliament from 1761 to 1768 for the borough of
Ludgershall in Wiltshire, and from 1768 until his death he represented the
borough of Castle Rising in Norfolk. From 5 April 1764 until its dismissal in July 1765 he held the post of secretary to the treasury in George Grenville's administration, before going into opposition.
On Grenville's death in November 1770, Whately attached himself to
Lord North, and acted as the go-between for his old patron's friends.
Junius denounced him as possessing "the talents of an attorney" and "the agility of Colonel Bodens" (who could scarcely move), and for deserting Grenville's cause. He was appointed a commissioner on the board of trade in January 1771, the keeper of his Majesty's private roads in January 1772, and under-secretary of state for the northern department in June 1771. These appointments he held for the rest of his life.
Whately died unmarried and intestate on 26 May 1772; his brother, William Whately, a banker in Lombard Street, London, administered to the effects.
Political writings
Whately was the author of ''Remarks on "The Budget," or a Candid Examination of the Facts and Arguments in that Pamphlet'' (1765), rebutting
David Hartley's attack on Grenville's financial schemes, and he also defended his chief in ''Considerations on the Trade and Finances of the Kingdom and on the Measures of the Administration since the Conclusion of the Peace'' (3rd edit. 1769).
Whately has sometimes been credited with the authorship of a pamphlet on the ''Present State of the Nation'' (1768; appendix, 1769), but it was drawn up, under Grenville's supervision, by
William Knox. A second pamphlet, ''The Controversy between Great Britain and her Colonies reviewed'' (1769), attributed to him and included in
John Almon's ''Collection of Tracts on Taxing the British Colonies in America'' (vol. iii. 1773), was also written by Knox.
''Observations on Modern Gardening''
Among gardeners, Whately is largely remembered as the author of ''Observations on Modern Gardening, illustrated by descriptions'' (London, 1770), written while living in the Mansion House in
Nonsuch Park. Close on the heels of
George Mason
George Mason (October 7, 1792) was an American planter, politician, Founding Father, and delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787, one of the three delegates present who refused to sign the Constitution. His writings, including ...
's ''Essay on Design in Gardening'', Whately's ''Observations'' provide the most comprehensive work on the theory and practice of English
landscape gardening
Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for constructio ...
in the naturalistic taste before
Horace Walpole
Horatio Walpole (), 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whig politician.
He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twi ...
's brief ''Essay on Modern Gardening'' (1782) and the writings of
Humphry Repton
Humphry Repton (21 April 1752 – 24 March 1818) was the last great English landscape designer of the eighteenth century, often regarded as the successor to Capability Brown; he also sowed the seeds of the more intricate and eclectic styles of ...
. The
picturesque
Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in ''Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year ...
landscape style in the manner of idealized landscapes by
Salvator Rosa
Salvator Rosa (1615 –1673) is best known today as an Italian Baroque painter, whose romanticized landscapes and history paintings, often set in dark and untamed nature, exerted considerable influence from the 17th century into the early 19t ...
or
Claude Lorrain
Claude Lorrain (; born Claude Gellée , called ''le Lorrain'' in French; traditionally just Claude in English; c. 1600 – 23 November 1682) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher of the Baroque era. He spent most of his life in It ...
, had been pioneered by
Charles Bridgeman
Charles Bridgeman (1690–1738) was an English garden designer who helped pioneer the naturalistic landscape style. Although he was a key figure in the transition of English garden design from the Anglo-Dutch formality of patterned parterres an ...
in the 1720s, improved by
William Kent
William Kent (c. 1685 – 12 April 1748) was an English architect, landscape architect, painter and furniture designer of the early 18th century. He began his career as a painter, and became Principal Painter in Ordinary or court painter, bu ...
and eventually dominated by
Lancelot "Capability" Brown
Lancelot Brown (born c. 1715–16, baptised 30 August 1716 – 6 February 1783), more commonly known as Capability Brown, was an English gardener and landscape architect, who remains the most famous figure in the history of the English lan ...
, but neither had put their thoughts into print.
By 1783,
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...
, the future third
President of the United States
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal gove ...
, already had a copy of Whately's book in his library at
Monticello
Monticello ( ) was the primary plantation of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, who began designing Monticello after inheriting land from his father at age 26. Located just outside Charlottesville, V ...
. During his European years as Minister to France, he also visited England. Eager to explore and gain practical knowledge for his own garden designs, in April 1786, Jefferson set out for a tour of English gardens in the company of his close friend and future second President of the US,
John Adams
John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Befor ...
. Whately's
treatise
A treatise is a formal and systematic written discourse on some subject, generally longer and treating it in greater depth than an essay, and more concerned with investigating or exposing the principles of the subject and its conclusions." Tre ...
guiding him every step of the way, Jefferson's near contemporary statement attests to the accuracy and reliability of Whately's description:
Memorandums made on a tour to some of the gardens in England described by Whateley in his book on gardening. While his descriptions in point of style are models of perfect elegance and classical correctness, they are as remarkeable for their exactness. I always walked over the gardens with his book in my hand, examined with attention the particular spots he described, found them so justly characterised by him as to be easily recognised, and saw with wonder, that his fine imagination had never been able to seduce him from the truth.
Whately's work went through several editions. Translations in German and French appeared as early as 1771.
''Remarks on Some of the Characters in Shakespeare''
Whately's ''Remarks on Some of the Characters in Shakespeare'' was left unfinished at his death and published posthumously by his brother, the Rev. Joseph Whately, in 1785. Whately's analysis of several of Shakespeare's principal characters applies to them the principles of
psychology
Psychology is the science, scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immens ...
and motivation of Whately's own
proto-Romantic sensibilities.
Hutchinson Letters affair
After Whately's death, correspondence directed to him from
Thomas Hutchinson, governor of Massachusetts, Lieutenant-Governor Oliver and other British colonial agents was leaked to
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading int ...
. They were later published in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, causing great scandal, and eventually involving his brother William Whately in a duel. "These letters, though not official, related wholly to public affairs, and were intended to affect public measures. They were filled with representations, in regard to the state of things in the colonies, as contrary to the truth, as they were insidious in their design. The discontents and commotions were ascribed to a factious spirit among the people, stirred up by a few intriguing leaders; and it was intimated, that this spirit would be subdued, and submission to the acts of Parliament would be attained, by the presence of a military force, and by persevering in the coercive measures already begun."
Other notable facts
At the insistence of Hutchinson, then acting governor, the town of
Whately, Massachusetts was named for him when it was set apart from Hatfield in 1771.
Whately
Retrieved 16 August 2007
References
External links
Biography of Thomas Whately
in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...
* Thomas Whately
''The Regulations lately Made concerning the Colonies and the Taxes Imposed upon Them, Considered''
(London, 1765): Whately's observations on the Stamp Act: "this Mode of Taxation is the easiest, the most equal and the most certain that can be chosen; The Duty falls chiefly upon Property; but it is spread lightly over a great Variety of Subjects, and lies heavy upon none."
* Thomas Whately
''Observations on Modern Gardening''
* Thomas Whately
''Remarks on Some of the Characters in Shakespeare''
(e-books text)
*
;Attribution
{{DEFAULTSORT:Whately, Thomas
1726 births
1772 deaths
Alumni of Clare College, Cambridge
Members of the Middle Temple
Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies
British MPs 1761–1768
British MPs 1768–1774
English garden writers
English Landscape Garden style
British government officials
18th-century English lawyers