Whittington, Dick

   Sir Richard Whittington, who died in 1423 after being three times Lord Mayor of London, was the youngest son of a prosperous Gloucestershire family, who began his career by going to London at thirteen to be apprenticed to a merchant whose daughter he later married. He died childless, leaving money to rebuild various churches and alms-houses, Newgate Prison, and St Bartholomew's Hospital.

   The traditional account of his life, first recorded in the 17th century, stresses his supposed early poverty and sufferings; his luck changed when he sent a cat which he had bought for a penny as his stake in a trading voyage, and the captain sold it on his behalf for a huge price to an African king whose palace was overrun with rats. There are similar stories in Europe, often adding that the grateful hero devoted part of his wealth to good works; presumably Whittington's charitable bequests led to the story being told of him.

   ■ See Jacobs, 1890/1968: 104-10, for the best-known text, combined out of older chapbooks; it is reprinted in Briggs, 1970-1: B. ii. 139-45.