Richard Whitehead

Who is Richard Whitehead?

Richard Whitehead or Whithed was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1628 and 1653. He fought for the Parliamentary army in the English Civil War.

Whitehead was the son of Sir Henry Whitehead of Norman Court Hampshire and his wife Constance. He was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford and was awarded BA in 1612. He studied law at the Inner Temple in 1613 and travelled abroad between 1614 and 1617.

In 1628 he was elected Member of Parliament for Lymington and sat until 1629 when King Charles decided to rule without parliament for eleven years. Whitehead inherited the family estates at Shirley and Hill on the death of his father in 1629. In 1635 he was appointed High Sheriff of Hampshire when he had the task of collecting ship money for the county. He wrote to the council complaining of the backwardness of the county, and imprisoned a constable who failed to certify the defaulters and who argued that the money "would never be gathered during his lifetime". Nevertheless, he was ordered to collect the arrears, which stood at £404.

In April 1640, Whitehead was elected Member of Parliament for Hampshire in the Short Parliament.