Richard Whittington - Death and Bequests

Death and Bequests

Whittington died in March 1423. In 1402 (aged 52) he had married Alice, daughter of Sir Ivo FitzWarin (or Fitzwarren) of Wantage in Berkshire (now Oxfordshire), but she predeceased him in 1411. They had no children. He was buried in the church of St Michael Paternoster Royal, to which he had donated large sums during his lifetime. The tomb is now lost, and the mummified cat found in the church tower in 1949 during a search for its location probably dates to the time of the Wren restoration.

In the absence of heirs, Whittington left £7,000 in his will to charity, in those days a large sum, with a modern-day equivalence of about £3m. Some of this was used to

• rebuild Newgate Prison and Newgate and accommodation in it for the Sheriffs and Recorder which is the forerunner of that in the Old Bailey
• build the first library in Guildhall (the ancestor of the modern Guildhall Library)
• repair St Bartholomew's Hospital
• the creation of his 'college' i.e. almshouse and hospital originally at St Michael's
• install some of the first public drinking fountains

The almshouses were relocated in 1966 to Felbridge near East Grinstead. Sixty elderly women and a few married couples currently live in them. The Whittington Charity also disburses money each year to the needy through the Mercers' Company. The Whittington hospital is now at Archway in the London Borough of Islington and a small statue of a cat along Highgate Hill further commemorates his legendary feline.