DICK WHITTINGTON

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 36, 11 August 1923, Page 14

DICK WHITTINGTON

THRIGE LORD MAYOR OF LONDON.

It is 500 yearo since the death of Sir Richard Whittington, the famous Lord Mayor of London. Memorial services are to be held in October at the Church of St. Michael, London, says the "Daily Chronicle." It was in the former Church of St. Michael, destroyed during the Great Fire, that Whittington was buried.

TiAl f e?*° r ■ (Canon Bullock-Webster, M.A.) told a-reporter that the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs would attend the commemoration service and that Sir Charles Wakefield (a former Lord Mayor) rT Sf d *° give an address on Whittingtoii's life and work It is ■attrious that though Sir Richard Whittington is one of the most important, figures m early history of the Uty of London, he is known almost entirely by the apocryphal story of Ms cat .A dramatic version of this story • icnt ad were ]icensed for the Presfe

In real life Dick Whittington was a "m^m* I**1'** c!lant who acquired considerable wealth and had the further good -fortune to marry the daughter t>i a wealthy knight. At his death he left large, charitable bequests, St. Bartholomew^ fij'PJtal, the Greyfriars Library, the Guildhall, and Newgate Prison ht ing among the institutions which benefited.

It is not generally \ iho^/fn that, bef AeS ? thlrio9 Lord Mayor of Lohdon, Whlttington was buried three •™M' s\£ grave during the reign of Edward VI. was desecrated by an audacious rector of Sfc ..Michael's who disinterred the body .in the hope of finding treasure buried with it. Be was not successful,, but before committing the coffin to the earth again he stripped v ■«.lt? ! Ead, w«PPinß—with "the re. suit that- m the following reign Whittmgton s remains had once more to be' disturbed.