stry’ (see Poole, Matthew; Autobiogr. of Matthew Robinson, ed. Mayor, p. 193).
At the Restoration Whichcote shared the fate of the other heads of colleges who had been installed under puritan influences, and was ejected, not without resistance on his part, from his provostship, his successor being James Fleetwood [q. v.] of Edgehill celebrity. According to a letter written by Whichcote himself to Lauderdale, one of the objections urged against him had been that he had never been a fellow of the society (Dawson Turner MS. No. 648). Among those whom he befriended about the time of this crisis was Samuel Hartlib [q. v.], with whom he frequently corresponded (Worthington, Diary, Chetham Soc., vols. i. ii. passim). His compliance with the Act of Uniformity restored him to court favour, and in November 1662 he was appointed to the cure of St. Anne's, Blackfriars. When the church was burnt down in the Great Fire he retired to his living at Milton, and continued to reside there for some years; he ‘preached constantly, relieved the poor, had their children taught to reade at his own charge, and made up differences among the neighbours’ (Tillotson, Sermon, p. 24). In 1668 his friend Dr. John Wilkins [q. v.] was appointed to the bishopric of Chester, thereby vacating the vicarage of St. Lawrence Jewry, to which, by his interest, Whichcote was now appointed. The church, however, had to be rebuilt, and during the work, which occupied some seven years, he preached regularly before the corporation at Guildhall Chapel. In a letter written to Sancroft on 24 Dec. 1670 he gives an account of his services both to literature and to the church. In 1674, along with Tillotson and Stillingfleet, he co-operated with certain nonconformists in furthering Thomas Gouge's efforts to extend education in Wales.
In 1683 Whichcote was at Cambridge on a visit to Cudworth at Christ's College, when he took cold and eventually died. He was interred in St. Lawrence Church, where his funeral sermon was preached by Tillotson on 24 May. His epitaph is printed in Strype's ‘Stow’ (iii. 47–8). There are portraits of him in the provost's lodge at King's College and in the gallery and hall of Emmanuel, the last being noted by Dr. Westcott as especially ‘characteristic.’ He was a benefactor to the university library and also to King's and Emmanuel, at which last society he had founded, before his death, scholarships to the value of 1,000l., ‘bearing the name of William Larkin, who, making him his executor, entrusted him with the said summe to dispose of to pious uses at his own discretion’ (Baker MS. B 89).
Whichcote left no children; his executors were his two nephews, the sons of Sir Jeremy Whichcote of the Inner Temple and deputy lieutenant of Middlesex. His sister Anne married Thomas Hayes, and was the mother of Philemon Hayes, minister of Childs Ercall (Owen and Blakeway, Hist. of Shrewsbury, i. 408 n. 7).
An able estimate of his merits as a divine, from the pen of Dr. Westcott, will be found in ‘Masters of Theology,’ ed. Barry, London, 1877.
Whichcote's works (all published posthumously) are: 1. ‘Theophoroumena Dogmata; or, some Select Notions of that Learned and Reverend Divine of the Church of England, Benj. Whichcote, D.D. Faithfully collected from him by a Pupil and particular Friend of his,’ London, 1685. 2. ‘A Treatise of Devotion, with Morning and Evening Prayer for all the Days of the Week,’ 1697 (attributed to him, but no copy is known to exist). 3. ‘Select Sermons,’ with a preface by the third Earl of Shaftesbury, author of the ‘Characteristics,’ 1698; reprinted at Edinburgh in 1742 by Principal Wishart. 4. ‘Several Discourses [ten in number], examined and corrected by his own Notes, and published by John Jeffery, D.D., archdeacon of Norwich,’ London, 1701. 5. ‘The True Notion of Place in the Kingdom or Church of Christ, stated by the late Dr. Whitchcot in a Sermon [on James iii. 18] preach'd by him on the malignity of Popery. Examined and corrected by J. Jeffery,’ London, 1717. 6. ‘The Works of the learned Benjamin Whichcote, D.D., rector of St. Lawrence Jewry, London,’ 4 vols.; Aberdeen, 1751 (contains only the discourses). 7. ‘Moral and Religious Aphorisms: collected from the manuscript Papers of the Reverend and Learned Doctor Whichcote, and published in MDCCIII by Dr. Jeffery. Now republished, with very large additions from the Transcripts of the latter, by Samuel Salter, D.D. … to which are added Eight Letters, which passed between Dr. Whichcote, provost of King's College, and Dr. Tuckney, master of Emmanuel College,’ London, 1753.
[Preface to the Eight Letters by Salter, pp. xvi–xxviii; Tillotson's Sermon preached at the Funeral of the Reverend Benjamin Whichcot (with portrait), London, 1683; Tulloch's Rational Theology in England in the Seventeenth Century, ii. 2; unpublished notes by Professor J. E. B. Mayor in his Cambridge in the Reign of Queen Anne, pp. 297–306; information kindly afforded by the master of Emmanuel College.]
