{{EngvarB|date=August 2017}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2017}} '''John Whishaw''' (1764 – 21 December 1840) was an English lawyer. He became a Commissioner of Audit, and a leader of Whig society, known as "the Pope of Holland House".<ref>{{cite book|author=Jefferson P. Selth|title=Firm Heart and Capacious Mind: The Life and Friends of Etienne Dumont|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c4Ztr1UErZIC&pg=PA150|accessdate=2013-06-14|date=1 January 1997|publisher=University Press of America|isbn=978-0-7618-0720-9|page=150}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=David Ricardo|title=The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo: Volume 6, Letters 1810–15|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QPl_4MJy2s0C&pg=PA66|accessdate=2013-06-14|date=1 January 1952|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-06071-4|page=66 note 5}}</ref>
==Life== He was son of Hugh Whishaw of Macclesfield. Educated at Macclesfield Grammar School, he matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1783, graduating B.A. in 1788 and M.A. in 1792.<ref>{{acad|id=WHSW783J|name=Whishaw, John}}</ref> While a student he lost a leg, disqualifying him for an intended career in the Church of England. In 1789 he entered Gray's Inn; in 1794 he moved to Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the bar. He became an equity draughtsman,<ref>{{cite book|author=Patricia James|title=Population Malthus: His Life and Times|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q32qOWG6zosC|year=1979|publisher=Routledge & Kegan Paul|isbn=978-0-415-38113-0|page=26}}</ref><ref>{{acad|WHSW783J|Whishaw, John}}</ref><ref name="GM">{{cite book|author1=Edward Cave|author2=John Nichols|title=The Gentleman's Magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8u4IAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA206|accessdate=2013-06-14|year=1841|publisher=Edw. Cave, 1736-[1868]|pages=206–8}}</ref> living on New Square, and in time next to Francis Horner, whom he met in 1802 through James Abercromby.<ref>{{cite book|author=Francis Horner|title=Memoirs and correspondence, ed. by L. Horner|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_vkDAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA224|accessdate=2013-06-15|year=1843|page=224 note}}</ref><ref>James, p. 113 and p. 145.</ref> [[File:Holland House John Buckler 1812.jpg|thumb|Holland House, 1812, John Buckler]] By 1799, shortly after it was founded, Whishaw belonged to the King of Clubs, the Whig social nexus set up by Bobus Smith. He became close to the Fox family of Holland House.<ref>James, p. 83.</ref> Described as "ponderous" and "inscrutable",<ref>{{cite book|author=Jefferson P. Selth|title=Firm Heart and Capacious Mind: The Life and Friends of Etienne Dumont|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c4Ztr1UErZIC&pg=PA150|accessdate=2013-06-15|date=1 January 1997|publisher=University Press of America|isbn=978-0-7618-0720-9|page=150}}</ref> he was a pundit on behalf of the "Holland House set",<ref>{{cite book|author=Arthur Aspinall|title=Lord Brougham and the Whig Party|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=72a7AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA78|accessdate=2013-06-15|year=1939|publisher=Manchester University Press|page=78|id=GGKEY:XHEEZA19KQ5}}</ref> even "dictator of Holland House opinions",<ref name="Switzerland)1967">{{cite book|author=Benjamin Constant (Writer, France, Switzerland)|title=Benjamin Constant|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sGb6D9tFuPMC&pg=PA307|accessdate=2013-06-15|year=1967|publisher=Ardent Media|page=307|id=GGKEY:9PSAEHUTXJS}}</ref> and so acquired his nickname. Thomas Creevey, who counted Whishaw as a close friend, wrote in 1809 that he practically lived at Holland House.<ref>{{cite book|author=Thomas Creevey|title=The Creevey Papers: A Selection from the Correspondence and Diaries of the Late Thomas Creevey, M.P.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y_Aph6_LxDwC&pg=PA111|accessdate=2013-06-15|date=23 February 2012|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-108-04496-7|page=111}}</ref> John Sterling called him a "damned old humbug".<ref>{{cite book|author=Thomas Carlyle|title=Reminiscences|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Fv0KEfhjNlIC&pg=PA53|accessdate=2013-06-15|date=8 March 2012|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-108-04479-0|page=53}}</ref> Around 1830 Anna Letitia Le Breton described the short, stout Whishaw, with cork leg, as "very lame, and with rather a surly manner".<ref>James, p. 424.</ref>
Whishaw obtained his post as Commissioner of Audit in 1806, though Lord Henry Petty.<ref>James, p. 141.</ref> When Jeremy Bentham was in dispute with the government over his ''Panopticon'', he choose Whishaw as his arbitrator. With John Hullock, Whishaw came to a decision on an award on 9 July 1813.<ref>{{cite book|author=Sir John Bowring|author-link=Sir John Bowring|title=The Works of Jeremy Bentham|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yNUQAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA164|accessdate=2013-06-14|year=1843|publisher=W. Tait|page=164}}</ref> He was executor to Sir Samuel Romilly, and acted as guardian to his children.<ref>{{cite book|author=Alexander Bain (philosopher)|author-link=Alexander Bain (philosopher)|title=James Mill: A Biography|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lfb2I7_BdgUC&pg=PA75|accessdate=2013-06-15|date=8 December 2011|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-108-04080-8|page=75 note}}</ref>
Whishaw was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.<ref name="GM"/> He was a member of the Geological Society.<ref>{{cite book|author=David Ricardo|title=The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo: Volume 10, Biographical Miscellany|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q9TQouDRuKAC&pg=PA49|accessdate=2013-06-15|date=1 January 1955|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-06075-2|pages=49–50}}</ref> At the end of 1825 he was on the first council of London University.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Alon Kadish|author2=Keith Tribe|title=The Market for Political Economy: The Advent of Economics in British University Culture, 1850–1905|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IgKq1CJRHpEC&pg=PA22|accessdate=2013-06-15|date=26 September 2002|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-0-203-40617-5|page=22 note 25}}</ref>
==Works== Whishaw was secretary of the African Institution, and the biographer of Mungo Park.<ref>[http://lordbyron.cath.lib.vt.edu/contents.php?doc=JoWhish.1906.Contents Lord Byron and His Times, ''John Whishaw: The "Pope" of Holland House''.]</ref> In fact Whishaw in 1815 was assuming editorial control of papers of Park, who died in 1806, to produce ''Journal of a Mission to the Interior of Africa'' (1815), bringing in James Rennell to amend the geographical content, and distancing Park from the African Association.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Miles Ogborn|author2=Charles W. J. Withers|title=Geographies of the Book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-iHxoXaNlD4C&pg=PA216|accessdate=2013-06-15|date=28 November 2012|publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.|isbn=978-1-4094-8854-5|page=216}}</ref>
Whishaw wrote little else under his own name. He was said to have helped with the ''Thoughts on the Restriction of Payments in Specie'' (1803) of Peter King, 7th Baron King.<ref>{{cite book|author=David Ricardo|title=The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo: Volume 7, Letters 1816–18|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6HwKlkNRk7MC&pg=PA250|accessdate=2013-06-15|date=1 January 1952|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-06072-1|page=250 note 3}}</ref> He published an anonymous memoir of Smithson Tennant in 1815.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Samuel Halkett|author-link=Samuel Halkett|author2=John Laing|author2-link=John Laing (bibliographer)|author3=James Kennedy|title=Dictionary of Anonymous and Pseudonymous English Literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RIxWsNsSg8gC&pg=PA303|accessdate=2013-06-15|year=1926|publisher=Ardent Media|pages=303–|id=GGKEY:0HXUCXC4634}}</ref> ''The Pope of Holland House: Selections from the Correspondence of John Whishaw and His Friends 1813–1840'' was published in 1906, edited by Lady Seymour.
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * {{Gutenberg author |id=2886| name=John Whishaw}} * {{Internet Archive author |sname=John Whishaw}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Whishaw, John}} Category:1764 births Category:1840 deaths Category:English barristers Category:English biographers Category:Fellows of the Royal Society Category:Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London Category:Civil servants in the Audit Office (United Kingdom) Category:Members of Gray's Inn Category:Committee members of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge