ABSTRACT
Charles Whitworth was born in 1675 in Blowerpipe, Staffordshire and baptized in Wilmslow parish church, Cheshire, on 14 October 1675. The origins of the Whitworth family were investigated in the late eighteenth century by the great-nephew of Whitworth for the purpose of establishing the family pedigree. Whitworth was the eldest in the family but the estate was not large or prosperous enough to make a career as a country squire either attractive or practical. Whitworth was educated at Westminster School where he became a King’s scholar in 1690. Whitworth’s schooldays followed a demanding and regular pattern, which may have prepared him for the undoubted physical rigours of his diplomatic career. Whitworth attempted at various points in his career to acquire other positions while at the same time retaining his diplomatic post. Whitworth married Magdalena Jacoba, Countess de Vaulgremont, daughter of Albert Henri De Sallengre de Grifoort, the Receiver-General of Walloon Flanders, in 1720 but the couple were childless.
