Sir Thomas Whorwood (1544 – 2 November 1616) was a Staffordshire landowner, Member of the English Parliament and High Sheriff of Staffordshire. He became notorious for his involvement in election fraud.
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Background
The family's surname had originally been Horewood, but by this time normally spelt Whorwood, taking their name from a small manor in Horewood, later known as Compton Hallows in Kinver, but in 1387 as Haulowe, probably from its late 14th century owners or overlords. Whorwood was the first son of Edward Whorwood of Compton Hallows and of Dorothy Bassett, daughter of Thomas Bassett of Hints. He was the great nephew of the great lawyer Sir William Whorwood, half of whose property he inherited.
Landowner
Whorwood ultimately had several properties in Shropshire, Staffordshire and Worcestershire, in addition to his ancestral estate. Some of these were derived from Sir William Whorwood, whose elder daughter Anne Whorwood, Countess of Warwick had died in 1552. Her husband, Ambrose Dudley, had a life interest in her estates, but when he died in 1590, they passed to Thomas Whorwood. The other daughter Margaret married the recusant Thomas Throckmorton of Coughton, Warwickshire. Throckmorton's estates were frequently sequestrated because of his religious principles. In 1578 he and Whorwood partitioned William's inheritance. By this means Thomas Whorwood acquired the manors of Stourton and Kinver, Broome, Dunsley (in Kinver) and Tyrley on the Staffordshire-Shropshire border, but several of these were subject to the dower of William's widow Margaret Sheldon until her death in 1589.
Thus Whorwood became considerably richer when his inheritance from his great uncle came into possession in 1590. At that point he moved to Stourton Castle, where he built a new family home.
Political career
Whorwood was elected one of the two knights of the shire for Staffordshire in the Parliament of 1572. His colleague was John Fleetwood, a rich landowner who had made a fortune from the dissolution of the monasteries. The parliament technically lasted for almost twelve years, as the next was summoned in 1584. However, it actually met for only three widely spaced sessions. Whorwood's only known contribution came on 25 January 1572, when he spoke in favour of keeping the assizes at Stafford.
Now that he was better-known, and especially as he began to come into the property, Whorwood was appointed to public offices. About 1573 he was made a justice of the peace for Staffordshire. In 1574 he was pricked to become High Sheriff of Staffordshire, a post of honour, but also onerous and often expensive. However, Whorwood was known to be of very conservative religious views and was probably suspected of being a Catholic sympathiser. Certainly he had close Catholic connections within his family. His election in 1572, sharing the county with Fleetwood, known to be decidedly Protestant, may have been because of the backing of a conservative clique among the Staffordshire landed gentry. This faction, centred on the Harcourts of Ellenhall and Ranton Abbey and their kinsmen, the Astons and the Greys of Enville, Staffordshire had great influence in the county and, although slowly losing their grip, were still a force to be reckoned with. William Whorwood had married into the Grey family. The conservative group was described by Thomas Bentham, the radical Protestant Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, as "a knot hurtful to justice and great maintainers", i.e. magnates who had a large following whom they maintained through employment or tenancies. It was probably because of these associations that Whorwood lost his place on the commission of the peace in 1580 and for some years his public career was in eclipse.
In about 1590, Whorwood's daughter Elizabeth married John Sutton or Dudley, brother of Edward Sutton, 5th Baron Dudley. Apparently this was a runaway marriage. Sutton was the son and brother of peers, but the family was generally in debt. He was supposed to receive an annuity of £300 under the terms of his father's will, but his brother was unable to pay it. As a result, he was forced to live with the Whorwoods at Compton Hallows. A connection with the nobility, however impoverished, was still a social advantage to the Whorwoods. At about the same time as the marriage, the death of William Whorwood's son-in-law, Ambrose Dudley, brought Thomas into his greatest inheritance. In all his years in the shade, he was never actually accused of any disloyalty to the Crown or the Church of England. During the 1590s, his prestige began to rise again. From 1596 he was back on the commission of the peace for Staffordshire, and in the same year he was pricked Sheriff again.
Marriage and family
Thomas Whorwood married Magdalene Edwards, daughter of Rowland Edwards of London, no later than 1563. They had at least one daughter and one son:
Elizabeth Whorwood, who married John Dudley or Sutton, Baron Dudley's brother.
Gerard Whorwood (1565–1627), the heir to the estates.