James Whitelocke

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Sir James Whitelocke (November 28, 1570 – June 22, 1632), English judge, was the son of Richard Whitelocke, a London merchant.

Educated at Merchant Taylors' School, London, and at St John's College, Oxford, he became a fellow of his college and a barrister. He was then engaged in managing the estates belonging to St John's College, Eton College and Westminster College, before he became recorder of Woodstock and member of parliament for the borough in 1610.

In 1620, Whitelocke was made chief justice of the court of session of the county palatine of Chester, and was knighted; in 1624 he was appointed justice of the court of king's bench. He died at Fawley Court, near Henley-on-Thames, an estate which he had bought in 1616, on 22 June 1632. His wife, Elizabeth, was a daughter of Edward Bulstrode of Hedgerley Bulstrode, Buckinghamshire, and his son was the parliamentarian Sir Bulstrode Whitelocke.

Sir James was greatly interested in antiquarian studies, and was the author of several papers which are printed in T. Hearne's Collection of Discourses (1771); his journal, or Liber famelicus, was edited by John Bruce and published by the Camden Society in 1858.

His elder brother Edmund was implicated in the Gunpowder Plot.

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.