WHITTINGTON, a parish in the hundred of SCARSDALE, county of DERBY, 2¼ miles (N.) from Chesterfield, containing 680 inhabitants. The living is a rectory, in the archdeaconry of Derby, and diocese of Lichfield and Coventry, rated in the king's books at £7. 10. 10., and in the patronage of the Dean of Lincoln. The church is dedicated to St. Bartholomew; the chancel was built in 1827. The manufacture of earthenware is here carried on. A free school was founded in 1674, by Peter Webster, who, in 1678, gave £200 to purchase lands for its endowment, and directed that twenty children should be taught; and Joshua Webster, in 1681, gave land in Whittington to be applied for teaching ten children; the annual income arising from these bequests is now about £32. 10., for which twenty boys and ten girls receive free instruction, and a small gratuity for shoes and books. A chalybeate spring here was formerly much resorted to, and, for the convenience of visitors, a cold bath was erected in 1769.

A public-house on Whittington moor is distinguished by the name of the Revolution House, from the adjournment to it of a select meeting of friends to liberty and the Protestant religion, held on the moor early in 1688, at which the Earl (afterwards Duke) of Devonshire, the Earl of Derby (afterwards Duke of Leeds), Lord Delamere, and Mr. John Darcy, eldest son of the Earl of Holderness, attended. When the centenary anniversary of that glorious event was commemorated in Derbyshire, in 1788, the committee dined on the preceding day at this house; and on the anniversary, a sermon was preached in the parish church by Dr. Pegge, the celebrated antiquary, then rector, before the descendants of these illustrious revolutionists, and a large assemblage of the most distinguished families of the county, who afterwards went in procession to take refreshment at the Revolution House, and then proceeded to Chesterfield to dinner. A subscription was then opened for erecting a column on Whittington moor, in memory of the Revolution, but the design was abandoned, in consequence, as it is supposed, of the revolution which so speedily followed in France. The Chesterfield races are held on this moor.