William Whitehead
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- Born:
- Feb. 12, 1715, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, Eng.
- Died:
- April 14, 1785, London
- Title / Office:
- poet laureate (1757-1785)
William Whitehead (born Feb. 12, 1715, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, Eng.—died April 14, 1785, London) was a British poet laureate from 1757 to 1785.
Whitehead was educated at Winchester College and Clare Hall, Cambridge, becoming a fellow in 1740. At Cambridge he published a number of poems, including a heroic epistle Ann Boleyn to Henry the Eighth (1743), and in 1745 he became tutor to Viscount Villiers, son of the earl of Jersey, taking up residence in London. In 1757, upon the death of Colley Cibber, he was appointed poet laureate and proceeded to write annual effusions in the royal honour. That he was not altogether happy in his position appears from “A Pathetic Apology for All Laureates, Past, Present and to Come,” privately circulated among his friends.
After the success of his best play, The School for Lovers (1762), he read plays for the producer David Garrick. His collected Plays and Poems appeared in 1774.
