Whitaker was the author of The History of Manchester, 2 vols (1771-5). He spent some time in London where he knew Dr Johnson and Edward Gibbon. he was a fierce
Anglican and wrote a number of anti-revultionary texts in the 1790s and a large number of reviews for the Anti-Jacobin Review, the British Critic,
and the English Review.
Later references to Whitaker are to George Byrom Whitaker. This entry
refers to Godwin's note on 16 November 1808: 'Whitaker dies this week'. The date of death is
approximately two weeks late in Godwin’s account, but the entry already betrays some
uncertainty about when the death occured, and the disparity is
insufficient to counsel against the identitfication. Godwin would certainly have been aware of Whitaker's fervent anti-radicalism.
