Kelly's Directory 1876
WHITTINGTON is a parish and compact and well built village, pleasantly situated 3 miles east from Lichfield, 4 north-west from Tamworth, 109½ from London, 20 from Stafford, and 33 from Stoke, in the Eastern division of the county, North Offlow hundred, Lichfield union and county court district, rural deanery of Lichfield, archdeaconry of Stafford, and diocese of Lichfield. The church of St Matthew is a brick building: it has chancel, nave, aisles and  square stone tower and lofty spire; the latter are of more ancient erection. The register dates from the year 1575. The living is a vicarage, yearly value about £251, in the gift of Theophilus John Levett esq., and held by the Rev. Joseph Taylor, M.A. of Trinity College Cambridge.  There is a Free school for boys, with endowments, founded by Mrs Sarah Neal in 1741, and a legacy of £288 15s. 9d., left by the late Rev. Richard Levett in 1800, invested in £3 per Cent. Consols, producing £8 13s 2d.  A handsome building for a girls’ and infants’ school was erected by Lieut.-Col. Dyott in 1864. There is a small Congregational chapel here. The general charities amount to £7 yearly.  The heath consisting of 338 acres, on the south-east side of the village, is an open sheep-walk, where the Lichfield races are held.  Whittington Hall, the residence of Henry Fisher, esq., is a large ancient brick mansion, and is said to be about 900 years old; it has stone mullioned windows, which were added about the Elizabethan period: nearly all the rooms are wainscoted, and some of the walls are perforated for small arms: the front of the house is covered with ivy. The Marquess of Anglesey is lord of the manor. The principal landowners are T. J. Levett esq., Sir Robert Peel, bart. M.P., Lieut.-Col. Dyott and Ralph Wood, esq. The soil is various, sand and clay: subsoil, rock and clay. The chief crops are wheat, barley and turnips. The area is 2,921 acres; rateable value £6,848 ; and the population, including Huddlesford, in 1871 was 869.

HUDDLESFORD, a hamlet, 1½ miles north from the village, is in this parish.

HURST is a hamlet, 1½ miles north-north-east.

TAMHORN, 2 miles south-east, formerly extra-parochial, is now a parish in the Lichfield union and belongs to Sir R. Peel bart. M.P.  The area is 770 acres; rateable value, £1690; gross estimated rental, £1,844; the population in 1871 was 31.

WILLIFORD is 2 miles north.

Parish Clerk, Joseph Elson

POST & MONEY ORDER OFFICE & Savings Bank. - John Elson, postmaster. Letters arrive by foot post from Lichfield at 7.45 a.m.; dispatched at 6.30 p.m. : on Sunday at 9.25 a.m. WALL BOX, Huddlesford, cleared at 4.55 p.m.

SCHOOLS:-
Free, William Ward, master
National, Miss Elizabeth King, mistress; Miss Caroline Meacham, infants’ mistress