The youngest son of Edwin Whitman, a grocer, and his wife Fanny, he was born at Hammersmith on 12 October 1860, and was educated at St. Mark's College School, Chelsea.
On leaving school he was employed by the London firm of Henry Dawson & Sons, typo-etching company, of Farringdon Street and Chiswick, with whom he remained till he was appointed on 21 December 1885 an attendant in the department of prints and drawings in the British Museum.
[1] He was noted for his "admirable qualities of tact, courtesy, and authority with which he fulfilled the duties" of managing the Print Room.
Valentine Green, published in 1902 as part of a series "British Mezzotinters" to which other writers contributed under his direction, was followed by Samuel William Reynolds, published in 1903 as the first volume in a series of "Nineteenth Century Mezzotinters", with sequels Samuel Cousins (1904) and Charles Turner (1907).
[1] For some years Whitman served in his spare time as amanuensis to Lady Charlotte Schreiber and assisted her in the arrangement and cataloguing of her collections of fans and playing-cards.