Though he never formally studied at a music school and was largely self-taught, several of his compositions had already been performed by major orchestras and soloists by his twenties.
Other of his works had already been performed with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra by conductors Basil Cameron, Meredith Davies, Sir Eugene Goossens, Willem van Otterloo, and Sir Malcolm Sargent, and by oboist Janet Craxton, clarinettist Jack Brymer, and horn player Dennis Brain.
[1] In 1959, the premiere of his first clarinet concerto was performed by Raymond Carpenter and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Charles Groves; this he considered his first mature work.
Regarded as "a natural symphonist" by the Sunday Times,[2] the dozen symphonies he composed between his mid-twenties and death form the core of Whettam's output.
[citation needed] In 1994 Whettam moved with his wife Janet to Woolaston in Gloucestershire where he continued to compose and where he died on 17 August 2007, aged 79.