Sir Herbert Whitfield

[2] The eldest son and heir of Sir Ralph Whitfield,[3] lawyer and landowner, and his wife Dorothy, daughter of the antiquary Sir John Spelman, he had a sister Dorothy and three younger brothers: Henry,[4] Ralph[3] and Roger.

[3] Following his father as a successful lawyer in London, he was knighted on 18 June 1641[3] at Whitehall Palace.

In 1648, a legacy of his father's work in Ireland resurfaced when the Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors attempted to obtain evidences of their landholdings in County Londonderry.

[6] After 1660, he sold his father's manor of Burmarsh in Kent,[7] but on 18 May 1675 was party to a deal over marshland at Barking in Essex.

[3] After his death, the family's original estate at Tenterden, which his great-grandfather had acquired, was sold.