Whitaker was born in Herne Bay, Kent, the seventh child of Edward Whitaker (born 1802), a solicitor originally from Bratton, Wiltshire and previously and later of London and Middlesex, and his wife Emily Ann Woolbert (died before 1851).
Whitaker was born in Herne Bay, Kent, the seventh child of Edward Whitaker, a solicitor who hailed from Bratton, Wiltshire. His parents were originally from London and Middlesex, with Edward being born in 1802. Emily Ann Woolbert, his mother, passed away before 1851.