After his marriage to writer Elizabeth Whately in 1821, Whately lived in Oxford. He had had to give up his college fellowship, which could not be held by married men, and at this period lived by tutoring and his pen. An uncle, William Plumer, presented him with a living, Halesworth in Suffolk; in August 1822 Whately moved there. Two of his daughters were writer Jane Whately and missionary Mary Louisa Whately. In 1825, he was appointed principal of St. Alban Hall, a position obtained for him by his mentor Edward Copleston, who wanted to raise the notoriously low academic standards at the Hall, which was also a target for expansion by Oriel. Whately returned to Oxford, though giving up only in 1831 the Suffolk living, where he had seen the social effects of unemployment.