Herbert Whiteley was the younger brother of a prominent Liberal politician who served as Chief Whip and became the 1st Baron Marchamley. He did not share his brother’s views and for eleven years between 1895 and 1906 held Ashton-under-Lyme for the Conservative party. Leaving his native Lancashire for Worcestershire, he was for many years the chairman of the Bewdley Unionist Association and briefly represented Droitwich from 1916 until the seat was abolished in 1918. Stanley Baldwin, who held the seat from 1908 until 1937, told the association “no one could have identified himself more closely and more affectionately with the county of his adoption and the knowledge and experience of public life in Lancashire which he had gained, the knowledge and experience of our more rural life were combined to make him a most admirable representative in Parliament for the mid division of our County. He did good service. He was a kind friend of mine when I was taking my first stroke.... in that strange and tumultuous sea which I entered now nearly thirty years ago.”
Born as Herbert James Whiteley on 8 December 1857, he was the younger son of George Whiteley of Blackburn, Lancashire. He became a member of Blackburn town council, and in 1892 was mayor of the borough.
In 1895 he married Florence Kate Huntington, eldest daughter of William Balle Huntington of Darwen. They had two sons, Lieutenant Commander Herbert Maurice Huntington-Whiteley and Pilot Officer Eric Arthur Huntington-Whiteley.
In 1895 he was elected member of parliament for Ashton under Lyne, and held the seat for eleven years until defeated in the Liberal landslide of 1906.
Whiteley moved to Thorngrove, near Worcester, and in 1913 served as High Sheriff of the county. In 1916 he was returned to the Commons in a by-election at Droitwich
In March 1918 Whiteley was granted a royal licence allowing him to add the surname and coat of arms of his late father in law to his own. In the same month he was created a baronet, "of Grimley in the County of Worcester". The Droitwich constituency was abolished by the Representation of the People Act 1918, and Huntington Whiteley retired from parliament. However, he was one of the British delegates to the 20th session of the Inter-parliamentary Conference at Vienna in August 1922
His eldest son, Herbert (1896-1975), who inherited the baronetcy, married Stanley Baldwin’s third daughter, Margot (1897-1976) on 2 April 1919. They had three sons, Herbert (1920-44). Hugo, the 3rd Baronet, was born in 1924 and John in 1929.
Huntington-Whiteley was the long-serving chairman of the Bewdley Unionist Association for many years, ensuring that it gave its full backing to Baldwin even at the height of disputes within the Conservative party about its Indian policy.
The first Baronet died at his Worcestershire home on 22 January 1936. A very brief obituary appeared in The Times on the 23rd and a memorial service was held at Grimley Church on 25 January 1936.