Whittaker was born in Newcastle, the son of a railway clerk, and studied science at Armstrong College, then part of Durham University. He later turned to music and joined the staff of the College in 1898. Whittaker devoted himself in particular to choral conducting and achieved fine results, especially with the Newcastle Bach Choir, a body which he founded in 1915 with a view to rendering Bach's cantatas in near-original form. This was rather a daring venture during World War I, when there was a widespread feeling that 'everything belonging to the Hun should be boycotted'. Whittaker made his choir into one of the best in Europe, and it received high praise from composers such as Holst, after he had conducted his 'Hymn of Jesus' in Newcastle in 1921, and Vaughan Williams after he had conducted his Mass in G Major in St Nicholas Cathedral in 1923.
The following year Canon Edmund Fellowes, the leading authority on Elizabethan vocal music found a previously unknown work by William Byrd (1543-1623) in Durham cathedral Library. This turned out to be his 'Great Service'. Fellowes chose the Newcastle Bach Choir to perform the long-lost work and on 31 May 1924, it was heard again in St Nicholas Cathedral, for the first time in 300 years. Further performances were given in London. In Frankfurt, the great Furtwängler told the singers: 'You should tour the country and teach the Germans how to sing!' However, his great friend Holst always said Whittaker was not appreciated enough in Newcastle, and there was no prospect of promotion there, so in 1929 the 'human volcano' took himself off to become Professor of Music at Glasgow. He eventually died in Orkney.
Whittaker was an assiduous collector and arranger of Northumberland folk music, and his own compositions include a piano quintet with the title 'Among the Northumbrian Hills'. When the collecting of English folk songs began in earnest at the beginning of the century, attention was concentrated on the southern counties and the west country. Whittaker's work came at just the right moment. He cycled to the far recesses of the region with his capacious pockets filled with manuscript paper to set down whatever he could hear.
Earlier compilers like Joseph Ritson and William Shield (q.v.) were useful to him, but his North Country Folk Tunes (1915) and North Countrie Ballads, Songs and Dances (1921) had the authenticity of the genuine field researcher. His arrangements became known everywhere. Holst complained that he found it hard to teach his London singers the right Geordie accents! Whittaker used to joke that the Northumbrian pipes allowed the player to smoke while he performed. On one occasion Whittaker took a German visitor to hear Ernest J. Potts play. The visitor exclaimed: 'Are you telling me that peasants in your district sing these songs? If so, the English must be the most musical race in the world!' Whittaker replied: 'Who told you they aren't?'