 Both of his parents died during his infancy and he and his elder brother Stephen were raised by their grandparents, Theodore and Eliza Baxter, members of the North London branch of the Sandemanian church.After brief spells in New York City and Paris in the 1890s, Whitelaw returned to London to work for various Fleet Street newspapers as an illustrator and journalist, later becoming editor of The London Magazine and The Premier Magazine.The Premier Magazine, published by the Amalgamated Press, (based at Fleetway House in Farringdon, London) ran between 1914 and 1931 and published atmospheric adventure and mystery fiction including authors such as Edgar Wallace, Sax Rohmer, Rose Champion de Crespigny and Achmed Abdullah.