Whitefield was born at the Bell Inn, Southgate Street, Gloucester in England. Whitefield was the fifth son (seventh child) of Thomas Whitefield and Elizabeth Edwards who kept an inn at Gloucester. At an early age, he found that he had a passion and talent for acting in the theatre, a passion that he would carry on with the very theatrical re-enactments of Bible stories he told during his sermons. He was educated at the Crypt School, Gloucester, and Pembroke College, Oxford.[2]
Because business at the inn had become poor, Whitefield did not have the means to pay for his tuition.[3] He therefore entered Oxford as a servitor, the lowest rank of students at Oxford. In return for free tuition, he was assigned as a minister to a number of higher ranked students. His duties included teaching them in the morning, helping them bathe, taking out their garbage, carrying their books and even assisting with required written assignments.[3] He was a part of the "Holy Club" at the University of Oxford with the Wesley brothers, John and Charles. An illness, as well as Henry Scougal's The Life of God in the Soul of Man, influenced him to cry out to God for salvation. Following a religious conversion, he became very passionate for preaching his new-found faith. The Bishop of Gloucester ordained him a deacon.