WHITE, RICHARD GRANT (1822–1885), American Shakespearean scholar, philologist and essayist, was born in New York city, on the 23rd of May 1822. He graduated at the university of the City of New York in 1839, studied medicine and then law, and was admitted to the bar in 1845, but made no serious attempts to practise. He contributed (anonymously) musical criticisms to the New York Courier and Enquirer, of which he was co-editor in 1851–1858, and became a member of the staff of the New York World, when that paper was established in 1860. In 1861–1878 he was chief of the United States Revenue Marine Bureau, for the district of New York. When he was 21 years old he wrote his sonnet, “Washington: Pater Patriae,” which, published anonymously, was frequently ascribed to Wordsworth, and by William Cullen Bryant was ascribed to Landor; White did not admit his authorship until 1852. In 1853 he contributed anonymously to Putnam's Magazine (October and November), an acute and destructive criticism of Collier's folio manuscript emendations of Shakespeare;[1] and in the following year this criticism was republished (with other matter) in his Shakespeare's Scholar: being Historical and Critical Studies of his Text, Characters, and Commentators; with an Examination of Mr Collier's Folio of 1623. During the Civil War he contributed to the Spectator, under the pseudonym, “A Yankee,” a series of articles which greatly influenced English public opinion in favour of the North, while his clever and pungent satire, The New Gospel of Peace; according to St Benjamin, in four books (1863–1866)—also published anonymously—was an effective attack upon “copper-headism” and the advocates of “peace at any price.” He died in New York on the 8th of April 1885.
In addition to those mentioned above, his Shakespearean publications include, Essay on the Authorship of the Three Parts of King Henry VI. (1859), Memoirs of the Life of William Shakespeare, with an Essay towards the Expression of his Genius, and an account of the Rise and Progress of the English Drama to the Time of Shakespeare (1865); an annotated edition of Shakespeare's works in 3 vols. (1883), and Studies in Shakespeare (1885), pleading for a rational treatment of the plays without over-annotation, textual or aesthetic. On linguistic subjects he wrote Words and their Uses, Past and Present (1870), and a sequel, Every Day English (1880), which without linguistic thoroughness, stimulated interest in the general subject of good use in language. His other publications include National Hymns: How they are Written and How they are not Written (1861), containing some of the best and worst of 1200 hymns submitted to a committee (of which White was a member) in a competition for a prize offered for a national hymn; Poetry, Lyrical, Narrative and Satirical, of the Civil War (1866); The Fall of Man, or, The Loves of the Gorillas, By a Learned Gorilla (1871); Chronicles of Gotham. By U. Donough Outis (1871); The American View of the Copyright Question (1880), England Without and Within (1881), and The Fate of Mansfield Humphreys (1884), a novel. For estimates of White's critical writing see the review of Shakespeare’s Scholar in the Eclectic Magazine, vol. xxxiv. (1855); and the articles in the Atlantic Monthly, vol. xlix. (1882) by E. P. Whipple, and vol. lvii. (1886).
His son, Stanford White (1853–1906), the famous architect, studied under Henry H. Richardson, whom he assisted in the designing of Trinity Church, Boston, and became a member of the New York firm of McKim, Mead & White in 1881. He designed the Madison Square Garden, the Century and Metropolitan Clubs in New York City, the buildings of the New York University and the University of Virginia, and the pedestals for several of the statues by Augustus St Gaudens. He was murdered by Harry Thaw in 1906.
WHITE, ROBERT (1645–1704), English engraver and draughtsman, was born in London in 1645. He studied engraving under David Loggan, for whom he executed many architectural projects; his early works also include landscapes and engraved title-pages for books. He acquired great skill in portraiture, his works of this class being commonly drawn with black-lead pencil upon vellum, and afterwards excellently engraved in line. Portraits executed in this manner he marked ad vivum, and they are prized by collectors for their artistic merit and their authenticity. catalogued 275 portrait engravings by White, including the likenesses of many of the most celebrated personages of his day; and nine portraits engraved in mezzotint are assigned to him by J. Chaloner Smith. White died at Bloomsbury, London, in 1704. His son, George White, who was born about 1671 and died about 1734, is also known as as an engraver and portrait-painter.
WHITE, SIR THOMAS (1492–1567), founder of St John's College, Oxford, was a son of William White, a clothier, and was born at Reading. At an early age he became a merchant in London and was soon a member, and then master of the Merchant Taylors Company; growing wealthier he became an alderman and sheriff of the city of London. One of the promoters of the Muscovy Company, he was knighted in 1553, and in October of the same year he was chosen lord mayor. His term of office fell in a strenuous time. He had to defend the city against Sir Thomas Wyat and his followers, and he took part in the trial of the rebels, as just previously he had done in the case of Lady Jane Grey. In 1555 White received a licence to found a college at Oxford, which he endowed with lands in the neighbourhood of the city and which, dedicated to the Virgin Mary and St John Baptist, was opened in 1560. Soon after this event Sir Thomas began to lose money, and he was comparatively poor when he died at Oxford on the 12th of February 1567. His later years were mainly spent in Oxford, and he was buried in the chapel of St John's College. White had some share in founding the Merchant Taylors' School in London. He was twice married, but left no children. A portrait of him hangs in the hall of St John's College and one on glass, painted in the 16th century, is in the old library. Several early lives of him are among the college manuscripts. Sir Thomas must be distinguished from another Sir Thomas White of South Wamborough, Hampshire, some of whose property, by a curious coincidence, passed also into the possession of St John's College.
WHITE, THOMAS (c. 1550–1624), English divine, was born at Bristol about 1550, the son of a clothier. He graduated from Magdalen Hall (now Hertford College), Oxford, in 1570; took holy orders, and, coming to London, became rector of St Gregory by St Paul's and shortly after vicar of St Dunstan's in the West. Several of his sermons, attacking play-going and the vices of the metropolis, were printed. He was made a prebendary of St Paul's, treasurer of Salisbury, canon of Christ Church, Oxford, and canon of Windsor. In 1613 he built and endowed an almshouse, called the Temple Hospital, in Bristol. In 1621 he founded what is now known as White's chair of moral philosophy at Oxford, with a salary of £100 per annum for the reader, and several small exhibitions for scholars of Magdalen Hall. He died on the 1st of March 1624, bequeathing £3000 for the establishment of a college of “all the ministers, parsons, vicars, lecturers and curates in London and its suburbs” (afterwards Sion College (q.v.)), and an almshouse, now abolished; and leaving bequests for lectureships at St Paul's, St Dunstan's and at Newgate.
WHITE, THOMAS (1628–1698), bishop of Peterborough, was born at Aldington in Kent, and educated at St John's College, Cambridge. Having taken holy orders, he became vicar of Newark-on-Trent in 1660, vicar of Allhallows the Great, London, in 1666, and vicar of Bottesford, Leicestershire, in 1679. In 1683 he was appointed chaplain to the princess Anne, and in 1685 he was chosen bishop of Peterborough. In 1688 he joined the archbishop of Canterbury, William Sancroft, and five of his suffragan bishops in petitioning against the declaration of indulgence issued by James II., sharing the trial and the triumphant acquittal of his colleagues. In 1689 he refused to take the oath of allegiance to William and Mary and was deprived of his see, but he did not become very active among the nonjurors. White died on the 30th of May 1698.
The bishop must be distinguished not only from the founder of Sion College, but also from Thomas White (1593–1676), philosopher and controversialist. Educated at St Omer, Valladolid and Douai, the latter was ordained priest in 1617, and taught for some years in the college at Douai. Later he was president of the English college at Lisbon. He died in London on the 6th
- ↑ J. Paine Collier, Notes and Emendations to the Text of Shakespeare's Plays from Early MS. Corrections in a Copy of the Folio 1632 (London, 1853).
