19 Aug. he received Philip and Mary at their entry in state into the city. His mayoralty was marked by several sumptuary regulations, and by a proclamation (May 1554) against games, morris-dances, and interludes.
At the end of his year of office White devoted himself to acts of benevolence outside the city. His friend Sir Thomas Pope (1507?–1559) [q. v.] had recently founded a college (Trinity) in Oxford. White already held land in the neighbourhood of Oxford (Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, xv. 296), and the example of Pope turned his thoughts to the endowment of a college. He is said to have been directed by a dream to the site of the dissolved Cistercian house of St. Bernard outside the city walls (Taylor, manuscript History of College; Plot, Natural History of Oxfordshire, p. 169; Griffin Higgs's manuscript Nativitas, and Coates's Reading, p. 409). On 1 May 1555 he obtained the royal license to found a college for ‘the learning of the sciences of holy divinity, philosophy, and good arts,’ dedicated to the praise and honour of God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and St. John Baptist (the patron saint of the Merchant Taylors' Company). The society was to consist of a president and thirty graduate or non-graduate scholars (royal patent of foundation in college manuscripts). In 1557 the scope and numbers of the foundation were enlarged (5 March, 4 & 5 Philip and Mary; the statutes were further revised under Dr. Willis, cf. Taylor's manuscript History). The endowment of the college connected it closely with the neighbourhood of Oxford, but it was not a rich foundation. The statutes given were based on those of William of Wykeham for New College. Many letters among the college manuscripts show White's constant care of the college he had founded. In 1559 he purchased Gloucester Hall, Oxford, where he is said to have resided in his later years. He was frequently entertained at Trinity College (Warton, Life of Pope, p. 123 n.). Gloucester Hall he made into a hall for a hundred scholars. It was opened on St. John Baptist's day, 1560. Sir Thomas White's association with Cumnor is emphasised by the fact that in this hall the body of Amy Robsart lay before burial at St. Mary's. His interest in education was not confined to his own college. He took a considerable part in the foundation of the Merchant Taylors' school, for which Richard Hilles was mainly responsible. In 1560 he sent further directions and endowments to his college. But from 1562 he suffered severely from the falling-off in the cloth trade. He was unable to fulfil the obligation of his marriage contract. He was still able, however, to settle some considerable trusts on different towns, the London livery companies, and his own kindred. These arrangements were finally completed in his will, dated 8 and 24 Nov. 1566 (full detail in Clode, ii. 176–81). At the beginning of the next year (2 Feb. 1566–7) he made further statutes for his college, by which he ordered that forty-three scholars from the Merchant Taylor's school should be ‘assigned and named by continual succession’ to St. John's College by the master and wardens of the company and the president and two senior fellows of the college.
On 12 Jan. 1567 he had written a touching letter to his college, of which he desired that each of the fellows and scholars should have a copy, counselling brotherly love, in view doubtless of the religious differences which had already caused the cession of two, if not three, presidents.
Later letters concerned the jointure of his wife and the performance of choral service in the college chapel (for these see Clode, pt. ii. chap. xiv.). He died on 12 Feb. 1566–7 either in the college or at Gloucester Hall. He was buried in the college chapel. Edmund Campion [q. v.] delivered a funeral oration (college manuscripts).
White died a poor man. Much of what he had intended for his college never reached it, and the provisions of his will in regard both to his property and the college would have been still less fully carried out but for the astute management (‘partly by pious persuasions, and partly by judicious delays’) of his executor, Sir William Cordell [q. v.], master of the rolls (college manuscripts; and cf. Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547–80, p. 417; cf. art. Roper, William).
White was a man of sane judgment and genuine piety; he has rarely, if ever, been surpassed among merchants as a benefactor to education and to civic bodies.
There are several portraits of Sir Thomas White, but it is doubtful if any were painted from life. A large picture in the hall of St. John's College is similar to those belonging to the Merchant Taylors' Company, to Leicester (see Coates, Reading, p. 410), and to nearly all of the towns to which he left benefactions (cf. Hist. MSS. Comm. Reading, p. 206, Lincoln, p. 88). Smaller portraits are in the bursary and the president's lodging at St. John's College. From one of these there is a mezzotint by Faber. Tradition says that for the original picture Sir Thomas White's sister (whose portrait is in the president's lodgings at St. John's College) sat. An early portrait on glass is in the east window of the old library of St. John's College,
