WHITE, THOMAS (1830–1888), Canadian politician, born in Montreal on 7 Aug. 1830, was son of Thomas White, who emigrated from co. Westmeath in 1826, and carried on business as a leather merchant in Montreal. On his maternal side he belonged to an Edinburgh family. He was educated at the High School, Montreal, and began life in a merchant's office, but soon turned his attention to journalism. A paper read by him at a discussion class introduced him to the editor of the ‘Quebec Gazette.’ In 1853 he founded the ‘Peterborough Review,’ and conducted it until 1860, when he temporarily left journalism to study law as a preparation for public life. At the end of four years he returned to journalism, and, in partnership with his brother, founded the ‘Hamilton Spectator.’ His last journalist connection was made on his return from England in 1870, when he assumed control of the ‘Montreal Gazette.’ This lasted for fifteen years.
His first public work was as a member of the school boards of Peterborough and Hamilton, Ontario; and he was for some time reeve of Peterborough. In 1867 he made an unsuccessful attempt to enter the Ontario provincial parliament, and in 1874, 1875, and 1876 he made three fruitless efforts to be returned to the Dominion House of Commons. In 1878 the constituency of Cardwell elected him, and he represented it for the rest of his life.
His special interests were commercial, but the work with which his name will be permanently connected in Canadian politics is the opening up of northern and western Ontario and the prairie beyond to emigrants. He was sent to Britain in 1869 as the first emigration agent, and from his mission dates the diversion to Ontario of the stream of emigration which till then flowed from Canada westwards over the borders of the United States. In furtherance of his emigration schemes he was one of the pioneers of Canadian railways, and as minister of the interior, an appointment he received in 1885, he was responsible for the political reorganisation of the centre of the country after the second Riel rebellion. He died at Ottawa on 21 April 1888. Both Canadian houses adjourned out of respect for his memory.
[Canadian Parliamentary Companion, 1887; Montreal Gazette, 23 April 1888.]
WHITE, WALTER (1811–1893), miscellaneous writer, born on 23 April 1811 at Reading in Berkshire, was the eldest son of John White, an upholsterer and cabinet-maker of that town. He was educated at two local private schools, one of which was kept by Joseph Huntley, the father of the founder of Huntley & Palmer's well-known biscuit manufactory.
At the age of fourteen Walter left school and began to learn his father's trade, spending much of his leisure in reading and in the study of French and German. He continued cabinet-making at Reading until 1834. On 19 April of that year he sailed for the United States of America with his wife and children, in the hope of earning more money. He worked at his trade in New York and Poughkeepsie, but without improving his circumstances. He has given a detailed and pathetic account of his experiences as an emigrant in an anonymous article entitled ‘A Working Man's Recollections of America’ (Knight's Penny Magazine, 1846, i. 97). Finally, on 20 May 1839, he returned with his family to the old world, where he rejoined his father's business. In October 1842 he went to London, and, the cabinet-making trade being still in a depressed condition, he accepted a situation as clerk to Joseph Mainzer [q. v.], author of ‘Singing for the Million.’ In the following year he accompanied him to Edinburgh, where Mainzer was candidate for the chair of music. While at Edinburgh White attended some lectures to the working classes by James Simpson (1781–1853) [q. v.] Simpson introduced him to Charles Richard Weld [q. v.], then assistant secretary to the Royal Society, who offered him the post of ‘attendant’ in the library of that body.
White entered upon his duties at the Royal Society's rooms in Somerset House on 19 April 1844, and was officially confirmed in the appointment on 2 May, at a salary of 80l. a year. His work was at first largely mechanical, but increased in importance. When Weld retired in 1861, White was at once elected to the post of assistant secretary and librarian. In this position he met and conversed with many eminent men; some account of his intercourse with them is given in his published ‘Journals.’
While an ‘attendant,’ or, as he was afterwards designated, ‘clerk,’ White began serious literary work. Between 1844 and 1849 he wrote no fewer than two hundred articles for ‘Chambers's Journal’ (Journals, p. 93), besides occasional contributions to other serials. It was at this time also that he began the holiday walks which furnished the material for all his best known books.
