WHITE, JOHN (1590 - 1645), Puritan

Born 29 June 1590, the second son of Henry White of Henllan (Hentland) in the parish of Rhoscrowther, Pembrokeshire. He was descended from a family of Tenby merchants, one of whom, Thomas White, is said to have helped Henry Tudor to escape to Brittany in 1471. John White matriculated from Jesus College, Oxford, on 20 November 1607, was admitted to the Inner Temple on 6 November 1610, and called to the Bar on 19 June 1618 (Bencher, 1641). In 1625 he and eleven others raised a fund to buy impropriated tithes in order to make provision for a preaching ministry, but the funds were confiscated by order of the court of Exchequer. White became Member of Parliament for Southwark in 1640. In 1642 he became the leading member of the Committee for Plundered Ministers which ejected royalist clergymen from their benefices. Out of this arose his book The First Century of Scandalous and Malignant Priests, 1643, an account of one hundred such clergymen, which won him the sobriquet of ' Century White.' He died on 29 January 1645, and was buried in the Temple Church.

Author

• Emeritus Professor David Williams, (1900 - 1978)

Sources

• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• Students admitted to Inner Temple, 1547-1660 (London 1877), i, 95
• Thomas Nicholas, Annals and Antiquities of the Counties and County Families of Wales (London 1872), vol.II, 911, for family

Further Reading

• Wikipedia Article: John White

Additional Links

• VIAF: 33429152
• Wikidata: Q6263796

Published date: 1959

Article Copyright: http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-RUU/1.0/