WHITE, JOHN (1590-1645), Puritan;
b. 29 June 1590, the second son of Henry White of Henllan (Hentland) in the parish of Rhoscrowther, Pembs. 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 Nov. 1607, was admitted to the Inner Temple on 6 Nov. 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 d. on 29 Jan. 1645, and was buried in the Temple Church.
Bibliography:
- D.N.B.;
- Students admitted to Inner Temple, i, 95;
- Nicholas, 1872, 911, for family.
Author:
Emeritus Professor David Williams, D.Litt., (1900-78), Aberystwyth
