erected by Dr. Willis, president of the college 1577–90.
He was twice married. His first wife, Avicia, whose surname is unknown, died on 26 Feb. 1557–8, and was buried in the parish of St. Mary Aldermary (Machyn, Diary, p. 167). On 25 Nov. of the same year he married Joan, daughter and coheiress of John Lake of London, and widow of Sir Ralph Warren [q. v.] (ib.) He had no issue.
Sir Thomas White has frequently been confused (as by Ingram, Memorials of Oxford, St. John's College, p. 5) with a namesake, Sir Thomas White of South Warnborough, Hampshire [cf. art. White, John, 1511–1560], who was knighted on the same day, and whose wife's name, Agnes, is not uncommonly interchanged with Avicia. The confusion is rendered the more natural from the fact that the White property at South Warnborough eventually passed into the hands of St. John's College, Oxford. But this was by the gift of Archbishop Laud, who obtained it from William Sandys in 1636 (Laud, Works, vii. 306–7).
[Among the manuscripts of St. John's College, Oxford, are several early lives. Especially to be noticed are the History of the college by J. Taylor, D.C.L., the Nativitas Vita Mors honoratissimi illustrissimique viri Thomæ White, by Griffin Higgs, and copies of funeral verses. See also the Verses on the death of Mrs. Amy Leech (his niece), and Edmund Campion's Funeral Sermon on Sir Thomas. Many later manuscripts contain references to him (for list of St. John's College manuscripts, see Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. App. pp. 464–8). For letters of his, see Hist. MSS. Comm. Coventry, p. 100; Letters and Papers, For. and Dom. of the Reign of Henry VIII; Strype's Memorials; Machyn's Diary; Plot's Natural History of Oxfordshire; Fuller's Worthies, Hertfordshire, p. 30; Gutch's History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford; Ingram's Memorials of Oxford; Clode's History of the Merchant Taylors' Company; Coates's History of Reading; Warton's Life of Pope; Hutton's Hist. of S. John Baptist College, 1898; information kindly given by Reginald Sharpe, esq., D.C.L., librarian of the Guildhall. For list of White's benefactions, see Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports on manuscripts of towns of Southampton, Reading, Lincoln, and Coventry; Gough's Camden, ii. 345; Stow's Survey, ed. Strype, vol. i. bk. i. pp. 263–4; Clode's History of Merchant Taylors' Company, pt. ii. chap. xiv. Tennyson's ‘Queen Mary’ did not, as the poet afterwards admitted, do justice to the character of White (cf. Memoir of Tennyson, ii. 176).]
WHITE, THOMAS (1550?–1624), founder of Sion College, London, and of White's professorship of moral philosophy at Oxford, the son of John White, 'a Gloucestershire clothier' (Clode, Early History of the Merchant Taylors, 1888, ii. 333), was born about 1550 in Temple Street, Bristol, 'but descended from the Whites of Bedfordshire.' He entered as student of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, in 1566, graduated B.A. 25 June 1570, M.A. 12 Oct. 1573 (Boase, Register of the Univ. of Oxford, i. 279), took holy orders and 'became a noted and frequent preacher of God's word' (Wood, Athenae Oxon. 1815, ii. 351). He removed to London, and was rector of St. Gregory by St. Paul's, a short time before being made vicar of St. Dunstan-in-the-West, 23 Nov. 1575. In 1578 Francis Coldock printed for him 'A Sermon preached at Pawles Crosse on Sunday the ninth of December, 1576,' London, 8vo, in which he attacks the vices of the metropolis (pp. 45-8), 1 and specially refers to theatre-houses and playgoing; and also 'A Sermon preached at Pawles Crosse on Sunday the thirde of Nouember, 1577, in the time of the Plague,' London, 8vo. The Paul's Cross preachings against plays are referred to by Stephen Gosson (Playes confuted in Five Actions, 1590). On 11 Dec. 1581 he received the degree of B.D. and that of D.D., on 8 March 1584-5. Fuller states that White 'was afterwards related to Sir Henry Sidney [q. v.], lord deputy of Ireland, whose funeral sermon he made, being accounted a good preacher' (Worthies, 1811, ii. 299). It was printed under the title of 'A Godlie Sermon preached the XXI day of Iune, 1586, at Pensehurst in Kent, at the buriall of the late Sir Henrie Sidney,' London, 1586, 8vo. In 1588 he was collated to the prebend of Mora in St. Paul's Cathedral, and in 1589 he printed another 'Sermon at Paule's Crosse,' preached on the queen's day. He was appointed treasurer of Salisbury on 21 April 1590, canon of Christ Church, Oxford, 1591, and canon of Windsor 1593 (Foster, Alumni Oxon. 1500-1714; Clark, Register of the Univ. of Oxford, pt. ii. p. 38, pt, iii. p. 82). In 1613 he erected a hospital in Temple St. [Bristol] called the Temple Hospital, for eight men and two women, and one man and one woman were afterwards added by himself. He endowed the same with lands and tenements of the yearly value of 52l.,' and in 1622 he gave to Bristol certain houses in Gray's Inn Lane, London, of the yearly value of 40l. to be applied to various charities (Barrett, Hist. and Antiq. of Bristol, 1789, p. 554). He long had friendly relations with the Merchant Taylors' Company, who, on 12 Dec. 1614, commenced negotiations for leasing certain gardens in Moorfields from him (Clode, ii. 333). White in his will made the company
