Thomas White (merchant) explained

Birth Date:	7 June 1492
Death Date:	12 February 1567
Termstart1:	1553
Termend1:	1554
Office1:	Lord Mayor of London
Successor1:	John Lyon
Predecessor1:	George Barne
Birth Place:	Reading, Berkshire, England
Parents:	William White; Mary Kibblewhite
Office2:	Sheriff of London
Termstart2:	1547
Termend2:	1548

Sir Thomas White (7 June 1492 – 12 February 1567) was an English cloth merchant, Lord Mayor of London in 1553, and a civic benefactor and founder of St John's College, Oxford and Merchant Taylors' School.

Biography

Thomas White was born 7 June 1492 in Reading, Berkshire,^[1] the son of William White, a clothier of Reading, and his wife, Mary, daughter of John Kibblewhite of South Fawley, also in Berkshire. He was brought up in London. Sir Thomas was twice married, to Avicia (died 1558)^[2] and to Joan.^[3] A principal member of the guild of Merchant Taylors, he served as Sheriff of London in 1547, and was elected Lord Mayor of London in 1553. He was knighted in the same year by Queen Mary I. He was a member of the commission for the trial of Lady Jane Grey.

In 1555, inspired by the example of Thomas Pope, founder of Trinity College, Oxford, White obtained a royal licence for the foundation of St John's College, Oxford, dedicated to the patron saint of the Merchant Taylors and established in the buildings of the dissolved Cistercian College of St Bernard. He was involved in the foundation of Merchant Taylors' School, and made provision that scholars of the college should be nominated from pupils of the school. He also established scholarships at St John's College, tenable by pupils of Tonbridge School, Bristol Grammar School, Reading School and King Henry VIII School, Coventry,^[4] where one of the school's four houses bears his name. He purchased Gloucester Hall and set it up in 1560 as a hall of residence for scholars; this became the basis of the later foundation of Worcester College. As a result of his philanthropy, he was listed in Richard Johnson's Nine Worthies of London in 1592.

Sir Thomas White Loan Charity

The charity was founded in 1542 and is still extant. It gives interest-free loans to aspiring businesspeople in Leicestershire and Rutland. There are several memorials to White in England and he is honoured on Leicester's Clock Tower.

Bibliography

• Mark Noble (1784). Memoirs of the Protectorate-house of Cromwell: Deduced from an Early Period, and Continued Down to the Present Time,..., Volume 2, Printed Pearson and Rollason.

External links

• Tudor Place: Sir Thomas White
• Royal Berkshire History: Sir Thomas White
• Sir Thomas White Loan Charity
• The Charity of Sir Thomas White, Warwick

Notes and References

1. Web site: Sir Thomas White (1492-1567). David Nash Ford. Nash Ford Publishing. 2003. 30 January 2024.
2. Web site: Notes to the diary: 1558 Pages 362-369 The Diary of Henry Machyn, Citizen and Merchant-Taylor of London, 1550-1563. O . British History Online . Camden Society, 1848 . 11 December 2022.
3. Mark Noble p. 23, states that Joan married first Sir Ralph Warren, and was called upon her monument "daughter and co-heiress of John Lake, of London, gent,"; but most of the Cromwell family pedigrees, and the visitation of Huntingdonshire in 1613, say she was daughter and co-heiress of John Trelake, alias Davy, of Cornwall, gent. She survived Sir Ralph, and remarried Sir Thomas White, knt. and died at her son-in-law Sir Henry Cromwell's seat, at Hinchinbrook, 8 October, and was buried 4 November 1573, in the church of St. Swyth, leaving by her first husband one son, named Richard and a daughter, lady Joan, the wife of Sir Henry Cromwell, (Richard the son settled at Claybury, in Essex) and the daughter Joan was the grandmother of Oliver Cromwell. Noble (p. 24.) states that all of this is mentioned in the inscription upon her monument, which read thus:

   He continues the said Sir Henry Williams, alias Cromwell, had issue by the lady Joan, his wife, Oliver Cromwell, esq. his son and heir, with other sons. Visit. of Hunt, in 1613; and of Kent in 1609. Stow's and Strypc's survey of London; Grafton's chronicle; pedigree in the possession of the miss Cromwells; lives of Oliver lord prot. &c.

4. Hill, C.P. (1951) The History of Bristol Grammar School, p.46