WHITE, THOMAS WOOLLASTON (1829-87), son of the Rev. Taylor White, vicar of Norton Cuckney, Nottinghamshire, received his commission as ensign in the 48th Bengal Native Infantry (1846). Retiring in 1850, he visited the Australian diggings, and later came to New Zealand. Settling in Canterbury, he took up the Warren station on the Eyre river (1855), which he held to 1866, when he bought a share in Sherwood (Otaio). White commanded the Canterbury militia (1861-67). He represented the Oxford electorate in the Provincial Council (1862-67).

After losing his money he went to Fiji and became a planter. In the political troubles of 1873 he organised the British Subjects' Mutual Protection Society to oust the existing government. White and other leaders were deported to Sydney in H.M.S. Dido. He returned to New Zealand, was for a while a stock inspector in the North Island, and eventually settled in Hawkes Bay. White was a keen sportsman and rode his own horses at race meetings in Canterbury. He was in later life clerk of the course for the Hawkes Bay Jockey club. He married (1858) Charlotte Letitia, daughter of the Rev. F. A. Jackson. (See F. R. JACKSON) He died at Napier on 8 Apr 1887.

India Office records; Canterbury P.C. Proc.; F. J. Moss Atolls; Col. Gent.; Acland; Hawkes Bay Herald, 11, 12 Apr 1887; Otago Daily Times, 9 Apr 1887

Reference: Volume 2, page 251

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