Sir Thomas White 1492-1567

SIR THOMAS WHITE, was born in Reading, but brought up 'almost from infancy' in London, and after being apprenticed to a member of the Merchant Taylors' Company, began business in London in 1523, later becoming master of the Company, and in 1547, Sheriff of London, and later Lord Mayor in 1553, in which year he was knighted. Two years later he obtained a royal licence to found St. John's College, Oxford, which he endowed with £3,000 at his death. In 1559 he purchased Gloucester Hall, Oxford, which he opened as a hall for a hundred scholars in 1560. He was also one of the founders of the Merchant Taylors' School. He is buried in St. John's College chapel, and although twice married he left no issue.

By the year 1535 he was regarded as a prosperous clothier and in the years 1542 and 1545 he made large loans to Coventry and Bristol, but in 1544 was committed to Newgate prison to refusing 'to take upon himself the weight thereof' when elected an alderman in that year.

On the 19 August 1554 he received Philip and Mary at their entry in state into the City of London, but that same year one of the regulations instituted was against games, morris-dances and interludes.

In the year 1562 he suffered greatly from a recession in the cloth trade, and as a result of this he died a poor man, but it seems that the provisions of his will were very astutely managed by his executor, the then Master of the Rolls, Sir William Cordell. Thanks to this le left 23 places, of which Gloucester was one, the sum of one hundred pounds per annum clear, to be lent to poor clothiers, for ever, and this donation had been received by Gloucester eleven times up to the year 1830. For instance, on the 29 August 1629, Richard Harward, one of the Chamberlains of Gloucester accepted the sum of £104 'in March't Taylors hall in London being the guift of Sr. Thos. White Marchant'.

It is said that several portraits of Sir Thomas White are in existence, but it is doubtful if any of them were painted from life. The one in St. John's College is said to be similar to those belonging to the Merchant Taylors' Company, to Leicester and to nearly all the towns to which he left benefactions, and thus, one imagines, to Gloucester also. White does not seem to have had any connection with Gloucester other than business ones, but there is little doubt that he did a considerable trade with clothiers here for the City to have benefited from his legacy.