| Note: |
White was born in Chatham, Kent. He was promoted to Lieutenant in the 31st Regiment of Foot in 1828, Captain in 1841 and rose to the rank of Major in 1848. He retired on half-pay as Lieutenant-Colonel in 1854. He served in India with his regiment from 1825 to 1846. Many of White's drawings were engraved. Some of his sketches, done in conjunction with Commander Robert Elliot, were reworked by professional artists such as Cotman, Cox, Prout, Copley Fielding and J.M.W. Turner, for the volume of engravings entitled Hindostan, the shores of the Red Sea and the Himalaya Mountains, illustrated, London, 1845. His sketches were also worked up and engraved for Views in India, chiefly among the Himalaya Mountains taken during the tours in the direction of Mussooree, Simla, the sources of the Jumna and Ganges etc. in 1829, 31, 32, London, 1836. An album in the India Office Library, inscribed in ink on the cover Outline Pen & Ink Sketches Calcutta & the Vicinity shows the same subjects as Sir Charles D'Oyly 7th Bt.'s Views of Calcutta and its Environs, London 1848. This suggests that on his return from India he was either working up some of the finished drawings for the plates from the sketches of D'Oyly or contributing his own drawings to the publication. A watercolour by J.M.W. Turner after a drawing by White of The Snowy Range from Tyre or Marma, was sold at Christie's London, Visions of India, 5 June 1996, lot 79. He returned to England in 1848 and became Second Chief Constable of Durham and from 1880-1892 a Deputy Lieutenant of the County. His work is represented in the collection of the India Office Library (see P. Kattenhorn, British Drawings in the India Office Library, London, 1994, vol. III, pp. 341-349). |
