Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Third Supplement.djvu/597

 ‘Royal’ to be prefixed to the name of the institution. Miss Weston received the honorary LL.D. degree of Glasgow in 1901, and was created D.B.E. in 1918. She died at Devonport 23 October 1918, and was buried there with full naval honours.

A portrait of Miss Weston was presented to the corporation of Portsmouth for the town hall by the wives of sailors in 1925.  WHITE, GEORGE STUART (1835–1912), field-marshal, was born at Whitehall, co. Antrim, 6 July 1835, the eldest son of James Robert White, of Whitehall, by his wife, Frances, daughter of George Stuart. Entering the army from Sandhurst in 1853 he served in the Indian Mutiny with the 27th Foot (Inniskilling Fusiliers) and subsequently transferred to the 92nd (Gordon) Highlanders. It was with this regiment, after twenty-six years of service, that he, as a major, obtained his first chance of winning distinction. In the Afghan War of 1879–1880, during the advance of Major-General (afterwards Earl) Roberts [q.v.] from Charasia to Kabul, White, in command of some 200 of the 92nd Highlanders, managed by skilful leading and great courage to outflank the Afghans in the Saug-i-nawishta gorge (6 October 1879), and so was largely instrumental in clearing the way for the remainder of the force. Roberts said of this exploit: ‘From an inspection of the ground, I had no difficulty in coming to the conclusion that much of the success which attended the operations on this side was due to White's military instincts, and, at one moment, to his extreme personal gallantry.’ Thenceforward White's advancement was as rapid and remarkable as it had hitherto been slow and ordinary. At the end of the Afghan War he received the V.C. for his feat at Charasia and was made a C.B. and brevet lieutenant-colonel. In 1880 he was military secretary to the viceroy of India. After a short spell of duty at home in command of the 92nd, he went again on active service to Egypt as assistant quartermaster-general (1884–1885). In the latter year war broke out in Burma, and White was given the command of a brigade for operations in that country. Mandalay was speedily taken by the force under Major-General (Sir) Harry Prendergast [q.v.], but, as was usually the case in Burmese wars, there followed a long and tedious conflict with bands of dacoits, a conflict aggravated in this instance by the action of the frontier tribes, who thought their opportunity had come for avenging themselves on their Burmese neighbours. In quelling this guerrilla warfare and in the pacification of Upper Burma White played a leading part and established his reputation both as a general and as an administrator. At the conclusion of the War in 1887 the government of India reported that ‘the success of these operations, which have involved great hardship and labour on the troops, and the satisfactory progress made towards the pacification of the country, must be ascribed in a very large measure to the skill, judgment, and ability of Sir George White.’ For his services he had been made K.C.B. in 1886, and he was promoted major-general in 1889.

In the latter year White was transferred from Burma to command at Quetta, where for the first time he was brought in a responsible position into contact with the problems of the North-Western Frontier of India. The controversy between those who desired to make the Indus the administrative frontier and those who desired to extend it to the borders of Afghanistan was at its height; but the ‘forward’ school, with the powerful support of the commander-in-chief in India, Sir Frederick Roberts, and of the viceroy, the Marquess of Lansdowne, was in the ascendant, and White, who was an enthusiastic supporter of Roberts's views, at once became an instrument of that policy. In the autumn of 1889 he was entrusted with the command of the Zhob Valley expedition. The operations, directed against a tribe which had long made their almost inaccessible mountain home a base for raids into British territory, were admirably planned and skilfully executed. White, having scaled the heights of the Maramazh, surrounded the principal village of the tribe, which surrendered at discretion. In the following years, in conjunction with Sir Robert Groves Sandeman [q.v.], he was occupied with the pacification of Baluchistan, to this day the one lasting achievement of the ‘forward’ policy. In this work he displayed considerable political and diplomatic gifts and was successful in the not always easy task of working harmoniously with his civilian coadjutors.

For his services in Baluchistan White was made G.C.I.E. in 1893; and when, in that year, Roberts's long term of command in India came to a close, he was chosen over the heads of a number of seniors to be his successor. His period of supreme command in India saw the greatest  571