Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 61.djvu/80

 where he spent the winter evenings, copying whole volumes of his patron's treasures. After spending a short time with a weaver in Jedburgh he returned to employment on the farm. In 1825 he found employment in Newcastle in the counting-house of Robert Watson, a plumber and brassfounder at the High Bridge. White remained with Watson until Watson died forty years later.

At Newcastle White found time and opportunity for study. By abstemious living he was able to devote part of his small income to the purchase of books, and in time he accumulated a library containing many rare and valuable volumes. His holidays were usually spent in rambles on the border with his friend James Telfer [q. v.], the Saughtrees poet, steeping himself in border minstrelsy and gathering knowledge of border life. His first poem, ‘The Tynemouth Nun,’ was written in 1829, and at the suggestion of the antiquary, John Adamson (1787–1855) [q. v.], it was printed in the same year for the Typographical Society of Newcastle. After this successful essay he devoted himself to the preservation and reproduction of local legend and song, contributing to many local publications. In 1853 he printed for distribution among his friends a poem on ‘The Wind’ (Newcastle, 8vo), and in 1856, also for private circulation, another poem entitled ‘England’ (Newcastle, 8vo). About this time, or a little earlier, he became a member of the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries, to which he contributed a paper on the battle of Neville's Cross (Arch. Æliana, new ser. i. 271–303). Encouraged by its reception, he published a volume on the ‘History of the Battle of Otterburn’ (London, 1857, 8vo), adding memoirs of the warriors engaged. This was followed in 1858 by a paper read to the Newcastle Society on the battle of Flodden (ib. iii. 197–236), and in 1871 by a ‘History of the Battle of Bannockburn’ (London, 8vo). These monographs were rendered valuable by White's intimate acquaintance with local legend, and by his topographical knowledge, which enabled him to elucidate much that hitherto had remained obscure. He died unmarried at his house in Claremont Place, Newcastle, on 20 Feb. 1874.

White was also the author, apart from other antiquarian papers, of ‘Going Home,’ a poem [1850?], 8vo; ‘A Few Lyrics,’ Edinburgh, 1857, 8vo, reprinted from Charles Rogers's ‘Modern Scottish Minstrel,’ 1855 (for private circulation); and ‘Poems, including Tales, Ballads, and Songs,’ Kelso, 1867, 8vo (with a portrait). He edited the ‘Poems and Ballads of John Leyden,’ Kelso, 1858, 8vo, with a memoir supplementing that by Sir Walter Scott. Several of his songs are to be found in the ‘Whistle Binkie’ collection and in Alexander Whitelaw's ‘Book of Scottish Song’ (1844).

[Memoir by Richard Welford in the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle, 1 Oct. 1892; Memoir by John Helson in the Hawick Advertiser, 25 Sept. 1869.]  WHITE, ROBERT MEADOWS (1798–1865), Rawlinson professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University, born on 8 Jan. 1798, was the eldest son of Robert Gostling White (d. 18 Oct. 1828), a solicitor at Halesworth in Suffolk, by his second wife, Elizabeth Meadows (d. 25 Sept. 1831). In 1813 Robert was placed under John Valpy at Norwich, where John Lindley [q. v.], the botanist, and Rajah Sir James Brooke [q. v.] were his fellow pupils. On 26 July 1815 he matriculated from Magdalen College, Oxford, and in the same year was elected a demy, graduating B.A. on 14 Dec. 1819, M.A. on 28 Feb. 1822, B.D. on 21 Nov. 1833, and D.D. on 23 Nov. 1843. He was ordained deacon in 1821 and priest in 1822. In 1824 he was elected a fellow of Magdalen College, retaining his fellowship till 1847. From 1832 till 1840 he acted as a college tutor. On 15 March 1831 he became proctor, and on 23 April 1834 he was chosen Rawlinson professor of Anglo-Saxon, holding that post for the statutable period of five years.

Anglo-Saxon professors at that time were sometimes defined as ‘persons willing to learn Anglo-Saxon.’ White, however, was known as a scholar before he was elected to the chair. He had already contemplated the publication of a Saxon and English vocabulary, and only abandoned the project because it appeared likely to clash with the ‘Anglo-Saxon Dictionary’ then being prepared by Joseph Bosworth [q. v.] On giving up this design, he turned his attention about 1832 to editing the ‘Ormulum,’ a harmonised narrative of the gospels in verse, preserved in a unique manuscript in the Bodleian Library. The task, owing to other demands on his time, occupied nearly twenty years. In the course of his researches he visited Denmark in 1837, and extended his travels to Moscow, where he was arrested and suffered a short detention for visiting the Kremlin without an official order. His edition of the ‘Ormulum’ was issued in 1852 from the university press, and in the following year an elaborate criticism of it was published in English by Dr. Monicke, a German professor.

In 1839, at the end of his term of office, White was presented to the vicarage of Woolley, near Wakefield, by Godfrey Went-