Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 61.djvu/91

 extraordinary and minister-plenipotentiary at Bucharest on 3 March 1879. On 18 April 1885 White was nominated envoy-extrordinary at Constantinople, and was at once brought face to face with a question of first importance—the legality of the annexation of Eastern Roumelia to Bulgaria in defiance of the treaty of Berlin of 1878. Russia took the ground that the treaty must be upheld at all costs. White was convinced that the breach of the treaty was really in the interests of Europe; and eventually he carried his point with the representatives of the powers. His action directly contributed to the consolidation of Bulgarian nationality, and the Bulgarians were not slow to recognise this. Early in 1886 he was specially thanked by the government for his action. He was created C.B. on 21 March 1878, K.C.M.G. on 16 March 1883, G.C.M.G. on 28 Jan. 1886, G.C.B. on 2 June 1888, and sworn of the privy council on 29 June 1888; he was made an honorary LL.D. of Cambridge on 17 June 1886.

On 11 Oct. 1886 White was confirmed as special ambassador-extraordinary and plenipotentiary at Constantinople. He died at Berlin, at the Kaiserhof hotel, on 28 Dec. 1891. He was buried in the Roman catholic church of St. Hedwig, Berlin, on 31 Dec. in the presence of representatives of the whole diplomatic and political body. A special memorial service was held at Constantinople.

White showed facility in acquiring the languages of those with whom he had to deal. He spoke Polish like a native, and was equally conversant with Roumanian. In Bucharest he would go out into the marketplace in the early morning and pick up news from the peasants. He had a faculty for devoting himself to all that bore immediately on his work; he was a great reader of newspapers and blue-books, sifted his matter with great acumen, and retained what he needed with extraordinary accuracy and method; his recollection of personal and official occurrences was of the same precise and useful character, and he utilised to the full, and was appreciated by, the correspondents of the press. He applied his knowledge with a quick insight into motives and consequences which enabled him to check intrigue without resorting to it himself. He was a great lover of Germany, and is said to have urged Great Britain to join the triple alliance (Times, 1 Jan. 1891, p. 3). The French press paid him the compliment of congratulating themselves on his death as on the removal of an obstacle to French ambition and expansion (ib. 31 Dec. p. 5).

White married, in 1867, Katherine, daughter of Lewis Rendzior of Danzig, and left three daughters.



WHITEFIELD, GEORGE (1714–1770), evangelist and leader of Calvinistic methodists, sixth son and youngest child of Thomas Whitefield (d. 27 Dec. 1716, aged 34), by his wife, Elizabeth Edwards (d. December 1751), was born at the Bell Inn, Gloucester, on 16 Dec. 1714. His earliest known ancestor was William Whytfeild, vicar of Mayfield, Sussex, 1605, whose son, Thomas Whitfeld, was vicar of Liddiard Melicent, Wiltshire, 1664–5, and subsequently rector of Rockhampton, Gloucestershire. Thomas was succeeded in 1683 as rector of Rockhampton by his son, Samuel Whitfeld, and Samuel, in 1728, by his son, Samuel Whitfield (, Alumni Oxon. 1892, iv. 1621). Andrew, brother of the last named, had fourteen children, of whom the eldest, Thomas Whitefield, father of George, became a wine merchant in Bristol, and later kept the Bell Inn at Gloucester. The name is pronounced Whitfield. Of Whitefield's early years (to 1736) a self-accusing history was given by himself in ‘A Short Account,’ 1740, 12mo (abridged, 1756; Life incorporates the whole of the original). His well-known squint was the result of measles in childhood (, p. 279). He seems to have been a roguish lad, but with good impulses. His mother took pains with his education. She married, in 1724, one Longden, an impecunious ironmonger at Gloucester.

In 1726 George went to the St. Mary de Crypt school. He was fonder of the drama than of classical study, and, being a born actor, took part (‘in girl's clothes’) in school plays before the corporation. Before he was fifteen he persuaded his mother to remove him from school. Shortly afterwards, her circumstances being ‘on the decline,’ he assisted in the public-house, becoming at length ‘a common drawer for nigh a year and a half.’ During this period the inn was made over to one of his brothers; he then fell out with his sister-in-law and left the inn (the same inn was kept, from 1782, by the father of [q. v.], bishop of Exeter). After visiting another brother, Andrew, at Bristol, he returned to his mother, who, on the report of one of his schoolfellows, induced him to prepare for Oxford. He went back to school, became a communicant on Christmas day 1731, and entered as a servitor at Pembroke College, Oxford,