Fonds P25 - The Thomas White Collection

Thomas White was born in Darlstone [Dalston], Hackney, Middlesex in 1676 to Stephen White (1633-1681) and Hester née Drake. His father was a successful London merchant, who worked in partnership with his uncle, Sir Steven White (d. c. 1678), and three brothers, two of whom were living in Oporto, Portugal. From his uncle, Stephen inherited £3,000 together with lands and tenements in the parish of Aldham, Essex, ‘which lys about 5 mile on this side of Colchester & within a mile of the London road’.

Thomas was one of four children, two of whom died in infancy. His surviving sister, Hester, married Bedingfield Heigham in 1694. As the only surviving son, Thomas inherited considerable wealth from his father following the latter’s premature death from illness when Thomas was five years old. He appears to have trained as a solicitor, with chambers in the Temple, and to have accrued additional land holdings, including ‘an Estate in the Barrony of Clonnelloe in the County of Lymrick, I think within 5 miles of the City containing 1469 acres 12 Rood & 38 pearch Plantation Measure’. He married on 3 June 1718 Olive Western (1699-1753), daughter of Maximilian Western of Abington Hall, and by her had three children, Thomas (1720-1808), Frances (1721-1778) and Olive (b. 1723). He died on 23 November 1742, ‘possessed of a very large Estate’ in Suffolk, as noted by Stanford Mercury (25 November 1742).