White, Thomas Holt

Submitted by edpope on

H White at Debrett's 1.4.1797

Nephew of Gilbert White of Selborne, he had a twin brother Henry Holt White who moved in similar circles but was less prominent as a radical. Thomas's letters to Major John Cartwright are at Hampshire Archives 16M97. On 7.6.1801 and 27.4.1824 Godwin called him Holt White, but he was probably also the H White of 1.4.1797 at Debrett's, of 29.11.1801 and 28.2.1802 at Tooke's and of 10.9.1802 'meet H White'. On 21.6.1802 there was a curious entry "call on White, FTC incog". Though it seems strange that Godwin should have called incognito on someone he had already met, it so happens that Holt White's address (Boyle's 1800) was Figtree Court, the only London address I could find to correspond to FTC. William St Clair in The Godwins & The Shelleys suggests Fellow of Trinity College for this acronym. Less certain is a 'call on H White' of 27.3.1811, and then a cluster on 14.6.1817, 20.6.1817, 1.7.1817, 16.9.1817, 8.1.1818, 14.2.1818 and 22.4.1818 where an H White supped at Hazlitt's and then was 4 times in Lamb's company and once at Rodd's. These seem more likely to have been Holt White than the army officer who sometimes employed Godwin to write for him (see White, Henry). In his later years Thomas Holt White was subjected to a Commission of Lunacy which was sworn to by many inhabitants near his Enfield estate but he seems to have escaped it as he left a will PCC 1842 when he died 28.11.1841