Bishop W. C. White

William Charles White was born in Trinity, Newfoundland, on August 31, 1865. Son of Dr. Robert White and Caroline White, he attended Commercial School in Trinity but was later educated at the Church of England Academy in St. John’s and St. Augustine’s College in England. He was ordained a priest in 1890. Throughout his life, he held several positions, including curate of Bonavista from 1888 to 1890, incumbent of the Fogo mission from 1890 to 1900, rector of Heart’s Content from 1900 to 1908, and rector and sub-dean of the Anglican Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in St. John’s from 1908 to 1918. White was the bishop of Newfoundland from 1918 to 1942; although he was the fifth bishop, he was the first of the island’s Newfoundland-born bishops. He also held the titles of president of the Diocesan Synod of Newfoundland, dean of the Newfoundland Cathedral, and chairman of both the Board of Directors and the Board of Education for the Church of England College. White married Frederica Thorne (date of marriage unknown); they had at least two children, Dorothy and Reginald. Reginald, a sergeant during World War I, died while serving, ultimately succumbing to tubercular meningitis in 1918. White passed away in St. John’s on June 14, 1943, at the age of 77. A K–12 school in Port Rexton, Bishop White School, is named in his honour. Another Bishop William Charles White also served with the Anglican Church of Canada but, given that his year of birth was 1873 and the latest signature of W. Charles White in the Queen Elizabeth II Library is dated 1889, it is unlikely that they are his; it seems reasonable to assume that they are from the Trinity- and Newfoundland-born Bishop White.

Bishop William Charles White’s signature in Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott's A Lexicon Abridged from the Greek-English Lexicon of H.G. Liddell, M.A. and R. Scott, M.A.

Courtesy of Memorial University Libraries Archives and Special Collections, St. John's, NL.

Donation List:

Liddell, Henry George and Robert Scott. A Lexicon Abridged from the Greek-English Lexicon of H.G. Liddell, M.A. and R. Scott, M.A. Oxford: University Press, 1852.

Sadler, M. F. The Gospel According to St. Mark, with Notes Critical and Practical. London: George Bell and Sons, 1889.

Williams, Isaac. The Characters of the Old Testament: In a Series of Sermons. London: Rivingtons, 1879.