Gilbert White FRSThe Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
(18 July 1720 – 26 June 1793) was a pioneering
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
naturalistNatural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
and
ornithologistOrnithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and the aesthetic appeal of birds...
.
Life
White was born in his grandfather's vicarage at
SelborneSelborne is a village in the East Hampshire district of Hampshire, England. It is south of Alton. It will be just within the extreme northern boundary of the proposed South Downs National Park, which is due to take effect in mid-2010....
in
HampshireHampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
. He was educated at the
Holy Ghost SchoolQueen Mary's School for Boys was a maintained grammar school in Basingstoke, Hampshire, England for boys aged 11–18. The school existed between 1556 and 1970 and was latterly funded by the Hampshire County Council Education Authority....
and by a private tutor in
BasingstokeBasingstoke is a town in northeast Hampshire, in south central England. It lies across a valley at the source of the River Loddon. It is southwest of London, northeast of Southampton, southwest of Reading and northeast of the county town, Winchester. In 2008 it had an estimated population of...
before going to Oriel College, Oxford. He obtained his
deaconDeacon is a ministry in the Christian Church that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions...
's orders in 1746, being fully ordained in 1749, and subsequently held several curacies in Hampshire and
WiltshireWiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...
, including Selborne's neighbouring parishes of
Newton ValenceNewton Valence is a village and civil parish in the East Hampshire district of Hampshire, England. It is 4.4 miles south of Alton, just off the A32 road....
and
FarringdonFarringdon is a village in the East Hampshire district of Hampshire in England. The village is 2.8 miles south of Alton, on the A32 road, close to a source of the River Wey....
, as well as Selborne itself on four separate occasions. In 1752/53 White held the office of Junior
ProctorProctor, a variant of the word procurator, is a person who takes charge of, or acts for, another. The word proctor is frequently used to describe someone who oversees an exam or dormitory.The title is used in England in three principal senses:...
at Oxford and was
DeanIn academic administration, a dean is a person with significant authority over a specific academic unit, or over a specific area of concern, or both...
of Oriel. In 1757 he became non-resident
perpetual curateA Perpetual Curate was a clergyman of the Church of England officiating as parish priest in a small or sparsely peopled parish or districtAs noted below the term perpetual was not to be understood literally but was used to indicate he was not a curate but the parish priest and of higher...
of
Moreton PinkneyMoreton Pinkney is a village and civil parish in South Northamptonshire, about north of Brackley.-Parish church:The earliest evidence of Christianity in the parish is a fragment of an Anglo-Saxon stone cross in the churchyard of the Church of England parish church of St Mary the Virgin...
in
NorthamptonshireNorthamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with the ceremonial counties of Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east,...
. After the death of his father in 1758, White moved back into the family home at
The Wakes in Selborne, which he eventually inherited in 1763. In 1784 he became curate of Selborne for the fourth time, remaining so until his death. Having studied at Oriel at the behest of his uncle, he was ineligible to be considered for the permanent living of Selborne, which was in the gift of
Magdalen CollegeMagdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million. Magdalen is currently top of the Norrington Table after over half of its 2010 finalists received first-class degrees, a record...
.
The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne
White is best known for his
The Natural History and Antiquities of SelborneThe Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, or just The Natural History of Selborne is a book by pioneering English naturalist and ornithologist Gilbert White first published in 1789...
(1789). This was a compilation of his letters to
Thomas PennantThomas Pennant was a Welsh naturalist and antiquary.The Pennants were a Welsh gentry family from the parish of Whitford, Flintshire, who had built up a modest estate at Bychton by the seventeenth century...
, the leading British zoologist of the day, and the Hon.
Daines BarringtonDaines Barrington, FRS was an English lawyer, antiquary and naturalist.Barrington was the fourth son of the first Viscount Barrington. He was educated for the profession of the law, and after filling various posts, was appointed a Welsh judge in 1757 and afterwards second justice of Chester...
, an
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
barristerA barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...
and another Fellow of the
Royal SocietyThe Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
. These letters contained White's discoveries about local birds, animals and plants. He believed in distinguishing birds by observation rather than by collecting specimens, and was thus one of the first people to separate the similar-looking
ChiffchaffThe Common Chiffchaff, or simply the Chiffchaff, is a common and widespread leaf-warbler which breeds in open woodlands throughout northern and temperate Europe and Asia....
,
Willow WarblerThe Willow Warbler is a very common and widespread leaf warbler which breeds throughout northern and temperate Europe and Asia, from Ireland east to the Anadyr River basin in eastern Siberia...
and
Wood WarblerThe Wood Warbler is a common and widespread leaf warbler which breeds throughout northern and temperate Europe, and just into the extreme west of Asia in the southern Ural Mountains...
by means of their song.
White is regarded by many as
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
's first ecologist and one of the founders of modern respect for nature. He said of the
earthwormEarthworm is the common name for the largest members of Oligochaeta in the phylum Annelida. In classical systems they were placed in the order Opisthopora, on the basis of the male pores opening posterior to the female pores, even though the internal male segments are anterior to the female...
:
Earthworms, though in appearance a small and despicable link in the chain of nature, yet, if lost, would make a lamentable chasm. [...] worms seem to be the great promoters of vegetation, which would proceed but lamely without them...
White and William Markwick collected records of the dates of emergence of more than 400 plant and animal species, White recording in Hampshire and Markwick in
SussexSussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
between 1768 and 1793. These data, summarised in
The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne as the earliest and latest dates for each event over the 25-year period, are among the earliest examples of modern
phenologyPhenology is the study of periodic plant and animal life cycle events and how these are influenced by seasonal and interannual variations in climate...
. His 1783–84 diary corroborates the dramatic climatic impacts of the volcanic '
Laki hazeŁąki may refer to the following places in Poland:*Łąki, Lower Silesian Voivodeship *Łąki, West Pomeranian Voivodeship *Łąki, Lublin Voivodeship...
' that spread from Iceland with lethal consequences across Europe.
White's frequent accounts of a
tortoiseTortoises are a family of land-dwelling reptiles of the order of turtles . Like their marine cousins, the sea turtles, tortoises are shielded from predators by a shell. The top part of the shell is the carapace, the underside is the plastron, and the two are connected by the bridge. The tortoise...
inherited from his aunt in
The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne form the basis for
Verlyn KlinkenborgVerlyn Klinkenborg is an American non-fiction author. Since 1997, he has been a member of the editorial board of The New York Times. His books include The Rural Life, Making Hay, The Last Fine Time, and Timothy; or, Notes of an Abject Reptile...
's book,
Timothy; or, Notes of an Abject Reptile (2006), as well as for
Sylvia Townsend WarnerSylvia Nora Townsend Warner was an English novelist and poet.-Life:Sylvia Townsend Warner was born at Harrow on the Hill, the only child of George Townsend Warner and his wife Eleanora Hudleston...
's
The Portrait of a Tort
oise (1946).
Gilbert White's famous work has been continuously in print since its first publication and is one of the most frequently published books in the English language; it is available online from the Gutenberg Project. The paperback edition of
The Illustrated Natural History of Selborne was last reprinted by
Thames & HudsonThames & Hudson is a publisher of illustrated books on art, architecture, design, and visual culture. With its headquarters in London, England it has a sister company in New York and subsidiaries in Melbourne, Singapore and Hong Kong...
in 2007. It was long held to be the fourth-most published book in the English language after the Bible, the works of Shakespeare, and John Bunyan’s
The Pilgrim’s Progress.
Gilbert White's sister Anne was married to Thomas Barker (1722-1809), called 'The father of meteorology', and Gilbert maintained a correspondence with his nephew Samuel Barker, who also kept a naturalist's journal.
Commemoration
His house in Selborne,
The Wakes, now contains the Gilbert White Museum, as well as the Oates Memorial Museum, commemorating Frank and
Lawrence OatesCaptain Lawrence Edward Grace Oates was an English Antarctic explorer, known for the manner of his death, when he walked from a tent into a blizzard, with the words "I am just going outside and may be some time"....
.
The Selborne Society was founded in 1895 to perpetuate the memory of Gilbert White. It purchased land at Perivale in West London to create the first Bird Santuary in Britain, known as Perivale Wood. In the 1970s, Perivale Wood became a Local Nature Reserve. This was designated by Ealing Borough Council under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949. It was at the instigation of small group of young naturalists led by Edward Dawson, with the support of Andrew Duff, Peter Edwards and Kevin Roberts.
The Gilbert White Fellowship was founded in 1932 by Winifred Boyd Watt, a historian and naturalist. It was based at Oxford, but was unable to gain continued financial sponsorship. Suggestions to revive it have been made in 2010 as part of the Selborne Society's Gilbert White Memorial Library relocation.
White is quoted by Merlyn in
The Once and Future KingThe Once and Future King is an Arthurian fantasy novel written by T. H. White. It was first published in 1958 and is mostly a composite of earlier works written in a period between 1938 and 1941....
by T.H. White.
A biography of White by
Richard MabeyRichard Mabey is a naturalist and author.He has been called by The Times 'Britain's greatest living nature writer'. Among his acclaimed publications are Food for Free, The Unofficial Countryside and The Common Ground, as well as his study of the nightingale, Whistling in the Dark...
was published by Century Hutchinson in 1986, and won the Whitbread Biography of the Year award.
A documentary about White, presented by historian Michael Wood, was broadcast by
BBC FourBBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
in 2006.
He is commemorated in the inscription on the heaviest of eight bells installed in 2009 at Holybourne, Hampshire.
External links