Charles White

Charles White (1845 – 22 December 1922), was an Australian journalist, author and historian, notable for his books on bushranging and other aspects of Australian history.

Biography

White was born at Bathurst in 1845, the third son of John Charles White and Myra (née Oakey). His father was a bank clerk and Methodist lay preacher.

In late 1858 John Charles White purchased the Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal newspaper. Charles was taken on as an apprentice at the newspaper. He taught himself shorthand and was employed as the police roundsman.

Charles White and Sarah Beattie were married on 3 May 1871 at Young. His wife’s younger sister, Mary-Ann Beattie, had married Donald Cameron of 'Mary Vale' station, Woodhouselee, near Goulburn, in 1864. Their eldest child was the prolific Australian writer Mary Gilmore.

By January 1885 White and his younger brother Gloster had taken over from their father as proprietors of the Bathurst Free Press, with Charles taking on the role as editor and Gloster as business manager. White used the pseudonym 'The Chatterer' for these early articles. In 1889 Parts I and II of his 'Early Australia History' were released in book form as Convict Life in New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land, printed in the White brothers' newspaper office at Bathurst. Charles White’s historical writings display “painstaking scholarship and a fluent, uncluttered style free of romanticism”.

During the Federalism debates of the 1890s White exerted his influence as an editor to use the Bathurst Free Press to support free trade and Federation. During the 1901 election campaign leading to the formation of the first federal parliament, the dominant ideological divide was between the protectionists versus the free traders. White, using his newspaper, was very publicly on the side of the Free Trade party. At an election rally held in Bathurst on Tuesday evening, 26 March 1901, speakers addressed a crowd of two thousand from the balcony of the Park Hotel in support of the Free Trade candidate Sydney Smith. During the rally supporters of protectionism attempted to disrupt the meeting, leading to censorious comments in the Bathurst Free Press such as: "The tactics adopted by the Protectionist hoodlums, hirelings, and hobbledehoys were absolutely disgraceful, and will remain as an indelible stigma on the name of Protection in Bathurst." White added: "These inane and empty-headed descendants of the Goths and Vandals roared themselves hoarse in order to stifle freedom of speech, and not satisfied with bellowing and conducting themselves like wild animals from a menagerie, they gave vent to their low, cowardly, unmanly, and despicable instincts by hurling rotten and other eggs at the speakers and others on the platform." The election resulted in a win for Smith (in the Macquarie electorate). White's forceful criticism of leading protectionists and the movement in general gave rise to considerable local hostility. White sold his share of the newspaper to his brother Gloster and moved to Randwick.

White was employed as an associate editor in the early days of The Farmer & Settler newspaper, first published in February 1906 in Sydney as the official organ of the New South Wales Farmers' and Settlers' Association. He was still so employed in December 1909, for most of that time under Harry J. Stephens.

In the early hours of the morning of 18 January 1911 a fire started in the study of White's Randwick house. The fire brigade managed to confine the blaze to the study, but all of White's records were destroyed.

White died on 22 December 1922 at his residence, 'Heatherdene', in Milner Street, Mosman, aged 77 years. He was buried in the Methodist section of Gore Hill cemetery. has been named as the founder of the newspaper. was publisher of the Farmer & Settler, and his sons Norman and Paddy continued as directors.