Isaiah White

Isaiah White Lewis (11 June 1826 – 24 March 1894), known in Spain as Isaias White, was an English engineer and businessman who co-founded the Portilla Hermanos y White, later Portilla, White y Cia (1868–1896), one of the most important iron works in the city at the time.

Early life and education Isaiah White was born in Forest of Dean on 11 June 1826, as one of seven children from the marriage formed by George White, a carpenter, and Alice Lewis, and he was then baptized in the Littledean Parish Church. The Portilla White y Cía was thus established on 30 November 1868, and the majority of its capital, some 10.6 million reales, belonged to the creditors of the previous company, whose assets and liabilities were transferred to the new company, and the creditors of the old company became shareholders of the new one, which resumed the manufacture and sale of boilers and steam engines for ships, as well as oil mills, agricultural machinery, and metal constructions, eventually becoming "one of the most important mechanical engineering and metal construction companies in Spain in the second half of the 19th century". This building was designed to house the Seville Fish Market, thus fulfilling the request of the fishermen of Ayamonte to the Seville City Council made in 1854 to prepare a space for the sale and contracting of fish, and it is popularly known as the Market or Naves del Barranco. In 1888, Queen Isabel II visited Seville and toured the new facilities of the Portilla & White company, which had been expanded to manufacture steel cannons, and she was pleasantly surprised to find out that the word “London” did not appear on the steam engines, as they had been made with Spanish capital and resources.

Social and sporting career In addition to the metallurgical foundry of Portilla & White of the brothers Thomas and Isaías White Lewis, several other British companies established themselves in Seville during the 19th century, such as the Scottish shipping company MacAndrews, founded by Robert MacAndrew; the Compañía de Agua de los Ingleses directed by Charles Arthur Friend, the Seville Tramways Company controlled by John Braick, and also Juan Cunningham, one of the pioneers of the transport of Seville oranges to England, and the Irish-born Cádiz native William MacPherson, a key figure of the Industrial Revolution in the city, and all of them make up the British colony of Seville, which in its days off was dedicated to cricket or rowing, a summer sport for which they founded the Club de Regatas de Sevilla in 1875. The oldest account of a sporting activity made by him can be found in 1878 aboard the Macareno boat, being a member of the crew along with Welton, Niño, Edward F. Johnston, who won a regattas held on the Guadalquivir, next to Tablada, in honor of the Spanish royal family, who was visiting Seville.

Personal life and death In the mid-1860s, White married Maraquita (Maria) Luisa Méndez Montes, and the couple had six children, but only one son, Isaias White Jr., who went on to become a crucial piece in the foundation of Seville FC, along with his co-workers Hugh MacColl, the technical manager of the Portilla White foundry, and Gilbert Pollock.

In the General Census of the Population of Seville in August 1875, the 48-year-old White appears married to María Luisa Méndez.

White died in Seville on 24 March 1894, at the age of 67.