John White

John White (1575 – 21 July 1648) was an English clergyman, the rector of a parish in Dorchester, Dorset. He was instrumental in obtaining charters for the New England Company and the Massachusetts Bay Company. He took a personal interest in the settlement of New England.

Life He was son of John White, yeoman, and his wife Isabel, daughter of John Bawle of Lichfield. He was born in the manor house at Stanton St John, Oxfordshire, where his father held a lease from New College, Oxford, and was baptised there on 6 January 1575. His elder brother, Josias, was rector of Hornchurch, Essex, 1614–23, and father of James White, a merchant of Boston, Massachusetts. In 1587 he entered Winchester College, and then was elected a fellow of New College in 1595. He graduated B.A. on 12 April 1597 and M.A. on 16 January 1601. He was appointed rector of Holy Trinity Church, Dorchester, in 1606, and for the rest of his life was identified with that place. He was a moderate conforming Puritan, concerned with reforming his parish. In 1632 and 1636 White was corresponding with John Winthrop (who urged White to visit the colony) about cod-lines and hooks to be sent, as well as flax of a suitable growth for Rhode Island. From 1630 to 1640 ships carried about 10,000 English colonists to the New World in what has been called the Great Migration.

On the death of Robert Pinck in November 1647, White was made warden of New College, Oxford but declined to go to Oxford because of bad health. His death took place on 21 July 1648, and he was buried in the porch of St Peter's Chapel (belonging to Trinity).