Hale White

William Hale White (22 December 1831 – 14 March 1913), known by his pseudonym Mark Rutherford, was a British writer and civil servant.[1] His obituary in The Times stated that the "employment of a pseudonym, and sometimes of two (for some of 'Mark Rutherford's' work was 'edited by his friend, Reuben Shapcott'), was sufficient to prove a retiring disposition, and Mr. Hale White was little before the world in person."[1]

This article is about the British writer. For the English footballer, see Mark Rutherford (footballer).

William Hale White
1887 crayon drawing by Arthur Hughes (1831–1915)

Life, career and memorials
Plaque on his birthplace

White was born in Bedford. His father, William White, a member of the Nonconformist community of the Bunyan Meeting, became well known as a doorkeeper at the House of Commons and wrote sketches of parliamentary life for the Illustrated Times.[2][3] A selection of his parliamentary sketches was published posthumously, in 1897, by Justin McCarthy, the Irish nationalist MP, as The Inner Life of the House of Commons.[4]

White himself was educated at Bedford Modern School[5] until the family moved to London.[6] There he was trained for the Congregational ministry, but the development of his views prevented his taking up that career; the same unconventional views got him expelled from New College, London,[7] and he eventually became a clerk at the Admiralty.[2][6] In 1861 he began writing newspaper articles to increase his income, having met and married Harriet Arthur and started a family.[7]

He had already served an apprenticeship to journalism before he made his name, or rather his pen name, "Mark Rutherford", famous with three novels, supposedly edited by one Reuben Shapcott: The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford (1881), Mark Rutherford's Deliverance (1885) and The Revolution in Tanner's Lane (1887).[8][2][9] George Orwell called Deliverance "one of the best novels in English."[10]

Under his own name White translated Spinoza's Ethics (1883). His later books include Miriam's Schooling, and Other Papers (1890), Catherine Furze (2 vols, 1893), Clara Hopgood (1896), Pages from a Journal, with Other Papers (1900), and John Bunyan (1905).[2][9]

Hale White died in Groombridge on 14 March 1913.[1]

There is now a Mark Rutherford School in Bedford and a blue plaque commemorates White at 19 Park Hill in Carshalton.[11]

Family

White's first wife, Harriet, died in 1891 of multiple sclerosis. Two of their children had died in infancy.[7] In 1907, the widowed White met aspiring novelist Dorothy Smith, who was forty-five years his junior. They fell in love and were married three and a half years later, but enjoyed only two years of married life before his death.[12]

His eldest son by his first wife, Sir William Hale-White, was a distinguished doctor. His second son, Jack, married Agnes Hughes, one of Arthur Hughes' daughters. A third son became an engineer, and White's daughter Molly remained at home to care for her father.[7]

Selected publications
  • The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford: Dissenting Minister Trubner and Co., London, 1881
  • Mark Rutherford's Deliverance Trubner and Co., London, 1885
  • The Revolution in Tanner's Lane Trubner and Co., London, 1887
  • Miriam's Schooling Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., London, 1890[13]
  • Catharine Furze T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1893
  • Clara Hopgood T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1896

Notes
  1. "'Mark Rutherford'". The Times. 17 March 1913. p. 42. Retrieved 19 April 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
  2.  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Rutherford, Mark". Encyclopædia Britannica. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 940.
  3. Brake, Laurel; Demoor, Marysa (2009). Dictionary of Nineteenth-century Journalism in Great Britain and Ireland. google.co.uk. ISBN 9789038213408. Retrieved 12 July 2015.
  4. William White, The Inner Life of the House of Commons, edited with a preface by Justin McCarthy, MP, London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1897
  5. Bedford Modern School of the black & red. worldcat.org. OCLC 16558393.
  6. Bedford Borough Council and Central Bedfordshire Council. "Mark Rutherford (William Hale White) - Digitised Resources - The Virtual Library". culturalservices.net. Retrieved 12 July 2015.
  7. Michael Brealey (8 July 2014). Bedford's Victorian Pilgrim: William Hale White in Context. Authentic Publishers. pp. 20–. ISBN 978-1-78078-351-2.
  8. Max Saunders, "Autobiografiction," Times Literary Supplement (3 October 2008), 13-15.
  9. "Results for 'au:Rutherford, Mark,' [WorldCat.org]". worldcat.org. Retrieved 12 July 2015.
  10. Orwell, George, "As I Please," December 3, 1943, Tribune.
  11. "WHITE, WILLIAM HALE (1831–1913)". English Heritage. Retrieved 5 August 2012.
  12. "Obituary of Dorothy Vernon Horace Smith, The Times". 28 August 1967. Retrieved 28 May 2016.
  13. "Brief review of Miriam's Schooling, and other Papers". The Athenaeum (3274): 124. 26 July 1890.

References
  • William James Dawson, "Religion in Fiction", a chapter, part of which is devoted to Hale White (on p. 283-289) in The Makers of English Fiction, 2nd ed., F.H. Revell Co., 1905.
  • E. J. Feuchtwanger, White, William (1807–1882), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.
  • Cunningham, Valentine. "White, (William) Hale (1831–1913)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/36864. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
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