Hale White

William Hale White (22 December 1831 – 14 March 1913), known by his pseudonym Mark Rutherford, was a British writer and civil servant.

Life, career and memorials

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. 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.

White himself was educated at Bedford Modern School until the family moved to London. 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, and he eventually became a clerk at the Admiralty. In 1861 he began writing newspaper articles to increase his income, having met and married Harriet Arthur and started a family.

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).

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).

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

Family

White's first wife, Harriet, died in 1891 of multiple sclerosis. Two of their children had died in infancy. 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 only enjoyed two years of married life before his death.

His eldest son by his first wife, Sir William Hale-White, was a distinguished doctor (sketch). 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.

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
• Catharine Furze T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1893
• Clara Hopgood T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1896