James Martin White (usually known to as Martin White or J. Martin White) (1857 – 7 July 1928)[1] was a wealthy Scottish businessman and Liberal Party politician. He also took a keen interest in the establishment of the scientific study of sociology and was an enthusiastic supporter of the development of the pipe organ.
White was born in New York, and was the son of James Farquhar White and his wife Elizabeth. The family home was Castle Huntly, Perthshire. In the 1870s they moved to a baronial castle at Balruddery, Forfarshire, near the city of Dundee.[2]
Contents |
By the 1890s White had become very wealthy, described variously as a flour or jute merchant.[2]
He first stood for Parliament at the 1892 general election, when he unsuccessfully contested St Andrews Burghs.[3] When the Liberal member of parliament for Forfarshire, Sir John Rigby was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal in 1894, it was expected that White would be the party's candidate at the ensuing by-election. However, a London based stock-broker, Henry Robson was chosen, with the result that the seat was lost to the Liberal Unionists.[4]
A general election was held in the following year, and on this occasion White was chosen to contest the seat. He regained the seat comfortably for the Liberals, with a majority of 441 votes.[5]
His membership of the Commons was to be brief, however. Following weeks of rumours, the Dundee Advertiser reported on 14 November 1896 that he had resigned his seat. This was initially denied by his private secretary, who stated that he simply gone to India on business, and expected to return for the opening of parliament.[6] However, on 20 November, the executive committee of the Forfarshire Liberal Association received an angry letter from White. In it, he stated that he had not intended to resign. However he felt the story had been inserted in the Advertiser by members of the committee, and this act of disloyalty meant that he no longer had any obligations to the party. Accordingly he resigned his seat,[7] by accepting appointment as Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds.[8]
White was subsequently chosen as prospective Liberal candidate for the Wilton Division of Wiltshire. However, when a by-election occurred in July 1900, the Second Boer War was in progress. The party decided not to contest the seat, allowing James Morrison, an army officer, invalided from the front in South Africa, to be returned unopposed.[9] At the general election in October 1900, White did contest Wilton, but Morrison held the seat with a majority of 841 votes (12.6% of the total).[10]
At the 1906 general election, he failed to be elected at Great Yarmouth. He lodged an election petition,[11] attempting to have the result overturned due to alleged bribery, treating and illegal payments by his Conservative opponent Arthur Fell.[11] The election court found that treating and bribery had indeed taken place, but the two judges sitting on the case did not agree whether Fell was responsible for the actions of a Mr Baker who was found to have had acted illegally.[12] The first judge, Justice Channell, held that Baker was acting as an agent of Fell; but the more senior judge, Justice Grantham, held that Fell was not responsible,[12] and the petition was therefore dismissed.[12] However, the outcome was widely denounced as perverse, and was one of a series of election petition judgments in which Grantham (himself a former Conservative MP) was seen to have acted in a partisan manner.[13] The judgment in the Yarmouth petition was the subject of a debate in the Commons in July 1906[14] in which Grantham's partisanship was widely condemned.[15]
White developed a close friendship with Patrick Geddes, and endowed a chair of botany for him at University College Dundee. Geddes was developing the field of sociology, and White began generously funding the teaching of the subject at the University of London.[16] He eventually provided an endowment to create a Department of Sociology at the university.[2]
White developed a love of the pipe organ, becoming an expert on the instrument, and president of the Organ Club. He financially supported Robert Hope-Jones in his development of the theatre organ. In 1913, George Laing Miller, in The Recent Revolution in Organ Building wrote:
Mr White... has managed to devote much time and thought to the art of organ playing and organ building...All honor to Martin White! [17]
White was married twice. In 1898 he married Mary MacRae, a watercolourist, and they had two children. Due to his infidelity the marriage broke down in 1906, and the couple were divorced in 1912.[2] Mary MacRae White went on to be a successful artist in the United States.
In 1913 he married Alice (Priscilla) Frost, a widow.
J Martin White died suddenly at Balruddery in July 1928.[18] He was buried locally, with a monument to his memory erected in Liff Parish Church.[19]
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Charles Maule Ramsay |
Member of Parliament for Forfarshire 1895 – 1897 |
Succeeded by John Sinclair |