Hale White

William Hale White1887 crayon drawing by Arthur Hughes (1831–1915)

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

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.^[1] 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.^[2]

White himself was educated at Bedford Modern School^[3] until the family moved to London.^[4] 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,^[5] and he eventually became a clerk at the Admiralty.^[4] In 1861 he began writing newspaper articles to increase his income, having met and married Harriet Arthur and started a family.^[5]

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).^[6][7]

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).^[7]

There is now a Mark Rutherford School in Bedford and a blue plaque commemorates White at 19 Park Hill in Carshalton.^[8]

Family

White's first wife, Harriet, died in 1891 of multiple sclerosis. Two of their children had died in infancy.^[5] 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.^[9]

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.^[5]

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

Notes

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Rutherford, Mark". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• 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.)

External links

• Works by Hale White at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Mark Rutherford at Internet Archive
• Works by or about Hale White at Internet Archive
• Works by Hale White at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Mark Rutherford Resource