Dr Thomas White

Thomas White was born in the Parish of Temple in 1550, the son of John White, a clothier. After graduating from Magdalen College, Oxford he settled in London and was promoted rapidly within the Church.

He held a number of benefices, for long periods of time. As well as being the rector of the Church of St. Dunstan-in-the-West, Fleet Street, London, for almost fifty years, he was a prebendary of St. Paul’s, Treasurer of the Church of Salisbury from 1590, a Canon of Christ Church, Oxford from 1591 and a Canon of St. George’s, Windsor from 1593. It is said that he derived his wealth from these many preferments, and the extraordinary length of time that he held them, but it is also likely that he inherited part of his father’s estate.

He died on 1 March 1624, aged 74 years, and was buried in the chancel of St. Dunstan’s. Although he left instructions for a gravestone, a memorial was not provided until 1877 when the Trustees of Bristol Charities and the Governors of Sion College combined to provide it. He was married twice, and both of his wives predeceased him. He had no children and he was faced with the necessity of disposing of his wealth.

Dr White’s almshouse was built to accommodate ten people. Dr White provided for the organisation of the hospital and he selected the first ten almspeople, called the “brothers and sisters.” From his deed of gift we know the names of some of the first “Brethren and Sisters”.

Until 1882 the almshouse consisted of a parallelogram of small gabled buildings, with a narrow grass plot running up the centre. It was intended for ten “poor and impotent” people. In March 1882 the Governors decided to pull down the almshouses and rebuild. The opening ceremony of the new building took place on 21 December 1883. This building was demolished in 1968 and new almshouses were built at a site in Prewett Street, near St. Mary Redcliffe. These almshouses still provide accommodation for 18 residents, together with a warden.

In his will, dated 1623, Dr White also left a number of other charitable gifts, including £3,000 for the building of an ecclesiastical college and an almshouse within the City of London, called Sion College. His executors purchased the site of Elsyng’s Spital, near Cripplegate. Formerly the site of a nunnery, it was named after William Elsynge who purchased the site in 1329 to establish a hospital for the blind. The almshouse was to house twenty persons, of whom four were to come from Bristol. The London almshouse was closed in 1884 and the Sion College library closed in 1996. The Doctor also left the sum of £100 a year for the repairs of the highways about Bristol; he especially specified ten miles on the Oxford Road, and the whole of the road to Bath, via Hanham and Bitton, and five miles in every road leading to a market town in either Somerset or Gloucestershire.

He left directions, in his will, for a number of interesting bequests including £40 to buy chains and manacles for the prisoners of Newgate prison, so that they could be taken to St. Dunstan’s to join in the worship, so that the “air might benefit their bodies, the preaching their souls and their sight and shame an example to the people.”