8 GILBERT WHITE OF SELBORNE 



by Witney, where the name hath lived several 

 generations." 



Gilbert White, the naturalist, a great-grandson 

 of Sir Sampson, writing for the information of a 

 nephew, Samuel Barker, of Lyndon Hall, Rutland, 

 gives the following account of his ancestors : — 



"The family of the Whites (our family) were in posses- 

 sion of an estate called Swan Hall, in the tything of Haley, 

 parish of Witney, Oxon., as long ago as the reign of Queen 

 Ehzabeth ; the mansion of Swan Hall is still standing. In 

 the map of Oxfordshire bound up with Plot's history of 

 that county* are the arms of the Whites of Swan Hall, 

 the same that we bear. We are lineally descended from 

 Sir Sampson White, my great-grandfather, being the fourth 

 son (born 1607), whose father was possessed of Swan Hall. 

 This estate, by a female line, went into the family of the 

 Ashworths, who sold it." 



As already stated the name of White is by no 

 means uncommon in Oxfordshire. Among the names 

 of the gentry of Oxfordshire returned by the Com- 

 missioners in the twelfth year of King Henry VL 

 occurs Johannes White, f One John le Whyte's 

 name occurs in Dugdale's *Monasticon Anglicanum' 

 as a witness to a deed relating to Einsham Abbey. 



It is certain that a family of that name was settled 

 at Coggs in the reign of Henry VIII. In the Sub- 



♦ 'The Natural History of Oxfordshire,' by Robert Plot, ll.d., late 

 Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum and Professor of Chemistry in the 

 University of Oxford, 1677. 



t Vide FuLLKii's History of the Worthies of England. Ed. Nicholls. 

 Vol ii. p. 285. 



