134 



Canadian Forestry Journal, July, 1915. 



Death of Mr. Aubrey White, CM.G. 



Mr. Aubrey White, C.M.G., Deputy 

 Minister of Lands and Forests for On- 

 tario, died suddenly, of the rupture of 

 a blood vessel in the head, at his sum- 

 mer home in Muskoka on July 14. 

 ]\Ir. White was taking a brief holiday 

 and the fatal attack occurred in the 

 evening of the 13th after he had been 

 spending the day in the open air in 

 the woods and on the lake, and he died 

 early the following morning. 



Mr. White was ])orn in Omagh. 

 County Tyrone, Ireland, on March 19. 

 1845. He came to Canada at the age 

 of seventeen and did pioneering work 

 in IMuskoka from 1862, later getting 

 into the lumbering business in that 

 district. He entered the service of 

 the Ontario Government as a forest 

 ranger in 1876, and so in tlie course 

 of his term of just about forty years 

 he had passed through all gradations 

 of the service from the lowest to the 

 highest. He was appointed Crown 

 timber agent at Bracebridge, Mus- 

 koka, in 1878 and two years later was 

 brought to Toronto as Chief Clerk of 

 Woods and Forests. These were 

 formative years in the Department 

 and in 1887 he became Assistant Com- 

 missioner of Crown Lands, which of- 

 fice later was entitled that of Deputy 

 ^linister. This was tlie post which 

 Mr. White lield at the time of his 

 death, having been the administrator 

 and confidential adviser of sixteen or 

 seventeen ministers and five Govern- 

 ments, including a change from Lib- 

 eral to Conservative administration. 

 Probably Mr. White's greatest indi- 

 vidual achievement was the establish- 

 ing in 1885 of the fire ranging system, 

 the first on the continent and which 

 after thirty years' development now 

 covers northern Ontario with a force 

 of rangers at a cost of about $250,000 

 per year, exclusive of the amount ])aid 

 out by lumbermen in patroling their 

 limits. But what many regarded as 



The late Aubrey White, CM.G. 



of equal or greater importance was 

 Mr. White's daily supervision, year 

 after year, of the determining and 

 collecting of Ontario's forest revenue 

 which has ranged between .$1,750,000 

 and $2,000,000 per year. 



Mr. White took a very deep interest 

 in the work of the Canadian Forestry 

 Association and attended its conven- 

 tions whenever his duties j^ermitted 

 and participated actively in the dis- 

 cussions. When the early history of 

 the Association comes to be written 

 ]\Ir. White will be named as one of the 

 gladiators who contended in the effort 

 to arrive at the -best plan of advancing 

 forest conservation. He held strong 

 views and chamjiioned them ably. He 

 was elected President of the Associa- 

 tion for the year 1904-5 and presided 

 at the annual meeting in Quebec in 

 ^larch, 1905. He was for two years 

 Honorary President and for several 

 years past had been one of the direc- 

 tors of the Association. He was al- 



