GILBERT WHITE AND HIS SUSSEX CONNECTIONS. 297 



("Scotland") on the Harting Downs to the S.E. facing Chilgrove, 

 the property of Mr. Woods. The newly recovered Church Book 

 of Harting discloses the entry made in the handwriting of a most 

 upright parson, Rev. John Newlin, M.A. : — " April 16th, a.d. 1734. 

 I appoint Mr. Robert Wood in my nomination to serve the office 

 of churchwarden this year, in the parish of Harting. John 

 Newlin, vicar." The same appointment is made in 1735 and 

 1736, but in 1739 it is "overseer" for South and East Harting, 

 and spelt as now, " Robert Woods." This is a spelling which 

 also occurs in his own signatures, April 12th, 1737, and 1743, 

 though he had previously signed himself (1735) as " Wood." He 

 was also overseer in 1747. He died after losing his wife, nee Anne 

 Luff, and was buried at Harting Church, Sept. 2nd, 1755. John 

 White, father of Gilbert, was living in Harting, as Mr. Bell has 

 shown. He states that Francis, the sixth son, brother to Gilbert, 

 was born at Harting, March, 1729 — entered thus in Harting 

 Register, " 1729, March 2— Francis, son of John White, Esq., 

 baptised," and that the family did not leave Harting till Gilbert 

 White was thirteen years old, 1733. This shows that Gilbert 

 White must have lived at Harting for at least four years, and had 

 his earliest impressions of nature here in Sussex. In the year 

 1734, when Mr. R. Woods was vicar's churchwarden, he would be 

 ex officio a trustee of the Feoffee Charity ; and a deed, apparently 

 drawn by Mr. John White, a barrister (Gilbert's father), as 

 co-trustee of this charity, has the signature of John White, and 

 is in the possession of Mr. John Lever, C.C., of Kent House, 

 East Harting, as chairman of the Harting Feoffees. Therefore, 

 the Woods family and the Whites must have known one another, 

 sitting at the same board as co-trustees of the Harting Charity in 

 1734, and must have been some of Harting's most influential 

 residents. It is unfortunate that we cannot trace the residence 

 of the Whites at Harting, but probably it was either at Tye-oak, 

 East Harting, or at Woodhouse, their farm, till the end of the 

 18th century, on the N.E. corner of our parish, near Rogate and 

 Harting Station. No doubt Gilbert White, who never seems to 

 have lost a friend, would maintain his friendship with the squire 

 of Chilgrove. It was his own geniality that made him say to 

 Marsham, on first acquaintance, like fruit of new flavour, " Oh, 

 that I had known you forty years ago ! " 



But on August 3rd, 1754, Gilbert White went on from 



ZOOLOGIST. — AUGUST, 1893. 2 A 



