white] 
BRITISH ORNITHOLOGY 
627 
1906. Birds. [In Victoria History of County of Notts, i. pp. 156-76.] 
London : 1906. 4to. 
1907. Notes on the Birds of Nottinghamshire. London : 1907. 
Collation — 1 vol. 8vo, pp. xviii + 298, 2 pi. (Pub. 10s. 6d. net.) 
1912. Jottings of a Naturalist. London : 1912. 
Collation— 1 vol. 8vo, pp. 298. 
White (Gilbert), 1720-93 
This celebrated naturalist and author was born on July 
18 , 1720 (O.S.), at the parsonage house at Selborne, where 
his parents were staying with his grandfather and godfather, 
Gilbert, who was then vicar of the parish. Gilbert White 
was the eldest son of John White, barrister- at-law ( 1688 - 
1758 ), and of Anne ( 1693 - 1739 ), only child of Thomas Holt 
(ob. 1710 ), rector of Streatham, in Surrey. John’s father, 
also named Gilbert ( 1650 - 1728 ), was the fourth son of 
Samson White ( 1607 - 84 ), who was Mayor of Oxford in 1660 , 
and who, acting as the King’s Butler at the Coronation of 
Charles II., was knighted by that monarch. 
Gilbert White was the eldest of eleven children, three of 
whom died in infancy, and of his boyhood there is little to 
relate. He went to school at Farnham and afterwards to 
the Grammar School at Basingstoke, Thomas Warton (ob. 
1745 ) being head master, and in November 1740 became a 
commoner of Oriel College, Oxford, graduating B.A. in 1743 , 
proceeding M.A. in 1746 , having been elected Fellow in 1744 . 
In March 1749 he was ordained priest in the Chapel in Spring 
Gardens, London, by James Beauclerk, Bishop of Hereford, 
acting for the Bishop of Winchester. In 1751 he became 
curate-in- charge of Selborne, the Vicar, Dr. Bristowe, being 
non-resident, and seems to have occupied the parsonage 
house. In 1752 he became Junior Proctor to his University, 
that office having come to the turn of Oriel. In May 1753 
his term as Junior Proctor expired ; he also held, about this 
time, the office of Dean to his College, the most important 
post after the Provostship. He became a candidate for the 
Provostship when that office became vacant in 1757 , but he 
