628 
A BIBLIOGBAPHY OF 
[white 
was unsuccessful, although, he seems to have had influential 
support. In September 1753 he became curate at Durley, 
near Bishop’s Waltham, where he resided for a year, and in 
October 1753 he resigned his Deanship of Oriel. In 1755 he 
was for a time curate of West Dene or Deane, on the Wilt- 
shire-Hampshire border, and he also seems at the same time 
to have held the curacy of Newton Valence, near Selborne. 
Towards the end of 1756 the naturalist appears to have 
resigned both these curacies and to have become curate-in- 
charge of Selborne for the second time, when he boarded with 
his father at “ The Wakes,” and only used the Vicarage for 
sleeping accommodation. In 1757 the perpetual curacy of 
Moreton Pinkney in Northampton, in the gift of Oriel, fell 
vacant, and in the Provost’s notebook occurs the following 
entry : “ Agreed to give it to the Senior Fellow ( i.e . Gilbert 
White) who will serve it in person.” Gilbert White was duly 
licensed to this living in May 1758. However, he did not go 
into residence at Moreton Pinkney, and the living was served 
by Mr. Cotton as curate. In 1757 Gilbert White was again 
acting as curate of Dene and Newton Valence, but the death 
of the Vicar of Selborne, Dr. Bristowe, which took place in 
1758, found him back there again as- curate-in- charge for the 
third time. In October 1759 he resigned the curacy of 
Selborne to Mr. Etty, the new Vicar, and set out for London 
and his brother-in-law’s house at Lyndon, near Rutland, 
where he made a visit of some six months’ duration. This 
was his last considerable absence from Selborne, where he was 
shortly to settle down for the remainder of his life. 
In 1761 he became curate of Farringdon in Hants, near 
by Selborne, which he served for twenty-five years, living at 
“ The Wakes,” and riding backwards and forwards to his 
duties by the bridle-path across the “ North Field.” In 1763 
an important event took place in the life of the naturalist ; 
in this year he inherited from his uncle, Charles White, “ The 
Wakes,” 1 to whom it had come by marriage with Elizabeth, 
1 There is, however, no mention of “ The Wakes ” in Charles White’s will, and 
Gilbert inherited as “ heir at law.” 
