WHITBY, a seaport and famous bathing-place in the North Riding of Yorkshire, 541/2 m.  NE. of York; is situated at the mouth of the Esk, and looks N. over the German Ocean; it consists of an old fishing town sloping upwards, and a fashionable new town above and behind it, with the ruins of an abbey; Captain Cook was a ’prentice here, and it was in Whitby-built ships, “the best and stoutest bottoms in England,” that he circumnavigated the globe.

WHITBY, DANIEL, English divine, born in Northamptonshire; became rector of St. Edmunds, Salisbury; involved himself in ecclesiastical controversy first with the Catholics, then with the High Church party, and got into trouble; had one of his books burned at Oxford; his most important work “Paraphrase and Commentary on the New Testament”; died an Arian (1638-1726).

WHITE, ALEXANDER, a Scottish divine, born in Kirriemuir, of humble parentage; a man of deep religious sympathies and fervid zeal, with an interest before all in spiritual things; studied the arts in Aberdeen and theology in Edinburgh, in the latter of which cities he ministers to a large attached flock; is the author of books, originally for most part addresses, calculated to awaken in others an interest in divine things akin to his own; b. 1837.

WHITE, SIR GEORGE STEWART, English general, has had a brilliant career; entered the army in 1853; won the Victoria Cross twice over; served in the Mutiny, in the Afghan Campaign (1879-1880), in the Nile Expedition (1885), in the Burmese War (1885-1887), and was made Commander-in-Chief in India in 1893, Quartermaster-General in 1898, and is now distinguishing himself by his generalship and heroism in the South African War; b. 1835.

WHITE, GILBERT, English naturalist, born in the village of Selborne, Hants; educated at Oriel College, Oxford, in which he obtained a Fellowship, which he retained all his life; became curate of Selborne, and passed an uneventful life studying the habits of the animals around him, where he “had not only no great men to look on, but not even men, only sparrows and cockchafers; yet has he left us a ‘Biography’ of these, which, under the title of ‘Natural History of Selborne,’ still remains valuable to us, which has copied a little sentence or two faithfully from the inspired volume of Nature, and so,” adds Carlyle, “is itself not without inspiration” (1720-1793).

WHITE, HENRY KIRKE, minor poet, born at Nottingham; published a book of poems in 1803, which procured him the patronage of Southey; got a sizarship in St. John’s, Cambridge; through over-zeal in study undermined his constitution and died of consumption, Southey editing his “Remains” (1785-1806).

WHITE, JOSEPH BLANCO, man of letters of an unstable creed, born in Seville, of Irish parentage; first ordained a priest; left the Catholic Church, and took orders in the Church of England; left the English, became a Unitarian, and settled to miscellaneous literary work; left an autobiography which reveals an honest quest of light, but to the last in doubt; he lives in literature by a sonnet “Night and Death” (1775-1841).