Major Archibald Woollaston WHITE
Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Mounted Brigade Ammunition Column, Royal Horse Artillery

Date of birth: 14th October 1877
Date of death: 1st January 1945

Died aged 67
Unknown
Archibald Woollaston White was born at "Leahurst", Sunderland Street, Tickhill on the 14th of October 1877 the eldest son of Sir William Knight Hamilton Ramsay White and Lady Edith Laura (nee Paris) White of “Leahurst”, Tickhill, Rotherham in Yorkshire.

He was educated at Hazelwood School until April 1891 where the school magazine described him as: - "One of the best, if not the best all round cricketer Hazelwood has turned out. A very fine bat of the aggressive type, a brilliant field and good bowler, he very soon made his mark at Wellington, and was Captain of the XI before he left."

He went on to Wellington College where he was in Hill House. While he was there he was Captain of the Cricket 1st XI in 1895 and 1896 and was Captain of the Rugby 1st XV in 1896 He was appointed as a Prefect in 1895 and left the school in 1896. He went on to Trinity College Cambridge where he was admitted as a pensioner on the 30th of June 1896. He achieved a BA in History in 1899, passing out 1st in Part One of his Examination in History.

He was married at the Parish Church of Stonegrave, Yorkshire to Gladys Becher (nee Pitman) on the 12th of August 1903; his brother Charles was best man and he was lent a car for his honeymoon by Hazelwood old boy Edward Leather. They had three sons, Thomas Astley Woollaston born on the 13th of May 1904; Richard Taylor, born on the 29th of January 1908, and Archibald John Ramsay born on the 17th of September 1910.

On the 20th of May 1907 he succeeded to the Baronetcy becoming the 4th Baron on the death of his uncle, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Woollaston White. He moved into the family home on the Wallingwells Estate in the Bassetlaw district of Nottinghamshire, living there until it was sold in 1926. He was appointed as a Justice of the Peace for Nottinghamshire. He was a Freemason and was admitted as a member of the Albert Victor Lodge on the 25th of May 1920.

From 1893 he played cricket for Tickhill and became Captain in 1897. He stopped playing for Tickhill in 1908 but became club President in 1910. He played cricket for the Yorkshire Gentlemen and captained Yorkshire County Cricket Club from 1911 to 1914, leading the team to a County Championship in 1912. In 1913 he was appointed to the board of selectors for the England tour to South Africa.

He was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Yorkshire Artillery (Western Division) Militia on the 27th of October 1897 and resigned his commission with the rank of Captain on the 19th of July 1908. He then transferred to the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Mounted Brigade Ammunition Column where he was appointed as a Captain on the 20th of September 1908.

He landed in Egypt on the 28th of March 1915 and later served at Suvla Bay in Gallipoli. He returned to Egypt defending the Suez Canal and he was invalided home at Christmas 1916 following which he was given command of an Anti Aircraft Section.

After the war he resumed his cricket career captaining Yorkshire again in 1920. In his first class career from 1908 to 1920 he scored 1,471 runs at an average of 14.42 with a top score of 55 against Nottinghamshire one of four fifties in his career. He was President of Yorkshire Gentlemen’s Cricket Club from 1938 until his death and was Master of the West Percy Hunt.

He lived on his own means at Sidwood, Bellingham, Northumberland, and died at a nursing home at Torhousemuir, Wigtown in Scotland.

Back