Charles White

• Biography

  Attribute	Value
  Biography	Charles White was born on 11 February 1876 at Panton Street, London. He was the son of a surgeon at St George's Hospital, and his second wife. He was educated at Epsom College, but showed no interest in following his father into the medical profession, and instead joined the accountant's department of London United Tramways (LUT), where he eventually became chief clerk. Around the turn of the century, however, White was sent to Cork, Ireland, where he was responsible for interviewing applicants for posts on the city's new electric tramway system; it was there that he met and married his wife. When White returned to England, he was employed in the Publicity Office firstly of the Underground Group and later of its successor, the London Passenger Transport Board. He was the author of the 'Country Walks' series of booklets, which were written to encourage Londoners to visit the countryside around London, travelling, of course, by Underground, bus or Green Line coach; he also contributed articles to staff magazines such as 'TOT' and 'Pennyfare'. White travelled widely in London and the Home Counties whilst researching these publications, and the typewritten notes he made (in nine loose-leaf volumes) are now held by London's Transport Museum library. White also wrote the text which accompanied the LPTB's seven lantern-slide lectures, which were intended to popularise and publicise the organisation, and which were lent, free of charge, to outside organisations, societies etc. White also collated and annotated eleven albums of photographs of London, dating from about 1860 to the early 1920's; quite how White managed to acquire these is a mystery, as the more recent photographs, at least, were intended to be used as a way of familiarising bus drivers with changes in London's streets, and it appears that White obtained them without the knowledge and consent of those senior to him in the organisation. His somewhat idiosyncratic notes on the photographs give detailed architectural, historical, and social information about the buildings and streets portrayed. These albums also are now held in the photographic library at London's Transport Museum. White retired in the summer of 1942, his retirement presents (chosen by White himself) being a 'chiming timepiece' and a book, 'The Countryside Companion'. White remained extremely active in his retirement, and wrote a series of guides to London Boroughs for a publisher in Cheltenham. As late as 1960, at the age of 85, White carried out detailed research for a history of the City of Westminster. White's consuming passion was the history of London, and his other interests were few; he collected Toby jugs, and became something of an authority on paintings, apparently being quite prepared to offer advice to LPTB senior officers on the subject. White appears to have had a somewhat difficult personality, and inspired little affection among his fellow-employees who regarded him as 'irritable' and 'pedantic'. Beaumont, who joined the Publicity Office in 1936, states that White had a 'vitriolic hatred' of the Assistant Publicity Officer, H T Carr, who had once called White a 'bloody fool'. White was quite prepared to take advantage of the direct access he enjoyed to very senior figures at the LPTB, which only served to aggravate the poor relationship with Carr and others. Yet, although it was believed that White had a good relationship with Frank Pick, the LPTB Vice-Chairman, he refused to write Pick's official biography (after the latter's death) on the grounds that he had always detested him in life, and failed to see why he should erect a monument to him in death. After his retirement, he imperiously refused to accept editorial amendments to the London Guides he wrote. White was quite prepared to cross swords with anyone - as 'Pennyfare' put it upon his retirement, in his '...independent search for truth, he broke...a lance with well-known writers'. He also appears to have been a regular contributor to the letters pages of several national newspapers. The notes to the photographs mentioned above often contain amusing or waspish comments; the producers of an LCC Tramways poster depicting the George Inn, Southwark in coaching days are described as knowing '...as much about coaching days and coaching ways as an Eskimo...', whilst he remarks that the then recently-erected memorial to Nurse Edith Cavell in St Martin's Place is '...foolish in conception and design'. White died in 1968, at the age of 91, apparently forgotten by LT, as there is no obituary notice or other record of the event in 'London Transport Magazine'
  Employment	Writer, Publicity Department,
  Role	Staff,