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The Encyclopaedia of Plymouth History |
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William Henry White was born at Drews Cottage in James Street, Devonport, on February 2nd 1845. After attending St James the Great National School, he was nominated for the entrance examination to the Royal Dockyard in 1859. Unfortunately he was unable to reach the required standard of height. This small problem was overcome by the insertion of folded blotting paper in his boots. He commenced work in the Dockyard as an apprentice on July 1st 1859 when his weekly wage, at the age of just 14, was three shillings (15p). He assisted in the conversion to steam of the battleship "HMS St George". In 1863 William was awarded an Admiralty scholarship and was selected as a candidate to go to the newly formed Royal School of Naval Architecture at South Kensington, in London. He was top of the list of students selected from all the Dockyards and remained in that position throughout his course. Part of his training took place back at Devonport, in 1865, and at Chatham the following year. As a third-class draughtsman, he worked on structural details of "HMS Bellerophon" and "HMS Hercules". Upon the termination of his apprenticeship, he passed out of the School and join the Admiralty drawing up specifications of ships with the calculations and estimates of weight and speed as preliminaries to design. He soon rose to become the confidential secretary to the Chief Constructor, Mr E J Reed, until his resignation on July 9th 1870. William was appointed Instructor on Naval Design at the School in South Kensington in November 1870 and two years later was made Secretary to the Council of Construction. In that post he played a major part, and often a leading part, in all the designing work carried on by the staff of the Admiralty. In 1872/73 he was at Pembroke Dockyard supervising the redesign of "HMS Fury" and was then transferred to Portsmouth to supervise work on "HMS Inflexible". He became an Assistant Constructor in March 1875 and married later that year. Another major event that year was the publication of his "Manual of Naval Architecture", which became a world-wide classic. The Royal Corps of Naval Constructors was established by Order in Council in August 1883, following his recommendation, and a large number of Plymouth and Devonport lads went on to hold high office in that organisation over the years. But William had by that time left the Admiralty and joined Sir William Armstrong, Mitchell and Company as Warship Designer and manager of their warship construction branch. For the next three years he was responsible for all the naval cruisers built at Elswick. Following the resignation in 1885 of Sir Nathaniel Barnaby, who had taken over from Sir Edward Reed, he returned to the Admiralty as the Director of Naval Construction and Assistant Controller of the Navy, where his first duty was to draw up a scheme for the reorganisation of the Admiralty and the Royal Dockyards. This was followed in 1888 by his revolutionary design of the "Royal Sovereign" class armoured cruisers, from which were developed the "Majestic" class. Sir William White received his knighthood in 1895 and was made a Freeman of the Borough of Devonport after the opening ceremony of the Devonport Technical College. Disaster struck his illustrious career on July 3rd 1900, however, when the new Royal Yacht, the "Victoria and Albert", keeled over in the dock during work on her completion. Although it turned out to be the fault of the Chief Constructor at Pembroke for allowing absurdly heavy fittings to be placed on and above the upper deck without Sir William's knowledge, and that she was being floated in the dock with almost empty bunkers and was therefore unstable anyway, he accepted full responsibility and all the blame. There was a great deal of criticism in Parliament and in the press, and the Lords of the Admiralty condemned him as having 'committed a very serious error of judgement in not sufficiently impressing upon your subordinates the novelty and importance of the task entrusted to them'. This, unsurprisingly in a man of great integrity, brought on a nervous breakdown. In April 1901 he submitted his last design for a battleship, the "King Edward VII", but he was a sick man who was indecisive and constantly concerned over what his staff thought were trivial matters. It is said that their loyalty soon turned to resentment. Sir William requested retirement and this was formally announced on December 6th 1901. This was no more evident than on his last day in office, January 31st 1902. Apparently he walked into the room occupied by his senior assistants and announced: 'I am going now. Good-bye to you all'. But nobody even rose and shook his hand. Worn out and broken-hearted, he went to leave the building when his old messenger came forward and said: 'May I shake your hand, Sir William, and say how sorry I am you are so ill as to be obliged to leave us'. Sir William White died on February 27th 1913, after suffering a stroke at his office in Victoria Street, London. He was during his lifetime a Fellow of the Royal Society; Vice-President of the Institution of Naval Architects; Past President of the Institution of Civic Engineers; Past President of the Institution of Marine Engineers; Past President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers; Past President of the Institute of Metals; President-Elect of the British Association; and an honorary member of other engineering and naval architecture bodies world-wide.
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