Henry White (1819-1903) was a London lawyer who was also recognized as one of Britain's most gifted

landscape photographers A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

Personal life and legal career

Henry White was born in London on 2 June 1819, the third of six children of the lawyer Richard Samuel White and his wife Bridget Mylen. The family lived at 18

Brunswick Square Brunswick Square is a public garden and ancillary streets along two of its sides in Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden. It is overlooked by the School of Pharmacy and the Foundling Museum to the north; the Brunswick Centre to the w ...

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions. Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest mus ...

and Henry trained as a

solicitor A solicitor is a legal practitioner who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally-defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and ...

, joining his father's partnership, becoming ''White, Carew & White'' of 11

Lincoln's Inn Fields Lincoln's Inn Fields is the largest public square in London. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a long series of entrepreneurs who took a hand in develo ...

which later became ''White & Son'' when George Carew left the firm in 1841. Henry White continued to practice as a solicitor after the death of his father in 1859. In 1847 White married Louisa Ann Lindley (1822-1893), the daughter of Charles Lindley, a

Mansfield Mansfield is a market town and the administrative centre of Mansfield District in Nottinghamshire, England. It is the largest town in the wider Mansfield Urban Area (followed by Sutton-in-Ashfield). It gained the Royal Charter of a market tow ...

quarry owner and they had three children, Henry, Louisa and Alice, born between 1849 and 1852.

Photography

It is White's skill as an amateur photographer during the 1850s and 1860s, rather than as a lawyer, which is responsible for his reputation. He produced picturesque English landscapes, mainly taken in

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

and

North Wales , area_land_km2 = 6,172 , postal_code_type = Postcode , postal_code = LL, CH, SY , image_map1 = Wales North Wales locator map.svg , map_caption1 = Six principal areas of Wales common ...

, which helped to establish the aesthetic standard for 19th-century British landscape photography. Common subjects were cottages, mills, and fields, as well as closeup views of foliage and other images of nature. He joined the Photographic Society of London in 1855, serving as its treasurer between 1866 and 1872 and contributed photographs to their albums in 1855 and 1857. He also belonged to the Photographic Society of Great Britain. He was prolific exhibitor, showing at least 237 photographs in the eight years from 1855 and meeting with considerable praise; he won the highest medal at the 1855 Exposition Universelle in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

and his landscape photographs and won a gold medal at the International Exhibition in Brussels in 1856. That same year, White published a series of views of London. He also exhibited at the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition (1857) and the International Exhibition (1862). A charming example of his best known style is an intimate, lyrical landscape taken in 1856 in northern Wales. The family in the photograph is almost certainly his own, and he has carefully balanced his desire to faithfully record elaborate details with broad atmospheric effects. As with many of his images, this print registers a city-dweller's delight in finding himself in natural surroundings.

Death

Family grave of Henry White in Highgate Cemetery

White died at his home, 9 Campden Hill Gardens,

Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...

on 28 November 1903 and is buried in a family grave on the west side of

Highgate Cemetery Highgate Cemetery is a place of burial in north London, England. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves across the West and East Cemeteries. Highgate Cemetery is notable both for some of the people buried there as ...

close to the grave of another celebrated Victorian landscape photographer, Francis Bedford.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:White, Henry 1819 births 1903 deaths Burials at Highgate Cemetery 19th-century English photographers 19th-century English lawyers Pioneers of photography Photographers from London