William H. White (architect)

On the completion of his articles in London with George Morgan, he crossed the Channel, and, after a short term in the office of a French architect, established himself in Paris. He met influential clients, who commissioned him renovation of old chateaus including Château de Bizy (fr) and Château de Martinvast (fr). At the time, White received an architect pupil, Charles Alfred Chastel de Boinvile.^[4]

Following the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, White returned to Britain and found a new job in India through his father's connections, entering the Public Works Department of the Indian Government. He designed several important buildings in India, including the Court of Small Causes at Calcutta (illustrated in The Builder, 23 March 1878), the Monument to Chief Justice Sir John Norman (assassinated 1871), and the Presidency College. After travelling in India and on the Continent, White returned to London and took up journalistic work, contributing articles to The Builder. About this time he was appointed the Examiner in Architecture at the Royal Indian Engineering College, Cooper's Hill, a post be occupied for about two years.

The Secretaryship of this Royal Institute became vacant in 1878 through the retirement of Charles Eastlake, the present Keeper and Secretary of the National Gallery. White gained the post, and served his time eighteen years—an era in the progress of the Institute marked by increased influence at home and abroad, and a necessarily more extended system of administration.