Captain Jack White
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Captain Jack White DSO (1879 1946) is a fascinating yet neglected figure in Irish history. Son of Field Marshal Sir George White V.C., he became a Boer war hero, and crucially was the first Commandant of the Irish Citizen Army. One of the few notable figures in Ireland to declare himself an anarchist, he led a remarkable life of action, and was a most unsystematic thinker. This is a long overdue assessment of his life and times. Leo Keohane vividly brings to life the contradictory worlds and glamour of this mercurial figure, who knew Lord Kitchener, was a dinner companion of King Edward and the Kaiser, who corresponded with H.G. Wells, D.H. Lawrence and Tolstoy, and shared a platform with G.B. Shaw, Conan Doyle, Roger Casement and Alice Stopford Green. The founder of the Irish Citizen Army along with James Connolly, White marched (and argued) with James Larkin during the 1913 Lockout, worked with Sean O Casey, liaised with Constance Markievicz and socialised with most of the Irish activists and literati of the early twentieth century. A man who lived many lives, White was the ultimate outsider beset by divided loyalties with an alternative philosophy and an inability to conform.
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CAPTAIN JACK WHITE
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Unlike his son, George White pursued a lifetime career in the army. He was appointed an ensign when aged eighteen in 1853 in the 27 Foot and, although quite ambitious, took five years to become a lieutenant, another five to reach captain, and was 38 before he became a major. Instead of being posted to ‘a real war in the Crimea’, he found himself in India which he detested, at first telling his sister that if he ‘had known what sort of a place it was I should have left the army and taken to breaking stones in Ireland’.18 Things changed, however, and he did see action in the Indian Mutiny of 1857–59 in which he won a medal, but it was not until the Afghan War (1879–80) that his much-desired career took off when he had attained the mature age of forty-four. The citation for the award of his Victoria Cross runs as follows:
George Stuart White, Major (now Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel), 92nd Regiment (Gordon Highlanders). Date of Act of Bravery: 6th October, 1879. For conspicuous bravery during the engagement at Charasia on the 6th October, 1879, when, finding that the artillery and rifle fire failed to dislodge the enemy from a fortified hill which it was necessary to capture, Major White led an attack on it in person. Advancing with two companies of his regiment, and climbing from one steep ledge to another, he came upon a body of the enemy strongly posted and outnumbering his force by about eight to one. His men being much exhausted and immediate action being necessary, Major White took a rifle and, going on by himself, shot the leader of the enemy. This act so intimidated the rest that they fled round the side of the hill and the position was won. Again on the 1st September, 1880, at the Battle of Kandahar, Major White, in leading the final charge under heavy fire from the enemy, who held a strong position supported by two guns, rode straight up to within a few yards of them, and seeing the guns, dashed forward and secured one of them, immediately after which the enemy retired.19
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