On This Day

11 September 1900

Death of William White, bookseller and Birmingham councillor

Death of William White (1820-1900) a bookseller and publisher in Birmingham, White’s interest in moral and social improvements led him through the Society of Friends to Liberal politics and in 1873 he was elected a councillor in St Mary’s Ward. In 1875, he became responsible for slum clearance and council housing working with Joseph Chamberlain and regarding himself as a disciple of John Bright. White’s espousal of the traditional Liberal causes of temperance and education together with the innovative municipal socialism of Chamberlain’s Birmingham typified the new liberalism of the turn of the century party.