JAMES WHITE
THE LATE JAMES WHITE
Another link which connected the Newbury of the past with the present has been severed by the death of Mr. James White, who expired last Thursday evening, the 16th instant. Mr. White was a native of the town, and spent the greater portion of his long life here. He was born on June 12, 1788, so that he had just completed his 80th year.
Some interest attaches to Mr. White's memory from his having been connected with the celebrated manufacturing achievement of performing the whole of the processes necessary to the production of cloth in the limited space of one summer's day. The circumstances of the case are no doubt familiar to many of our readers. It will be remembered that in compliance with a wager laid by Sir John Throckmorton, two sheep were sheared at five o'clock in the morning of the 28th of June 1811, by Mr. Coxetter, of Greenham Mills, who conducted all the processes of the manufacture of the cloth so rapidly that the baronet was able to sit down to dinner at a quarter past six o'clock that same evening in a coat the raw material of which was growing on the sheep's backs in the morning.
The deceased Mr. White, then a young man at home with his father, was the individual who was entrusted with the cutting out of the coat. The manufacturing achievement which we have described has ever since been considered as one of the few remaining persons whose memory carried them back to a period when Newbury wore a very different aspect from what it does at present.

Newbury Weekly News 23 July 1868

Mrs P p 9 S27

James White born 28 June 1811 died 16 July 1868 ?Christened 15 Sept 1788 at Wasing s/o James & Anne