White, was a senior officer in the Australian Army who served as Chief of the General Staff from 1920 to 1923 and again from March to August 1940, when he was killed in the Canberra air disaster.

When the First World War broke out in August 1914, White supervised the first contingents of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) to go the front.

[1] In the battle for the Pozières Heights in late July 1916 which ended in failure, the commander of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) on the Western Front, General Sir Douglas Haig, found fault with Birdwood and White.

By September White had become convinced that as far as possible piecemeal operations must be avoided, that too great advances should not be attempted, and that there must be a proper use of artillery barrage.

Early in 1918, White, realizing the difficulties of repatriation at the end of the war, raised the problem of what would have to be done while the men were waiting for shipping.

In May, Birdwood and White, at the request of General Sir Henry Rawlinson, commander of the British Fourth Army, prepared plans for an offensive but these were shelved in the meanwhile.

In the same year he was appointed Chairman of the newly constituted Commonwealth Public Service Board, supervising the transfer of departments from Melbourne to the new capital, Canberra.

In 1928 he chose not to move to Canberra, declining a further term with the Public Service Board in order to remain close to his home and grazing property "Woodnaggerak" near Buangor, Victoria.