[1] After his ordination in 1945 he spent three years as a chaplain to the first battalion of the Scots Guards, and then served as a parish minister at Dunollie Road Church in Oban (inducted 1948) and Mayfield North in Edinburgh (1954).
He was survived by his second wife, primary school teacher Ishbel (née MacAuley) and his daughter and two sons from his first marriage.
[2] Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was invited to address the 1988 General Assembly and gave the speech which the press dubbed the Sermon on the Mound, which attempted to suggest a theological basis for her style of capitalism.
In his speech to the General Assembly the following year he recalled (referring to the Conservative baron Sir Nicholas Fairbairn): "one knight-errant looking for a windmill to tilt at even described me as 'Satanic' !"
After the Dunblane Massacre in 1996 the families of the victims requested that Whyte conduct the memorial service on 9 October that year.