He was born the eldest son of Abraham White (c. 1828 – 15 May 1885), farmer and railway contractor of "Illawarra", Bagot's Well, and his wife Mary, née Wharton, ( – c. 1931).
[1] In 1881 he was involved in a complex legal argument, which went as far as the Court of Appeal in England, with John "Jack" Neaylon over ownership of the lease later known as Appatoongannie.
[3] In 1894 he paid a six-month visit to the Western Australian goldfields, and at the Kurnalpie field near Coolgardie, staked a claim with one Mr. Thring, and was immediately rewarded with a useful haul of the precious metal,[4] but found nothing at lower depths.
[5] On returning to South Australia, he purchased, with Alexander Poynton and James Henderson Howe, from Frank Denford of Mount Serle Station, the lease to the "Angipena Treasure Mine", which had been fraudulently "salted".
James Wharton White (17 February 1857 – 30 January 1930) married Sophie Agnes Geier in Kapunda.