James White (financier)

White finally overreached himself financially, and being unable to meet his huge liabilities, committed suicide at the age of 50.

[1] Little is known of his early career; it is on record that he worked in a cotton mill, and White said in 1925 that when he was 19, he and three others bought a circus in Rochdale, and that he later leased a theatre in Matlock in the adjoining county of Derbyshire.

[5] The enormous public interest in the controversy propelled White to the attention of businessmen, politicians and press barons; his influence as a broker of deals grew steadily.

Two years later, with the deal still in limbo, White was on the verge of resolving all outstanding funding problems when Sir Joseph died suddenly, leaving a financial tangle that had to be settled by the courts.

[7] In 1913, White was appointed financial adviser to Dunlop Rubber and persuaded the company to set up an American subsidiary, which failed.

[1] After the war he returned to property dealing, and was at first highly successful, buying and profitably reselling large holdings in central London and elsewhere.

[2] White was a lifelong gambler, and spend a large fortune on racehorses, owing stables and entering runners, with some success, for major races.

[10] In 1927, White overstretched himself financially, and found himself hundreds of thousands of pounds short of the money he needed to meet two concurrent contractual commitments.