He was born in the manor house at Stanton St John, Oxfordshire, where his father held a lease from New College, Oxford, and was baptised there on 6 January 1575.

His elder brother, Josias, was rector of Hornchurch, Essex, 1614–23, and father of James White, a merchant of Boston, Massachusetts.

About 1623 he was involved in plans to send out a colony of Dorset men to settle in North America, allowing nonconformists to enjoy liberty of conscience.

White then recruited emigrants from the western counties of Dorset, Somerset and Devon, who set sail a few years later as a better-supported expedition and organised church aboard the ship Mary and John.

Francis Higginson and Samuel Skelton were chosen and approved by White as ministers and sailed for the Dorchester colony on 4 May 1629 aboard the George Bonaventura.

White produced particulars of these in his note-books, and after six months' attendance before the court of high commission, he was discharged and the informant against him reprimanded.

A party of Prince Rupert's horse burst into White's house, plundered it, and carried off his books.

He regularly attended the sittings of the assembly, and signed the petition for the right to refuse the sacrament to scandalous persons, presented to the House of Lords, 12 August, was one of the assessors, and in 1645 was chosen on the committee of accommodation.

White brought William Benn to Lambeth with him, whom he had called in 1629 to be the incumbent of All Saints Church, Dorchester.