[1] He attended St Michaels Boys' School, and in 1869 joined Stanley & Wasbrough (a Bristol firm of solicitors) [2] as a junior clerk.
Wholesaler Henry Gale Gardner and coal magnate Joseph Wethered were also on the board, and George White became the part-time secretary of the Bristol Tramways Company at a salary of £150 per annum.
[4] Over the next ten years, White grew his stockbroking firm, using money borrowed from Henry Gale Gardner's wagon-building company and working on behalf of the wealthy contacts he had already made including Stuckey's Bank.
[7] In the 1890s White was an enthusiastic promoter of electric tramways together with the engineer James Clifton Robinson, to cut the high costs and get rid of the dirty aspects of horse-drawn trams.
Whilst the venture did not come to fruition due to overwhelming opposition from Great Western Railway, it still increased White's profile and standing with Bristol's civic and commercial elite.
[14] White understood the importance of publicity and worked closely with his brother-in-law, Edward Everard to publish illustrated guides and brochures to advertise his companies' services.
[18] Between 1905 and 1908, White tested and developed a fleet of twelve motorised Thornycroft double-decker buses,[19] with routes starting from Bristol and travelling to depots in Bath, Cheltenham, Gloucester and Weston-super-Mare.
In 1913 White built a motor construction factory in South Bristol capable of building 300 vehicles per year, and by 1914 the company was one of the biggest employers in Bristol with 17 tramways services and 15 omnibus services and a fleet of 44 buses, 169 tramcars, 124 taxis and 29 charabancs, plus vans, lorries and commercial vehicles.
This set out from the first to produce aircraft on a commercial scale, with premises in Filton at the end of White's tramway terminus.
[23] The first overseas order for Boxkites was from the Russian government in 1910, following which the licence to produce Bristol designs was sold to France, Germany and Italy.
[3] In 1904 Sir George White saved the hospital from debts of over £15,000 by increasing the number of subscribed donors and planning a fundraising carnival at Bristol Zoo.
The British Library Sound Archive holds speech recordings of White which include reference to early aviation.