Thomas White (1758–1825) was a close and loyal friend of the Scottish poet Robert Burns, a mathematician of note and eventually Rector (headteacher) of Dumfries Academy.

[2][3][4] John M'Diarmid, a contemporary, recalled that White was appointed "after a comparative trial, in which he foiled every competitor, and secured by the early display of his talents the friendship and esteem of those great ornaments of letters - Dugald Stewart and Professor Robinson.

The gift to White bore an inscription presented by his scholars, pursuing their fortunes in different parts of the world, in testimony of the high sense they entertain of his private worth & indefatigable exertions in the discharge of his professional duties in the town of Dumfries during the period of thirty years.

Though fond of reading and possessed of various and extensive knowledge, mathematical science was evidently his forte; and I believe I hazard nothing in saying that in the higher department of that severe study he had few equals and no superiors.

If proof of this were wanting, it would be found in his valuable contributions to the scientific journals published in London and the correspondence with some of the most learned men in the country... as a man, he has not left an honester behind him.

[4][6] In the second edition White explained that "except at intervals of necessary relaxation, his professional duties permit not the bewitching intrusion of fancy or of imagination"; and of the poem he says that "as it is unaided by either literary friendship or the influence of a veteran name, it must either hasten at once to oblivion or steal into notice by the favourable and slow but unerring judgment of the public."

Among strangers a feeling of this kind may have lent a case of sterness to his manner, but his friends, who knew his sterling integrity, overlooked a failing which 'lent to virtue's side' and even where they differed from him, uniformly acknowledged that his heart was as warm as his head was clear.

His abilities, both as speculative and as a practical Mathematician, were of no common order; yet he had so confined his inquiries to scientific topics as to permit himself to remain ignorant of other useful departments of knowledge, but was, I have always judged, a man of tolerably extensive rending of correct and elegant taste.

[1] Following Burns death White wrote a fitting obituary that was published in the "Dumfries Journal" of 26 July 1796 [10] "His manly form and penetrating eye strikingly indicated extraordinary mental vigour.