Researching Francis White

He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh. After doing a Grand Tour in 1866, he settled in Perth where he would remain his entire life. His main area of interest was the Lepidoptera and the taxonomy of the Hemiptera. He was the author of numerous scientific papers, published in the Scottish Naturalist, Journal of Botany, and The Proceedings and Transactions of the Perthshire Society of Natural Science. White was a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society and the Linnean Society.

In 1883, Buchanan White redescribed the known species of the Hemiptera genus Halobates and he illustrated 11 species in colour, with numerous drawings in black and white of structural details. This was one of the parts of the Challenger Report.

White served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, representing Hampshire County, and later served as a member of the Virginia State Senate, representing Berkeley, Hampshire, Hardy, and Morgan counties. He represented Virginia's 2nd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives during the 13th United States Congress. White also served as the sheriff of Hampshire County.

White was the grandson of Virginia pioneer settler and physician Dr. Robert White (1688–1752); thus, he was a member of the prominent White political family of Virginia and West Virginia. He was the nephew of United States House Representative Alexander White (1738–1804), and the brother of Virginia judge Robert White (1759–1831).

Francis White was indentured to Abraham Colles on 17 March 1807, and for some time was a resident pupil in Steevens' Hospital and a student in the RCSI School. He was elected a Member on 1 May 1815. He established a Hospital for Diseases of the Eye on Lower Ormond quay, and subsequently added to it a small anatomical school. During the cholera epidemic of 1832 he was very active, and was for several years Secretary to the Board of Health.

In 1841 he was appointed Inspector- General of Prisons and was subsequently first Inspector of Lunatic Asylums under the Act of 1845. White had initiated a campaign to secure medical participation in the treatment of the mentally ill years before the 1845 Act. neral of Prisons in 1841 and he saw this as a step towards a medical professional being appointed to a similar role for asylums. As Inspector-General of Prisons, White had seen this as a step towards a medical professional being appointed to a similar role for asylums. White believed that if mentally ill patients were treated with kindness, comfort and understanding it would most likely give good results. Also by looking at patients from a medical point of view the little scientific knowledge of mental illness available at that time could be built upon.