Researching Martin White

White made his first appearance for the team during the 1931 championship and became a regular member of the team until his retirement following the conclusion of the 1938 championship. During that time he won three All-Ireland winner's medals and three Leinster winner's medals.

At club level White enjoyed lengthy careers with Tullaroan in Kilkenny and with Blackrock in Cork. He won three county club championship winners' medals with the former.

Until his death White was the oldest living senior All-Ireland medal winner.

White was born in New York City, the son of wealthy jute merchant James Farquhar White and his wife Elizabeth Grundy. White Sr. had, in 1849, established a 'dry goods' company, J F White & Co. in New York selling a variety of imported and domestic textiles. However, with the onset of the American Civil War he had returned home to Scotland and leased Castle Huntly, Perthshire as the family home. In 1880 they bought and moved to a baronial castle at Balruddery, Angus, near the city of Dundee. He ran his family business from Dundee and New York, but took a back seat to pursue political and scientific interests.

J Martin White studied engineering at Cassel in Germany and was very interested in the technological innovations of his time, becoming chairman of the Dundee Technical Institute. He was a keen photographer and had his own darkroom from the late 1870s. In April 1881 he and his father, James F White, installed electricity at their house, Balruddery by Longforgan, outside Dundee. They generated the electricity with a Siemens SDJ Shuntwound 50-volt dynamo driven by a turbine on a stream on the estate and thus established probably the first domestic generating plant in Scotland and the second, after Cragside, in Britain. Martin White was also a collector and connoisseur of Japanese art.