Page 10 - The Gonzaga Record 1988
P. 10
OBITUARY OF FR WILLIAM WHITE 1912-1988
In the quartet of Jesuits who founded Gonzaga, Fr Bill White was
surprisingly identified as the Brawn, harnessing the energies of Blood
(the O'Conor Don), Beauty (blond Fr John Murphy) and Brains (Fr Tim
Hamilton, the only survivor). In Bill it was the brawn of the jockey rather
than the ploughman. He walked like a horseman, out of his element with
nothing between his legs, with a slightly limping shuffle. Though I never
saw him on horseback, he seemed to belong there. He mounted his old
bicycle like a hunter and rode it habitually between canter and gallop
round the steeplechase of Dublin streets. He had a jockey's sense of the
final furlong, hurling himself up the Gonzaga avenue just in time for
dinner, or on other public occasions keeping the grandstand on its toes
until the last moment. Two minutes before the house exams, which were
treated with considerable solemnity, teachers, boys and desks would be
in chaos until, at the last moment, Bill would slip into the hall, bundles
of papers under his arms, restoring order just in time.
Though he founded the most urban and urbane of schools, Bill
brought to it a countryman's sense of reality. He was sensitive to the
moods of flesh and blood, a student of form, whether equine or human.
In a school that had the reputation of being heady, he was the least heady
of men. Do you remember his style of greeting? In a warm and
characteristic way it was very physical. Moving towards you with a smile
that was always slightly lop-sided, his hands never far from his body so
that he came close enough to sense you, almost smell you, he would eye
your skin, your colour, the lie of your muscles, the lift or droop of your
mouth, so that when he asked 'How are you?' it was with the concern
of a friend who already surmised your world from the outside and was
eager to know how you experienced it from the inside. At that moment,
nobody else existed for him, and it is no wonder that so many found him
unforgettable. The sense of loss at his funeral was tinged with intensity
and often indignation. It seemed that hundreds were feeling: how could
the Lord take a man who was so important to me - and to whom I was
so important? At the ripe age of three score and fifteen, it still seemed
grossly premature.
Bill is said to have been appalled at his appointment to Gonzaga in
1950. His old guru, Fr Rupert Coyle, had trained him to run the Junior
School in Belvedere, and fingered him to succeed in the Senior School.
He felt himself ill-equipped to launch, albeit in distinguished company,
a pioneering educational experiment. He was reflective, wise and
supportive, but not an originator - he left that to his talented staff, who
always sensed his ungrudging support. From the beginning he liked to
teach the youngest class in the school, to get the measure of them from
the start. While hi s staff gradually shaped a new style and curriculum,
Bill was the one who knew the individual pupil, knew the dynamics of
hi s family, sensed where his promise and his limits were. When I wrote
8
In the quartet of Jesuits who founded Gonzaga, Fr Bill White was
surprisingly identified as the Brawn, harnessing the energies of Blood
(the O'Conor Don), Beauty (blond Fr John Murphy) and Brains (Fr Tim
Hamilton, the only survivor). In Bill it was the brawn of the jockey rather
than the ploughman. He walked like a horseman, out of his element with
nothing between his legs, with a slightly limping shuffle. Though I never
saw him on horseback, he seemed to belong there. He mounted his old
bicycle like a hunter and rode it habitually between canter and gallop
round the steeplechase of Dublin streets. He had a jockey's sense of the
final furlong, hurling himself up the Gonzaga avenue just in time for
dinner, or on other public occasions keeping the grandstand on its toes
until the last moment. Two minutes before the house exams, which were
treated with considerable solemnity, teachers, boys and desks would be
in chaos until, at the last moment, Bill would slip into the hall, bundles
of papers under his arms, restoring order just in time.
Though he founded the most urban and urbane of schools, Bill
brought to it a countryman's sense of reality. He was sensitive to the
moods of flesh and blood, a student of form, whether equine or human.
In a school that had the reputation of being heady, he was the least heady
of men. Do you remember his style of greeting? In a warm and
characteristic way it was very physical. Moving towards you with a smile
that was always slightly lop-sided, his hands never far from his body so
that he came close enough to sense you, almost smell you, he would eye
your skin, your colour, the lie of your muscles, the lift or droop of your
mouth, so that when he asked 'How are you?' it was with the concern
of a friend who already surmised your world from the outside and was
eager to know how you experienced it from the inside. At that moment,
nobody else existed for him, and it is no wonder that so many found him
unforgettable. The sense of loss at his funeral was tinged with intensity
and often indignation. It seemed that hundreds were feeling: how could
the Lord take a man who was so important to me - and to whom I was
so important? At the ripe age of three score and fifteen, it still seemed
grossly premature.
Bill is said to have been appalled at his appointment to Gonzaga in
1950. His old guru, Fr Rupert Coyle, had trained him to run the Junior
School in Belvedere, and fingered him to succeed in the Senior School.
He felt himself ill-equipped to launch, albeit in distinguished company,
a pioneering educational experiment. He was reflective, wise and
supportive, but not an originator - he left that to his talented staff, who
always sensed his ungrudging support. From the beginning he liked to
teach the youngest class in the school, to get the measure of them from
the start. While hi s staff gradually shaped a new style and curriculum,
Bill was the one who knew the individual pupil, knew the dynamics of
hi s family, sensed where his promise and his limits were. When I wrote
8
