Martin White (politician)

James Martin White (usually known to as Martin White or J. Martin White) (1858 – 7 July 1928) was a wealthy Scottish businessman and Liberal Party politician. He also took a keen interest in the establishment of the scientific study of sociology in association with his boyhood friend Patrick Geddes and was an enthusiastic supporter of the development of the pipe organ.

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 all kinds 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. 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.

By the 1890s White had become increasingly wealthy through the family business, J F White & Co.

He first stood for Parliament at the 1892 general election, when he unsuccessfully contested St Andrews Burghs. When the Liberal member of parliament for Forfarshire, Sir John Rigby was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal in 1894, it was expected that White would be the party's candidate at the ensuing by-election. However, a London-based stock-broker, Henry Robson was chosen, with the result that the seat was lost to the Liberal Unionists.

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