PLUNGER’S VISSITUDES.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3384, 25 July 1927, Page 2

PLUNGER’S VISSITUDES.

A sketcli of the career and character of Mr James White, the London financier who recently committed suicide, was given by Mr Herbert Nicholls, of Auckland to a “Post” representative. "I knew Jimmy White when he was serving his apprenticeship as a bricklayer at Rochddle, a Lancashire manufacturing town about the size of Auckland,” said Mr Nicholls. “We worked on the same buildings for several years, and I remember him saying to me more than once, ‘I will be a millionaire, but I will die in the workhouse.’ White commenced business in Rochdale as a builder, Jjut he became bankrupt. He worked as a foreman and superintendent of works on various undertakings for a year or two, and then went to South Africa, “Mr White went there to seek his fortune. He did not make it for after twelve months he came back to Rochdale without a shilling,” said Mr Nicholls, “but he got financial backing and bought and subdivided estates between Rochdale and Manchester for building purposes. He made a lot of money, but he got into difficulties and was threatened with bankruptcy again. He persisted, and within twelve months he had paid off everything he owed.” “Soon after—about 1909—he "went to London and opened a suite of offices in the city. When he became rich he did not forget Rochdale, and he did a lot for football find cricket. I remember lie, in order to foster sport in the town, especially brought all the comI pany from Daly’s Theatre to Rochdale for the general meeting of the cricket club one year. He then gave a banquet and rushed back to town. “He was a marvellous man,” continued Mr Nicholls, referring to White’s business successes. “He started with nothing but a board school education, and all he gained he made with his brains. Ho used to sit by a tape machine in his office and forget all about time and everything else while he watched the movements of stocks and shares. He bought a lot of cotton mills and was interested in 'other concerns. There seemed to be hardly anything in Lancashire that he was not in. He always talked in millions, and after he became rich he would not look at a proposition that was under £50,000. I was with him a lot, and I could have been as rich as he if I had gone in with him, but lie went too fast for me. Jimmy was a smart fellow, and it is a pity he camo to such an end,” Mr Nicholls concluded. “He had stood up to many troubles. ’ ’