Oswald White

WHEN MY GRANDMOTHER died in 2000, I was given charge of a variety of her artefacts that had either been in her house or in her son's house. That son was my father. Along with a pile of ancient documents, I found a briefcase containing a manuscript written by my Grandmother's father, Oswald White, which is presented here.

Oswald White was born on 23 September 1884 in Gosforth, Northumberland, the son of James White, a commercial clerk from Newcastle and Annie White, née Fish. He spent his whole career in the Japan Consular Service, serving the last third as a Consul-General, the highest position in the Service. He left his last official post in February 1941, before Pearl Harbor (December 1941) and therefore shortly before Japan, which had been fighting China since 1937, went to war with Britain and the United States. Towards the end of his career in the 1930s, he wrote his memoirs in notebooks, chronicling his time in the Service. These notebooks he subsequently wrote up into a manuscript in 1941 and 1942. Consequently there is a changing perspective as some of the writing takes place either side of Japan entering the Second World War.

After 1941 Oswald White returned to London, where he finished his career, using his unparalleled knowledge of the Japanese language and culture to help the government in their efforts against Japan. He retired in 1944 when he turned sixty, receiving a warm letter from Anthony Eden, which alluded to ‘special services’ he had undertaken for the government when back in London during the war: