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Reginald Strelley Moresby White: (Student and Half-back)
Reginald Strelley Moresby White: (Student and Half-back)
Born in Grantham, Lincolnshire in 1893, White was still a student when selected to accompany the Corinthians on the 1914 tour. He was one of three boys and four girls born to Robert Fortescue Moresby White and Editha Lomorna Cardew. Educated at Saugeen School, Bournemouth, Malvern College and Brasenose College, Oxford University, where he gained a blue for football becoming captain in 1914. He was a regular in the Oxford team and alongside A.M. Wilkinson and G.B.F. Rudd, both fellow tourists in 1914. He also kept wicket for the university cricket team and the Old Malvernians XI. He captained the 8th Leicesters football team in 1915 and later when living in India, played cricket for ‘Europeans of the East”.
In 1916, for want of anything else to do, he published a book called The Theory of Association Football, with photographs and sketches.
He was commissioned 8th. Battalion, The Leicestershire Regiment as temporary second-lieutenant, in September, 1914, a few weeks after returning from the abandoned tour. Transferred to the 10th. Battalion of his regiment in 1915, and attached to the 1st. Garrison Battalion, The Leicestershire Regiment, at Calcutta, October 1916. Became a staff captain in 1919 and awarded the British War medal. He served in India, Iraq, Kurdistan, (where, in 1932 he received an O.B.E. for services rendered), and Ceylon (Sri Lanka), moving through the ranks during the interwar years he was awarded the General Service medal with clasp. White was awarded a CBE as the 10th Commander of the Ceylon Defence Force, and remained in the post from 1939 until 1942. But in 1946, owing to a disability, White retired with the honorary rank of colonel.
One of White’s brothers worked in film and TV as a script writer, penning the 1933 Gaumont classic, ‘Friday the Thirteenth’ that starred Jessie Matthews, Sir Ralph Richardson and Max Miller. He also wrote the scripts for several of Richard Dimbleby’s television documentaries in the 1950s.
In 1945, White Lt/Col. R.S.M. C.B.E. was listed on the British Army Casualty lists but no details given.
White died on March 3, 1947, in Nairobi, Kenya aged 54 years, two days after his father had died in at the family home in Grantham Lincolnshire.
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