John White (surveyor)

John White (c.1540 – c.1618) {{ref|birthdate}} "Gentleman of London" and probable doctor, was sent by Sir Richard Grenville as Sir Walter Raleigh's surveyor-general on his first voyage to the New World (1585-6). During this journey he made numerous sketches of the landscape and people they encountered (including the one at right). These works are significant as they pre-date the first body of "discovery voyage art" created in the late eighteenth century by the artists who sailed with Captain James Cook.

References

• Frances Rose-Troup, John White, the Patriarch of Dorchester and the Founder of Massachusetts 1575 - 1648 (1930)
• Paul Hope Hulton, America 1585: The Complete Drawings of John White (1984)
• Arthur Wilmot Ackerman, Reverend John White of Dorchester...(1929)
• Thomas Perrin Harrison, The First Water Colors of North American Birds (John White and Edward Topsell) (1964)
• Thomas Hariot, A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Viginia (1590)
• John Hill Wheeler, Historical Sketches of North Carolina, from 1584 to 1851, vols I – II (1851)
• Charles Edward Banks, The Planters of the Commonwealth (1930, 1st ed. no. 668 of 758) p. 87
• Thomas Hariot, Voyages en Virginie et en Floride ... (1927 edition)