Graham White was born 12 June 1884, the fourth son of Henry and Alice White, of ‘Oakbark’, Shawford Close, Winchester.  

He was educated at Twyford School and then followed his three elder brothers to Winchester College in September 1898. Unfortunately, we know little of his time at Twyford. According to the Twyfordian magazine, he played football as a half back and was “rather slow, but tackled well”. He also reached the final of the raquets competition, only to be defeated by Clarence Napier Bruce – arguably the finest sportsman ever produced by Twyford School. Nevertheless, in his last year, Graham was awarded prizes for both geography and general knowledge. A full year of the time Graham spent as a Twyford pupil was at Emsworth House, Copthorne in Sussex during the evacuation following the diphtheria outbreak here in Twyford. 

Graham left Winchester in the summer of 1903 for University College, Oxford, where he graduated with Second Class Honours in Theology in 1907. In the same year he was ordained by the Bishop of Durham. His first post was as Curate of St. Jude’s, South Shields (1907 to 1911), followed by three years as Curate of Staindrop with Cockfield. Moving on to the curacy of St. Paul’s, West Hartlepool, in 1914, he also became a Chaplain to the Forces, serving in this capacity until 1920. During this period he married Georgina Miller. 

From 1920 to 1925 he served as Vicar of St. Hild and St. Helen, “The Pitman’s Cathedral” at the Dawdon Colliery, County Durham. 

Graham then went to the Malay States, first as Chaplain of Ipoh in Perak, and in 1931 became Archdeacon of Singapore, in charge of St. Andrew’s Cathedral.  He was active in education and local church work and in 1934 he bought a plot of land (with his own money) in Ceylon Road, Katong, on which stood the Bethel English School, and began a church there, St. Hilda’s.  He also founded St. Hilda’s School. White was awarded the OBE in 1938 for his services to education in Singapore. He was also Vice-President of the Malayan Orchid Society. 

The peaceful years did not last long, as World War II dawned upon Singapore with the December 1941 Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbour and Southeast Asia. While most locals assumed the Japanese would not attack due to the strong British military presence, the Japanese launched their first daytime raids in Singapore in January 1942, thus marking the beginning of the Japanese invasion of Malaya.  

Graham White continued to press on and minister to the people. Together with his wife Georgina, they went to places where help was needed the most such as the General Hospital which faced an increasing number of casualties from the heavy bombing raids. In addition to arranging for Sunday Services at the Cathedral, White went around hospital wards to meet with wounded soldiers and civilians while his wife continued her work with the Red Cross.  

In February 1942, the church stopped its services and transformed into a temporary emergency hospital as means to manage overcrowding of casualties in actual local hospitals. The “Gibraltar of the East,” as Singapore was known then, finally fell on 15 February, and the Whites soon found themselves interned as Prisoners of War (POWs) with other British and European civilians. The incoming Japanese Officer in charge of Religious Affairs was a member of the Nippon Sei Ko Kai, the Anglican Church of Japan, and maintained cordial relations with the Anglican clergy. Ogawa helped to secure the release of three clergymen from internment. On 22 February, the Bishop of Singapore received passes for himself and two others to move at will around Singapore and have use of two cars. Holding a senior position in the Diocese, Archdeacon Graham White was also offered the same pass to roam free in occupied Singapore. However, he was aware that he was not in the best of health and chose to sacrifice his freedom so that younger clergy could best attend to the needs of the Church during the war years.  

Graham would have known that his decision would result in his confinement as a Prisoner of War in the infamous Changi Prison. Despite these tribulations, he and his wife played a significant role in raising morale and ministering to the spiritual needs of the interned. In addition to preaching at services, White sought to maintain some form of church routine in camp by holding classes for Confirmation candidates, prospective ordinands and New Testament Bible study groups. 

On 10 October 1943 the Japanese started looking for evidence that the internees at Changi had assisted Allied commando canoeists in sinking Japanese vessels in Singapore harbour on 26 September. The atmosphere in Singapore had soured since the Japanese conquest, and the Japanese began to suspect that the Changi inmates were somehow co-ordinating resistance to the occupying forces. Of the fifty-seven internees taken for questioning, one committed suicide, one was executed, and twelve more died as the result of the appalling treatment which they had received and conditions in which they had been kept. Those who returned from their interrogation were suffering from malnutrition, scabies, dysentery, ulcers, beriberi and joint injuries sustained during beatings.   

In May 1944 the civilian internees were moved from Changi to a camp on the Sime Road, as the Jail was required for prisoners of war. It was there that both Graham White and his wife were to die. ‘Nobbs’, as Graham’s wife was universally known, was the first to pass away, on 21 January 1945, aged sixty. It was to her that all had automatically confided their troubles. A few months after his wife’s passing, Graham White underwent an operation and died less than a week later on 8 May 1945, at the age of 61, from bronchial troubles and a dysentery which took away his strength. 

In 1952, the Graham White Library was established within St Andrew's Cathedral. It houses the Book of Remembrance, which contains a list of over 2,700 names of men and women who had died fighting for Singapore between 1941 to 1945. 

The tombstone of Graham and Georgina White was relocated to the grounds of Singapore Cathedral in October 2002.