Jack White (trade Unionist) - Later Years and Death

Later Years and Death

In 1938 they returned to White Hall in Broughshane, White having inherited it from his mother after her death in 1935. His return was undoubtedly prompted by the practicalities of having to provide for his new family. White received a regular income from the rent and sale of the lands attached to the estate, supplemented by occasional income from journalistic efforts. Despite the relative isolation of Broughshane, he remained in regular contact with his political associates, although the outbreak of World War II paralysed any real work.

White made a final and brief reappearance in public life during the 1945 General Election campaign. Proposing himself as a 'republican socialist' candidate for the Antrim constituency, he convened a meeting at the local Orange Hall in Broughshane to outline his view. A witness to the proceeding, recorded that White 'commanded a rich vocabulary of language' directed at a plethora of targets that included Adolf Hitler, Pope Pius XII, Lord Brookborough and Éamon de Valera. However, noted the reporter, White reserved particular contempt for the 'Orange Order and the Unionist Party for the control they exercised over coercion through the Special Powers Act.'

White worked with a Liverpool-Irish anarchist, Matt Kavanagh, on a survey of Irish labour history in relation to anarchism. In 1946 White died from cancer in a Belfast nursing home. After a private ceremony, he was buried in the White family plot in the First Presbyterian Church in Broughshane. His family, ashamed of Jack's revolutionary politics, destroyed all his papers, including a study of the Cork Harbour Soviet of 1921.

His youngest son Derrick White was a prominent member of the Scottish Nationalist Party and later the Scottish Socialist Party