Early Life
Whyte was born in 1928 in Penang, Malaysia. His father was manager of a rubber plantation on the mainland. Whyte's family left Malaysia and returned to Europe when he was three, eventually settling in Rostrevor, County Down, Northern Ireland. The Whytes are a well known County Down family recorded in the area since at least 1713. The Whyte family is said to have come to Ireland from South Wales with Strongbow in 1170 and settled in Leinster. Whyte was educated locally, at Ampleforth and Oriel College Oxford, from which he took a degree in Modern History in 1949. Having continued studies some two years later he was awarded a B.Litt degree for further research which was to form the nebula of his first book which was to be published in 1958.
Whyte undertook national service during the 1950s and worked as a history teacher in his old school before being appointed lecturer in Modern History at Makerere University, Uganda. In 1962 he returned to Ireland having been appointed first 'lecturer in empirical politics' at then expanding University College Dublin (UCD). In 1966, he wed fellow academic Dr. Jean Murray and moved to Queen's University Belfast to undertake further studies.
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