page_title: Thomas White (Australian politician)
section_title: Later life and legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Thomas White (Australian politician) / Later life and legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Australian politician Thomas Walter White
context_page_description: Sir Thomas Walter White, KBE, DFC, VD was an Australian politician and First World War pilot. In 1914 he became one of the first airmen trained for the Australian Flying Corps, and the following year was among the first AFC members to see action when he was deployed to the Middle East with the Mesopotamian Half Flight. After carrying out several missions behind Turkish lines, he was captured in November 1915 but escaped in July 1918. White was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and twice mentioned in despatches for his war service. He married Vera Deakin, a Red Cross worker and daughter of former Australian Prime Minister Alfred Deakin, in 1920.
  White began his parliamentary career in 1929 when he was elected to the House of Representatives as the Member for Balaclava in Victoria. He served as Minister for Trade and Customs in Joseph Lyons' United Australia Party government from 1933 to 1938, but resigned when he was excluded from Lyons' inner cabinet. He joined the Royal Australian Air Force shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War and saw service in Australia and the United Kingdom.
context_section_description: White secured his tenth election victory in Balaclava in the April 1951 federal election, defeating Labor's Arthur Lewis by 10,700 votes. On 21 June, he resigned from parliament to become Australian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, a position he held until 1956. He was succeeded as the member for Balaclava by Liberal Percy Joske, as Minister for Air by Philip McBride, and as Minister for Civil Aviation by Hubert Anthony. White was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in January 1952. As High Commissioner he advocated continued British migration to Australia and participated in the renewal of the assisted passage scheme between the two countries in 1954. He was succeeded by Sir Eric Harrison. After returning to Australia, White lived in Melbourne. He suffered from emphysema and on 13 October 1957 died of a heart attack at his home in South Yarra. Survived by his wife and four daughters, he was accorded a state funeral at St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne, and interred at Point Lonsdale cemetery.
  The T.W. White Society, founded in 1982, sponsors an annual prize for thoracic research awarded through the Thoracic Society of Queensland. White's daughters donated his papers to the National Library of Australia in 1997 and 1998.
caption: White in 1950
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