Born: 19 May 1839, United Kingdom
Died: 4 December 1884
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: Alice Mary Meadows White
The following is excerpted from the Dictionary of National Biography, originally published between 1885 and 1900, by Smith, Elder & Co. It was written by James Cuthbert Hadden
WHITE, ALICE MARY MEADOWS (1839–1884), composer, daughter of Richard Smith, lace merchant, was born in London on 19 May 1839. She studied under Sir William Sterndale Bennett [q. v.] and Sir George Alexander Macfarren [q. v.], and first attracted attention as a composer by a quartet performed in 1861 by the Musical Society of London. She had an exceptional musical faculty, and produced in rapid succession quartets, symphonies, concertos, and cantatas, many of which were heard at the concerts of leading societies. A setting of Collins’s ode, ‘The Passions,’ was performed at the Hereford Festival of 1882. She also set the ‘Ode to the North-East Wind’ (1880) and Kingsley’s ‘Song of the Little Baltung’ (1883). She composed many piano pieces, songs and duets, one of the most popular of which is the duet ‘Maying,’ for tenor and soprano, the copyright of which sold in 1883 for 663l. All her work bore the impress of high artistic culture. She was married to Frederick Meadows White, Q.C., in 1867, and died in London on 4 Dec. 1884.