Mexborough & Swinton Times, September 30, 1932

Luke White – A Murdered Preacher

Temperance and Tenure

Mill Farm Cottage, Adwick on Dearne, the birthplace of Luke White.

The murder of the White and his wife in the cottage at Bolton on Dearne of 4 December, 1856, belongs to the history of un-explained and un-expiated crime.

The harmless old couple were found with their heads battered in, by whom or with what motive we shall never know.

Luke White was a remarkable man, a member of a corn milling family which has been settled at Bolton, Barnburgh, and Adwick-on-Dearne for generations. He himself was born at Adwick-on-Dearne on March 21st. 1794, the son of Job White, and was bred up to butchering. In his youth he had .iis fling, but was convened and ultimately became a fervent Independent preacher. As a boy he had more than the usual allowance of education, which he supplemented by ceaseless study in later life.

In his native village he was general factotum—overseer of the poor, highway surveyor, constable, collector, and assessor of taxes, even (though separated in-conscience from the Church of England) churchwarden as his father before him had been.

His reputation for learning and judgment were so great locally that he was earnestly invited by the people of Adwick to open a boarding-school there and responded so far to treat for premises. The village was then owned by Earl Manvers, whose agent readily accepted White as a tenant, on condition only that he should teach and not preach. The condition was rejected and Luke White never left Bolton-on-Dearne where he had settled as a small grocer