Sir Thomas White was a successful London merchant, created master of the Merchant Taylor's Company around 1535. A pious and charitable man, he devoted his wealth to good works, founding St John's College, Oxford in 1555, establishing a charity for education and business loans (which still operates to this day) and bequeathing gifts to several cities for the purchase of land, Coventry being the first city to receive such a gift in 1542. Similar versions of this portrait can be found in the civic collections of other cities to which Sir Thomas bequeathed gifts.