Joseph Blanco White

José Maria Blanco White ( also known as José María Blanco Crespo, born July 11, 1775 in Seville, † May 20 1841 in Liverpool) was a Spanish- Irish writer, poet, thinker, journalist and theologian.

Life

His father, the businessman Guillermo Blanco (aka White ), was an English vice-consul in Seville. His mother, Maria Gertrudis Crespo y Neve stayed on a strict religious upbringing of their children in order to prepare for the priesthood. First, José studied with the Dominicans and later at the University of Seville. On 21 December 1799 he was to consecrate himself despite his religious doubts as a priest. Because of these doubts and mainly because of its freedom-fighting and liberal ambitions, he left Spain in 1810, went to England, studied theology at Oxford and joined on 4 October 1812, the Anglican Communion, who introduced him already in 1814 in the office of priest.

In London, he developed his literary activity primarily in support of the liberal, liberal revolutionaries in Spain in particular by his Letters from Spain, which he published under the pseudonym Leocadio Doblado in Thomas Campbell's The New Monthly Magazine in 1821 and 1822. He then started his religious writing, particularly directed against the Catholic Church. Eventually, he became in 1831 archbishop of the Anglican Church in Dublin. There, however, he was hit by a real enthusiasm for Unitarianism, so that in 1835 he left the Anglican Church and in Liverpool joined the Unitarians. On the occasion of his Unitarian change of mind he wrote his book Observations on Heresy and Orthodoxy (London 1835). On May 20 José Maria Blanco White died in the house of his friend William Rathbone Unitarian in Liverpool.

Works

• Letters from Spain, London, 1822.
• Practical and internal evidence against Catholicism, 1825.
• Observations on Heresy and Orthodoxy in J. Mardon, London, 1835.
• The Life of the Rev. Joseph Blanco White written by himself with portions of his correspondence, edited by John Hamilton, John Chapman, London 1845 (Spanish translation of Antonio Garnica, University of Seville, 1975).
• Luisa de Bustamante, o la española en Inglaterra Huerfana, 1840.
• José María Blanco White. Antología de Obras en Español, edited by Vicente Lloréns. Barcelona 1971.
• Obra Inglesa de José María Blanco White, with a foreword by Juan Goytisolo, Barcelona 1974.