Joseph Blanco White (formerly José María Blanco y Crespo; 1775–1841): Spanish poet and journalist. He was the grandson of an Irishman who had founded a business in Seville, though his mother was from a minor Spanish noble family. In 1798 he became a priest, though he had effectively abandoned this role by 1805 and did not find a new vocation until, in 1808–1810, he edited the Seminario Patriotico in Seville in aid of the Spanish cause, followed by El Espanol in London 1810–1814. White supported the need for reform and despaired at the restitution of the absolute Monarchy in 1814. He spent the rest of his life in England as a journalist and miscellaneous writer. Southey respected White’s political role in 1808–1814, and once he had become an Anglican in 1812, tried to help him find a post in the Church. He was also crucial in urging White to write a tract against Catholic Emancipation in 1825, which led to White becoming an Honorary Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford in 1826–1832. In his last years he moved away from Anglicanism to Unitarianism.