He was born in 1870 8hn Decatur Illinois. In 1879 his parents moved to Drexel, Mo. He worked in the Mill Industry in Drexel until 1892. He won Preparatory and Freshmen scholarship prizes and the Dobson Declamation Prize at Ottawa University. He served as Editor and Chief of the Campus and graduated from Ottawa University in 1898 with an A.B. He was ordained into the ministry in 1897 at Drexel, MO and was the pastor-in-charge of the Lyndon Church. In 1909 he went to Shanghai Baptist College in China where he served as its president. Mrs. White also taught at the College. In 1921-22, he brought Chinese artifacts to the University which was displayed there from April 1921-1922.  During his tenure, he and his wife were the first to introduced the concept of co-education in China.  He would remain the president of the university until 1928 when he resign from his post.  He would later return to China as part of the Oriental  Study Expedition from Pomona college.  He would remain in Shanghai until the year 1935, when he and his wife  left the country and return to the United States to lived in Whittier, California. Mrs. White would later teach a bible class for about 10 years, until she pass away on November 12,1945. In the year of 1946, he would stay in the town of Whittier, were he teach men's bible class at the First Baptist Church. Mr. Francis White would lived up until July 20, 1959.