Boston Mayor Kevin H. White grabbed voters all across the city yesterday en route to trouncing three-time challenger State Sen. Joseph F. Timilty and securing his fourth term in City Hall.

White, who garnered 55 per cent of the vote to Timilty's 45 per cent, told cheering supports. "This is the first time in 12 years that this city has not been divided."

"We won all across the city," the beaming mayor told campaign workers who packed the Copley Plaza ballroom, adding. "We will always differ as a people, but we will no longer divided as a people."

Timilty, who conceded the race at about 10 p.m.--just two hours after the polls closed--won only three of the city's 22 wards.

With all but one of the city's 252 precincts reporting. White had a commanding lead of 77,175 to 63,399. Timilty won only in parts of Roslindale, Jamaica Plain and Dorchester.

"I'm committed to making Boston better for the people who live here," a choked-up but smiling Timilty told a crowd of supporters who gathered on the 14th floor of the Parker House Hotel.

"The campaign is over. Kevin White has won." Timilty said as his tearful wife Elaine stood by his side.

'I'm going to come back like I've always come back," Timilty promised as he made his way through the crowd. "I'm the most resilient guy in this city," he added.

Turnout in the election was relatively light, with less than 60 per cent of Boston's 242,000 registered voters going to the polls.

Eight of nine incumbents held on to their Boston City Council seats after an issueless campaign.

Only John Sears managed to crack the council lineup, ousting either Patrick McDonough or Louise Day Hicks, who were separated by five votes with only absentee ballots left to be counted.

Incumbents Larry DiCara '71, Christopher Iannella, Raymond Flynn and Albert "Dapper" O'Neill led the field in the city council race.

John McDonough led the Boston school committee race with incumbent John D. O'Bryant, the only black school committeeman, also headed for re-election.

Elvira "Pixie" Palladino, a leading foe of forced busing who lost her school board seat in the last election, appeared to have regained her slot, piling up more than 50,000 votes.

Gerald O'Leary and Jean Sullivan-McKeigue, sister of former committee member Kathleen Sullivan-Alioto, also won seats on the committee, edging Jean McGuire, Kevin McCluskey, Boston PTA president Rita Walsh-Tomasini, and former committeeman Paul Ellison, who served time for embezzling city funds.

White supporters started dancing and singing early in the evening, when the first returns showed White out ahead by the 10-per-cent margin he kept up all night.

A hired band played "Southie is My Hometown" and White, who has held office longer than any other living big-city major in the country, shook his clenched hands above his head.

Big-Hearted

"Our city belongs to everyone who lives in it, works in it, loves it," White told the crowd. "That includes Joe Timilty," he added.

At the Parker House, Timilty told the crowd that he was going to try to work with the White administration and urged his supporters to go back to their neighborhoods and "carry out the agenda" of issues raised in the campaign.

The mood in Timilty's Parker House headquarters was relatively somber, as guests milled about and forced smiles onto their faces.

The most exciting point of the evening came when a crowd of about 50 people gathered behind the banks of television cameras to watch the famed "shower scene" from Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho." aired on a local television station.

In Somerville yesterday, in what both candidates labelled the dirtiest campaign they had ever waged, Eugue Brune ousted incumbent mayor Thomas F. August by more than 2400 votes.

Brune, who won the preliminary election, got a lot of political mileage out of the city's allegedly lower tax rate, which the state has not approved despite an annouced reduction by August