Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/68



1783, after it had lasted three and a half years.

Green embarked for England on 7 June 1783, after twenty-two years' service at Gibraltar. On arrival in London he had an audience with the king, and received the thanks of both houses of parliament. In 1784 he was appointed a member of the board on the fortifications of Plymouth and Portsmouth, presided over by the Duke of Richmond. On 10 June 1786 he was created a baronet, and on 15 Nov. following presented with the patent of chief engineer of Great Britain, in the room of General Bramham, deceased. In 1787 he succeeded in carrying out an extension of the artificer companies, and was appointed commandant of the corps in addition to his duties as chief engineer of Great Britain. In 1788 he was appointed president of the defence committee, a position he held for the next nine years. On 12 Oct. 1793 he was promoted lieutenant-general, and on 1 Jan. 1798 full general, and in 1802 retired on a pension, and lived in retirement at Brambleberry House, Plumstead, Kent. He died on 10 Jan. 1811 at Bifrons, near Canterbury, while on a visit to his daughter Miriam, the wife of General Nicolls, commanding the Kent district. He was buried at Plumstead, where there is a tombstone with inscription, and there is also a tablet to his memory in Plumstead Church. He married, on 26 Feb. 1754, Miriam, daughter of Colonel Justly Watson. His son succeeded to the baronetcy. He was an officer of the 1st royals, and was selected to attend Prince Edward (afterwards Duke of Kent) in his travels. He died without issue in 1862, and the baronetcy became extinct.

[Conolly Papers; Corps Records; Siege of Gibraltar, see Drinkwater, Ancell, and Heriot.]  GREEN, WILLIAM (1761–1823), water-colour painter and engraver, born at Manchester in 1761, was first engaged as assistant to a surveyor there. Not liking this profession, he came to London and studied engraving, especially aquatint, but owing to indifferent health settled at Ambleside. He now devoted himself to drawing the scenery of the lakes, and found many patrons among the visitors to Keswick and Ambleside. There are three water-colour drawings by him in the print room at the British Museum, one being of the old bridge at Borrodale, and a similar drawing of Raven Crag, Thirlmere, is in the South Kensington Museum. They are carefully finished, with great truth to nature. In 1797, 1798, and 1801, Green was an exhibitor at the Royal Academy. In 1807 he issued a proposal for publishing a series of sixty prints from sketches of his larger size. Thirty appeared in 1808, twelve more in 1809, and the work was completed in 1810, and published with an accompanying volume of text. In 1809 Green published a smaller series of seventy-eight studies from nature, etched on soft ground by himself. In 1814 he also published a smaller edition of the former series of sixty prints, executed as before. All these were from drawings of the scenery in the Lake country. In 1822 Green published in two volumes ‘The Tourist's New Guide, containing a description of the Lakes, Mountains, and Scenery in Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Lancashire,’ with forty etchings by himself. Green died at Ambleside, 28 April 1823, aged 62.

[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Upcott's English Topography; Univ. Cat. of Books on Art; Graves's Dict. of Artists, 1760-1880.]  GREEN, WILLIAM PRINGLE (1785–1846), inventor, born apparently at Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1785, was eldest son of Benjamin Green (d. 1794), treasurer of the province of Nova Scotia, a member of the House of Assembly there, and a justice of the court of common pleas. His grandfather, also Benjamin Green (1713-1772), was in business at Boston, Massachusetts, till 1745, when he took part in the capture of Cape Breton. In 1749 he settled at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and became governor of the province in 1766. William Pringle entered the Cleopatra as a midshipman in 1797, and was afterwards for three years and a half in the West Indies in La Topaze. He was afterwards in the Circe and the Sanspareil. After the peace of Amiens he was in the Trent, and thence drafted into the Conqueror, in which he served at Trafalgar. He took part in the capture of the Bucentaure on that day, and was promoted to a lieutenancy for his services, and appointed to the Formidable. He afterwards served on the American coast as first lieutenant of the Eurydice, and communicated to Sir John Borlase Warren plans for bringing English ships to an equality with the Americans. In 1811 he commanded the brig Resolute, and carried out his plans for training the crew to the satisfaction of the admiralty. The Resolute was paid off in 1815, and Green devoted his time to inventions, till in 1829 he was appointed to a Falmouth packet. After nearly three years' service she was paid off, and Green was neglected till in 1842 he was appointed lieutenant of the Victory, and quartered in the Blanche frigate at Portsmouth. He fell into embarrassments, had to resign a year later, and died at Landport, Portsmouth, on 18 Oct. 