Author: Green, James
Biography:
GREEN, James (1794-1880: ancestry.co.uk)
He was baptised on 7 Dec. 1794 at Bentham, Yorkshire, and again at Bossall, Yorkshire, on 15 Feb. 1795, the son of John Green and Frances Kilvington, who had married at Bossall in 1783. Nothing is known of his education but he was ordained deacon (1818) and priest (1819) in the established church in Durham--probably through the avenue of “literacy” since he does not appear to have attended university. He married Mary Berkley (1793-1827) on 15 June 1824 at St. Mary’s, Gateshead. He was curate of Holy Trinity, Washington, Durham, where they baptised a daughter, Sarah Jane Green (1825-88). Shortly thereafter, for reasons unknown, he became curate of Upton on Severn, Worcestershire. He published Sabbath Evening Minstrelsy (1829) with two parts, the first containing religious poetry, the second poems on “The Works of Nature” which consisted of the usual subjects of snow-drops, nightingales, and thunder-storms. The volume also included three memorial poems to his wife Mary who had died at Colwall, Herefordshire, on 25 May 1827, aged 32 (sic), and was buried at Upton on Severn on 1 June. He then married Anne Smale (1804-38), at St. Cuthbert’s, Wells, Somerset, on 2 May 1831. They had a son, James Hooker Green, born in 1834. She died on 7 Feb. 1838, at Weardale, Durham, where he had been made curate of St. John’s Chapel in 1830; he was given the living in 1865. His sisters Anne and Mary had come to live with him (probably after their parents’ deaths in 1839) and his daughter Sarah Jane lived with him in his final years. He died at Weardale on 8 Oct. 1880, aged 85. A posthumous collection, Poems and Sonnets on Weardale and Teesdale (Weardale 1885) collected his later poetry. (ancestry.co.uk 10 Oct. 2024; findmypast.co.uk 10 Oct. 2024; CCEd 10 Oct. 2024; Crockford’s Directory 1865, 1874; Durham County Advertiser 26 June 1824; Hereford Journal 13 June 1827; Bristol Times 7 May 1831; Exeter Flying Post 15 Feb. 1838; Alston Herald 16 Oct. 1880; Worcestershire Chronicle 13 Oct. 1888) AA