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Author: Greene, Octavius

Biography:

GREENE, Octavius (1794-1860: ancestry.co.uk)

He was born on 12 Feb. 1794 and baptised on 16 Feb. at Acomb, Yorkshire, the youngest son of William Greene, physician, of Trinity College Cambridge and Thundercliffe Grange, near Sheffield, and his wife Ann (maiden name not known). Nothing is known of his education. He spent most of his life as a correspondence clerk for the East India Company.

He married Catherine Spencer Norton (1800-23), daughter of Benjamin Norton of Bawburgh Hall, Norfolk, on 14 Mar. 1822 at St. Clement, Norwich, Norfolk. A daughter was born in Marylebone, London, in Aug. 1823 and his wife died 1 Dec. at their home in Devonshire Street, Marylebone, possibly due to childbirth complications. He then married Elizabeth Jane Patten (1804-60), second daughter of Jonathan Patten, merchant, on 5 Oct. 1826 at Kensington. They had at least five daughters and four sons. After their marriage they lived initially in Camberwell, South London, but by 1831 had moved to Paddington, West London, where most of their children were born. He began publishing poems in the Asiatic Journal and assembled the collection listed here under his initials, O- G-, dedicating it to his half-brother, Captain Smithson Waterland Greene (1767-1852). The volume contained topographical poems on the Col du Bonhomme (Vosges, France), Cromer on the coast of Norfolk, and occasional verse to his sister Isabel and his wife and daughters. By 1851 he had retired to St. Helier, Jersey, Channel Islands, living at 7 Clarendon Terrace with his wife and their daughter Augusta. He died there on 4 May 1860, aged 85. His wife also died there, on 30 May 1860. (ancestry.co.uk 6 Sept. 2024; findmypast.co.uk 6 Oct. 2024; Cambridge Chronicle 22 Mar. 1822; Morning Post 8 Dec. 1823, 7 Oct. 1826; Jersey Independent 9 May, 5 June 1860; Naval and Military Gazette 9 June 1860) AA

 

Other Names:

  • O. Greene
 

Books written (1):

London: printed, but not for sale, by J. L. Cox, 1831