1696–1755

Introduction

portrait

Born: Au­gust 12, 1696, Lon­don, Eng­land.

Died: De­cem­ber 1, 1755, Eng­land.

Buried: Orig­in­al­ly at St. Ol­ave’s, Old Jew­ry. On the de­mo­li­tion of St. Ol­ave’s, his re­mains were moved to St. Paul’s Ca­thed­ral and placed in Boyce’s grave, May 18, 1888.

Biography

Maurice was the son of Tho­mas Greene, vi­car of the unit­ed par­ish­es of St. Ol­ave’s, Old Jew­ry and St. Mar­tin, Iron­mon­ger Lane (or Pom­ary), and grand­son of John Greene, Re­cord­er of Lon­don.

He was a cho­ris­ter at St. Paul’s Ca­thed­ral, and lat­er played the or­gan there, at St. Dun­stan’s in the West, Fleet Street (1716), and at St. An­drew’s, Hol­born (1717), and St. Paul’s (1718), and served as com­pos­er for the Cha­pel Roy­al (1727).

He was made Mas­ter of the King’s Band in 1735. He was as­so­ci­ated with Mi­chael Fest­ing in the foun­da­tion of the Roy­al So­cie­ty of Mu­si­cians.

Greene seems to have been a man of at­tract­ive and cour­te­ous man­ners, and a great fa­vou­rite in so­ci­ety, not­with­stand­ing the fact that he was phy­sic­al­ly de­formed. Up­on the death of an un­cle—Ser­geant Greene—he be­came pos­sessed of a large es­tate in Es­sex, called Bois Hall, where it is said that he spent the great­er part of his lat­er years.

West, p. 72

Sources

Music