GREEN, Thomas

1769 - 1825

Thomas Green of Ipswich, often referred to as 'the younger' or 'of Ipswich', was born in Monmouth, Wales, on 12 September 1769, the son of Thomas Green 'the elder' (1722–6 October 1794), a political pamphleteer and former soap-boiler from Wilby, Suffolk and his wife Frances Martin. Green was educated at the free grammar school in Ipswich and then privately under a Mr Jervis of Ipswich. Greem was admitted to the Inner Temple on 7 July 1785, and in 1786 admitted to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, but was prevented by illness from taking up residence and going to the university. He studied law at the Inner Temple, and called to the bar, and briefly practiced on the Norfolk circuit. However, upon inheriting his father's considerable estate in 1794, he immediately abandoned the legal profession to pursue a purely literary life. An English miscellaneous writer and diarist best known for his work 'Extracts from the Diary of a Lover of Literature' a diary he kept from 1796 onwards, documenting his extensive reading habits and intellectual reactions and spent the majority of his adult life living as an affluent gentleman of leisure in Ipswich, dedicating his time entirely to reading, music, philosophy, and writing. Aside from his literature diary, Green occasionally traveled across Europe and England, and dabbled in amateur art, producing ink and watercolour landscapes. Green married on 13 October 1795 Catharine Hartcup (baptised 1775–1828), daughter of General Hartcup (-1820), and they had one son Thomas. Thomas Green died in Ipswich on 6 January 1825 and following his death, 'The Gentleman's Magazine' published an additional 36 articles between 1834 and 1843 containing further extensive portions of his remaining diary manuscripts. Following his death, his close friend James Ford (31 October 1779–31 January 1850) privately printed and rare biography titled 'A Memoir of Thomas Green, Esquire, of Ipswich'.

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Works by This Artist