Edmund Francis Green

West India merchant and proprietor of 147 Leadenhall Street, London.

1. Son of Edmund and Catherine Green, baptised 20/02/1780 St Mary Aldemanbury.

2. Master of the Mercers Company, 1824.

3. Director of the National Bank of Ireland, 1841.

4. Accused of financial impropriety and mismanagement in his role at Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Jamaica Steam Navigation Company by the auditor Henry Pinckard (q.v.). On account of his remarks concerning Green, Pinckard was in 1839 assaulted in Hyde Park by Green’s nephew Edward Thomas Fitzgerald.

5. Fiat in bankruptcy versus Edmund Francis Green of 147 Leadenhall Street 1842; 4th dividend 1853. Coroner's report after his death: : 'It had by some been rumoured that the deceased had taken poison, and by others that he died of a broken heart, owing to misfortune, he having lost a large fortune in mercantile pursuits, and become bankrupt... After the jury had been sworn, the Coroner said he had been informed of some fact connected with the deceased’s affairs which would remove any doubt which might exist as to whether the fear of actual distress, in consequence of his bankruptcy, had operated upon his mind. The deceased had a pension of 200l per annum, and a situation under the Mercers’ Company of a much larger amount, unattachable under his bankruptcy.' Verdict was deceased from natural causes.

6. In addition to his West India interests he was “also known as a most extensive speculator in South American stock together with a brother and nephew”; at the date of the fiat his debts were reckoned as £99,000 and his available assets as £9,000; the “situation” with the Mercers’ Company was said to be worth £600 p.a.

7. Date of death was 19/10/1842; he died “shortly after arrival at Gravesend”, probably indicating he was making for France where, to escape creditors, his brother Charles (for whom EFG acted as banker) had already gone. In noting his demise the Morning Advertiser observed “so all further inquiry into his alleged mismanagement of certain funds is at an end. Sic transit gloria mundi.” Burial of Edmund Francis Green 25/10/1842 St George Bloomsbury aged 62.

T71/860 Manchester Nos. 153, 200, 224, 228; St Elizabeth Nos. 232, 538, 549, 696, 727, 764, St Thomas-in-the-East Nos. 468, 469, Trelawny Nos. 408, 711, Westmoreland Nos. 414, 484.

1. Ancestry.com, London, England, Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812 [database online].

2. http://www.mercers.co.uk/downloads/Masters_Mercers_Company_1390-2003.pdf

3. 'National Bank of Ireland', Freeman's Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser, 01/06/1841, p. 1, col. 3.

4. Henry Pinckard, Observations on the Management and Extraordinary Losses of the Jamaica Steam Navigation Company (London, 1838); Bell’s Weekly Messenger, 20/01/1839.

5. London Gazette, Issue 20441, 14/07/1842, p. 409; London Gazette, Issue 21461, 26/07/1853 p. 2071; Times 24/10/1842 p. 7.

6. Morning Advertiser 19 and 22/10/1842; John Bull 22/10/1842.

7. Evening Standard 22/10/1842 and Morning Advertiser 22/10/1842; Ancestry.com, London, England, Deaths and Burials, 1813-1980 [database online].

We are grateful to Paul Hitchings for his assistance with compiling this entry.