Green, Edward Aveling

People > Green, Edward Aveling

Edward Aveling Green was born in Woburn in 1842, the sixth son of "Lawyer" Green of Woburn and Ampthill. Edward embarked on an engineering career, but found that he had a love of the fine arts. He abandoned engineering to spend several years at the Royal Academy Schools and to travel on the continent, especially Italy. After his education and travelling, he set up a studio at Haverstock Hill in London. Several months of every year he spent time at his sister's house, Berrystead at Lower Berry End in Eversholt. In later years he converted an old tithe barn there into a studio.

In the early 1900s he persuaded the rector of the St. John the Baptist in Eversholt to allow him to add to the church interior. He painted his artwork onto canvas and then transferred them to the church in instalments. They were not murals, but they were attached to the walls in such a way as to appear as though they were. The female figures used here all looked similar. He used only one model, Mary Taylor, a local girl who worked for the Greens and lived nearby with her mother. He also did a new window for the church. The old stained glass window above the altar was moved to the Lady Chapel to make way for it.

In 1921 he made his home permanently at Berrystead. He died in 1930, in his 89th year. He produced art work for several churches. He did painted glass for Sudbury, bench ends for Budleigh Salterton and a stone figure for St. Michael's in Derby. One of his last pieces of art, a bronze of St. Michael, can be seen above Eversholt's war memorial.

Sources:

• Eversholt odds and ends, by Richard Ireland and Wendy Featherstone, 1993
• Bedfordshire Magazine, Vol IV

Edward Aveling Green, by Bedfordshire Libraries, 2012

Page last updated: 28th January 2014