Charles Frederic Green (1845-1886)
1887 Obituary [1]
CHARLES FREDERIC GREEN, born on the 9th of December, 1845, was the second son of the late Abraham Green, of Essendon, Herts.
He was educated at the Bedford Public School, where he early showed remarkable talent for science and mathematics. In a letter written by the head master, the following reference was made to young Green: "I have rarely seen good natural talent combined with such indomitable energy and perseverance.”
Immediately upon leaving the above school he was placed by his guardians under Mr. C. H. Gough, then Resident Engineer on the Mid-Sussex Railway, who also bore testimony to his ability and integrity.
After two years’ pupilage he became assistant to Mr. R. Jacomb Hood, M.Inst.C.E., who placed him as Resident Engineer on the Lewes and Uckfield Railway.
Upon leaving he commenced practice on his own account at Hertford, and, while there, carried out sea defences both at Newhaven and at Bognor. At the latter place he won his first laurels, his plan obtaining the premium among forty-two competitors, and he was afterwards asked to carry out the work.
At the age of twenty-six he passed the examination for County Surveyorships (Ireland), and was one hundred and twenty marks above the second competitor. He was then appointed County Surveyor to the East Riding of Cork, but did not remain two years, as he went up for another competitive examination for principal Assistant Engineer, Board of Works (Ireland), when he obtained five hundred marks more than the second man.
In the last twelve years of his life he acted as principal Assistant Engineer under Mr. Robert Manning, M.Inst.C.E., and was engaged in a number of duties of very varied character, such as works connected with harbours, inland navigation, bridges, arterial drainage, roads, &c. "It is,” Mr. Manning says of him, “my melancholy duty to express my grateful acknowledgment of the able and willing assistance which I received from Mr. Green on all occasions, and to bear my testimony to the invariable kindness and consideration with which he treated every one with whom he came in contact, and which earned for him the respect, esteem, and friendship of all who knew him. His early death has been a great loss to the public service, and especially to me, and I deeply feel the sudden termination of so many years of intimacy with him.”
He died on the 26th of September, 1886, at Stillorgan, county Dublin. He was a man of singular piety, and although possessed of great intellectual powers, was simple and gentle in character. As husband and father few could equal him, and it is in the home he has left that his memory will be most revered and cherished.
Mr. Green was elected a Member of the Institution on the 17th of January, 1877.