File:George Green (1767-1849) RMG BHC2725.tiff

Three-quarter-length seated portrait of the shipbuilder George Green, painted about 1840. He is seated in a red plush armchair, facing to the front in a black cutaway coat and white stock. He leans slightly to the viewer's right with his left arm on an open book (probably the Bible) on a table and his right hand holding his glasses on his right knee. A column is visible in the right background and drapery behind the figure.

Green was the son of a brewer who became an apprentice in John Perry's Blackwall shipbuilding yard at 15, rose rapidly on merit, married Perry's daughter in 1796 and was made a partner in the yard in 1797. After Perry's retirement in 1803, Sir Robert Wigram became a partner by buying up the Wells brothers' interests, but sold out to his two sons (Money and Loftus) and Green in 1819. Initially a shipbuilder, George Green laid the foundations of the family shipowning business from 1824, especially to India and Australia, and also fitted out vessels in the whaling trade. He and his eldest son, Richard (both of whom feature in the 'Dictionary of National Biography'), were also notable philanthropists. George founded and built Trinity Chapel, Poplar, where both were buried. Richard led the firm after his father's death, was celebrated as builder of the Indiamen known as 'Blackwall frigates' and supported many causes related to health and education in East London, and to merchant shipping.

Laurence (1812-84) painted society portraits in oil and pastel and exhibited at the Society of British Artists, 1834-53, and the Royal Academy, 1836-82. This portrait was presented to the Museum by Mrs Cicely Green in 1956. The Museum also has a younger image of Green in the form of a mezzotint (PAH5558) by Samuel Bellin after a portrait by Thomas Phillips.