Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Green, William (1761-1823)
GREEN, WILLIAM (1761–1823), water-colour painter and engraver, born at Manchester in 1761, was first engaged as assistant to a surveyor there. Not liking this profession, he came to London and studied engraving, especially aquatint, but owing to indifferent health settled at Ambleside. He now devoted himself to drawing the scenery of the lakes, and found many patrons among the visitors to Keswick and Ambleside. There are three water-colour drawings by him in the print room at the British Museum, one being of the old bridge at Borrodale, and a similar drawing of Raven Crag, Thirlmere, is in the South Kensington Museum. They are carefully finished, with great truth to nature. In 1797, 1798, and 1801, Green was an exhibitor at the Royal Academy. In 1807 he issued a proposal for publishing a series of sixty prints from sketches of his larger size. Thirty appeared in 1808, twelve more in 1809, and the work was completed in 1810, and published with an accompanying volume of text. In 1809 Green published a smaller series of seventy-eight studies from nature, etched on soft ground by himself. In 1814 he also published a smaller edition of the former series of sixty prints, executed as before. All these were from drawings of the scenery in the Lake country. In 1822 Green published in two volumes ‘The Tourist's New Guide, containing a description of the Lakes, Mountains, and Scenery in Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Lancashire,’ with forty etchings by himself. Green died at Ambleside, 28 April 1823, aged 62.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Upcott's English Topography; Univ. Cat. of Books on Art; Graves's Dict. of Artists, 1760-1880.]