Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol II (1901).djvu/364

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Greenwood
352
Greenwood

an address 'On some Relations of Culture to Practical Life' (printed in 'Essays and Addresses by Professors and Lecturers of the Owens College,' 1874). In 1872 the Manchester Medical School was incorporated with the Owens College, after negotiations in which Greenwood displayed much tact; and two years later the new medical buildings of the college were opened.

The most important events in the history of the college during the later years of Greenwood's official life were the admission of women students into the college and the foundation of the Victoria University. He was no friend in principle to conducting the higher education of women on the same lines as that of men, and objected (at all events as a rule) to joint or mixed classes. Thus he exercised a restraining influence upon the settlement of the question at Manchester; but he was fully awake to the fact that when the new Victoria University had opened its degrees to all comers without distinction of sex, women students could not be denied the necessary facilities for gaining them. So far as the departments of arts and science were concerned, this was to a very large extent accomplished during his principalship. Into the spirit of the foundation of the Victoria University he from the first loyally entered, taking a chief part in the negotiations which in 1880 ended in the grant of a charter on federal principles, the Owens College, however, remaining for four years the only college of the university. He became its first vice-chancellor, holding the office till 1886 for three successive periods of two years, and warmly interesting himself in the determination of the examinations and courses of study in the university, which largely occupied its earliest years. His caution at times conflicted with the more boldly progressive policy upheld by the majority of his colleagues; but when the Victoria University became federal in fact by the admission of Liverpool University College and Yorkshire College, Leeds, he, with great circumspection, guarded the interests of Owens College. Towards the close of 1889, owing to failure of health, he resigned the principalship which he had held for thirty-seven years. Shortly afterwards he settled at Eastbourne, where he occupied himself with literary pursuits, including a revision of the text of Wordsworth, his favourite author through life. He died at Eastbourne on 25 Sept, 1894.

In 1873 the university of Cambridge, whose chancellor, the seventh Duke of Devonshire, was also chancellor of the Victoria University and president of the Owens College, conferred on Greenwood the honorary degree of LL.D., and in 1884 the university of Edinburgh, on the occasion of its tercentenary, bestowed upon him a similar honour. He was twice married: first, to Eliza, the daughter of John Taylor, a unitarian minister in Manchester, by whom he left two daughters; and then to Katharine, daughter of William Langton, manager of the Manchester and Salford Bank at Manchester. A portrait of him, by F. A. Partington, is in the Owens College.

[Obituary notice, Manchester Guardian, 26 Sept. 1894; obituary notice of the late Thomas Ashton, Manchester Guardian, 22 Jan. 1898; Memoirs &c. of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, 1897-8; Joseph Thompson's The Owens College, its Foundation and Growth (Manchester, 1886); P. J. Hartog's The Owens College, Manchester, a Brief History of the College, &c. (Manchester, 1900); private information and personal knowledge.]


GREENWOOD, THOMAS (1790–1871), historian, born in 1790, was the second son of Thomas Greenwood, a London merchant. He was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. in 1815 and M.A. in 1831. He entered Gray's Inn on 14 March 1809, and was called to the bar on 24 June 1817. He was appointed fellow and reader in history and polite literature in the university of Durham, and in 1836 he published 'The First Book of the History of the Germans: Barbaric Period' (London, 4to), in which he carried the history of the German races from the earliest times down to 772 A.D. This immense work was the result of prolonged labour. Its great bulk and the obscurity of the subject prevented it from being widely known, but it has frequently proved a storehouse to succeeding historians. In 1837 Greenwood was chosen bencher of Gray's Inn, and from 1841 to 1842 he filled the office of treasurer. His work on the early history of the Germans led him to make researches into the history of the Roman patriarchate, and eventually led to the publication between 1856 and 1865 of the five volumes of his 'Cathedra Petri: a Political History of the Great Latin Patriarchate' (London, 8vo), in which he carried the history of the papacy to the close of the pontificate of Innocent III. The work was overshadowed by Dean Milman's brilliant history of Latin Christianity (1855), but its thorough system of references must always give it value. While Milman wrote for the general student, Greenwood addressed himself to the mediaeval scholar (cf. Saturday Review, 31 March 1860). Greenwood died at