# Benjamin Buck Greene > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Benjamin_Buck_Greene > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Benjamin_Buck_Greene.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Buck_Greene > Source revision: 1333139251 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) {{Short description|British banker}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Not to be confused with|text=[Benjamin Greene (brewer)](/source/Benjamin_Greene_(brewer)), his father}} '''Benjamin Buck Greene''' (1808 – 3 April 1902) was a [British](/source/British_people) banker, plater, and financier. He inherited a large fortune derived from the [Atlantic slave trade](/source/Atlantic_slave_trade) and the [sugar industry](/source/Sugar_plantations_in_the_Caribbean) in the [Caribbean](/source/Caribbean), later becoming one of [London](/source/London)'s leading merchants and shipowners. He served as a director of the [Bank of England](/source/Bank_of_England) for fifty years from 1850, also serving as deputy governor (1871-3) and [governor](/source/Governor_of_the_Bank_of_England) (1873–5). ==Career== Born the son of [Benjamin Greene](/source/Benjamin_Greene_(brewer)), of [Bury St Edmunds](/source/Bury_St_Edmunds), a slave owner and in the 1790s founder of what became the [Greene King](/source/Greene_King) brewery, one of the largest brewing businesses in England.{{Cite web |last=Otele |first=Olivette |last2=Kattah |first2=Mawuena |date=31 March 2023 |title=More than money: the logic of slavery reparations |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2023/mar/31/more-than-money-the-logic-of-slavery-reparations |access-date=2023-04-11 |website=the Guardian |language=en}} Greene was educated at [King Edward VI School](/source/King_Edward_VI_School_(Bury_St_Edmunds)).{{cite web|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/48874?docPos=2 |title=Benjamin Buck Greene |publisher= Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|access-date=20 June 2020}} In 1829 Greene went to [Saint Kitts](/source/Saint_Kitts) to look after his father's cotton and sugar plantations (acquired in 1823), which were worked by [slaves](/source/Slavery) and were highly profitable. The family also owned ships carrying sugar exports. Greene remained in St Kitts until 1837. The Greenes acquired several sugar plantations in the Caribbean, in St Kitts, [Montserrat](/source/Montserrat) and [Antigua](/source/Antigua), which they either owned or managed. They eventually run 18 estates.{{Cite web|title=Details of Claim {{!}} Legacies of British Slave-ownership|url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/claim/view/25834|access-date=2020-06-18|website=www.ucl.ac.uk}}{{Cite web|title=Details of Claim {{!}} Legacies of British Slave-ownership|url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/claim/view/23759|access-date=2020-06-18|website=www.ucl.ac.uk}} Benjamin senior established with his son Benjamin Greene & Son, West India merchants and shipowners, at 11 Mincing Lane. Through his wife's family connections, Greene formed a partnership with James and Henry Blyth, who controlled much of the external trade and sugar production of [Mauritius](/source/Mauritius), in 1846. Blyths and Greene, merchants and shipowners, became one of London's largest colonial merchants and shipowners. Importing sugar from Mauritius, the [East](/source/East_Indies) and [West Indies](/source/West_Indies), [India](/source/Greater_India) and [France](/source/France); exporting British manufactures to Mauritius.[https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/DM3CZJtRPtRYRYcZlGYdg5/the-secret-slave-owners Britain's Forgotten Slave Owners - The Secret Slave Owners], [BBC Two](/source/BBC_Two) He converted [Spooner's Estate](/source/Spooner's_Estate) on Saint Kitts to steam-powered milling in the 1870s.[http://www.stkittstourism.kn/explore-st-kitts-activities-attractions-historical-sites-display.php?business=135 Spooner's Ginnery] Benjamin Buck Greene purchased [Midgham House](/source/Midgham) in [Berkshire](/source/Berkshire) in 1856. He was [High Sheriff of Berkshire](/source/High_Sheriff_of_Berkshire) in 1865.{{London Gazette|issue=22936 |page=559|date=4 February 1865}} Elected a Bank of England director from 1850 to 1900, he became [Deputy Governor](/source/Deputy_Governor_of_the_Bank_of_England) in 1871 and went on to become [Governor](/source/Governor_of_the_Bank_of_England) in 1873. Greene's tenure as Governor occurred during the [Panic of 1873](/source/Panic_of_1873). He died at his home in [Berkshire](/source/Berkshire) on 3 April 1902.{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=Obituary |date=4 April 1902 |page=7 |issue=36733}} When the ownership of slaves was finally abolished in the [British Empire](/source/British_Empire) in 1833, the government paid [compensation for slavery](/source/compensation_for_slavery) - not to the enslaved people, but to the slaveholders. The government paid £20m, 40% of the [HM Treasury](/source/HM_Treasury)'s annual spending budget (£17 billion in today's terms) in compensation. This vast sum of borrowed money was only finally repaid in 2015. In June 2020, during [the global protests](/source/George_Floyd_protests_in_the_United_Kingdom) following the [murder of George Floyd](/source/murder_of_George_Floyd), the Bank of England issued a public [apology](/source/Apology_(act)) for the involvement of Greene, amongst of some of its past governors and directors in the slave trade.{{Cite news|last=Jolly|first=Jasper|date=2020-06-18|title=Bank of England apologises for role of former directors in slave trade|language=en-GB|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/18/bank-of-england-apologises-for-role-of-former-directors-in-slave-trade|access-date=2020-06-19|issn=0261-3077}} ==Family== In 1837 Greene married Isabella Elizabeth Blyth, daughter of Thomas Blyth, a wealthy ship merchant and slave owner.{{Cite web|title=Details of Claim {{!}} Legacies of British Slave-ownership|url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/claim/view/2120008847|access-date=2020-06-18|website=www.ucl.ac.uk}} She died in 1888. They had three sons and three daughters. His son [Henry David Greene](/source/Henry_David_Greene) became a barrister and [Conservative](/source/Conservative_Party_(UK)) MP.{{Cite journal|date=October 16, 1915|title=Obituary|journal=The Law Journal|pages=495}} One of his brothers, [Edward](/source/Edward_Greene_(MP)), was Conservative MP for Bury St Edmunds (1865-1885) and Stowmarket (1886–91).{{cite book|last=Craig|first=F. W. S.|author-link= F. W. S. Craig|title=British parliamentary election results 1832–1885|orig-year=1977|edition= 2nd|year=1989|publisher= Parliamentary Research Services|location=Chichester|isbn= 0-900178-26-4}} Like the [Darwins](/source/Darwin_family) or the [Huxleys](/source/Huxley_family), the Greenes made a prominent dynasty in England: Sir [Hugh Greene](/source/Hugh_Greene), was [Director-General of the](/source/Director-General_of_the_BBC) [BBC](/source/BBC), [Raymond Greene](/source/Raymond_Greene), joined the [Everest expedition](/source/1933_Everest_expedition) as senior doctor and chief intellect, [Graham Greene](/source/Graham_Greene) was a major 20th-century novelist involved in [espionage](/source/espionage) and [British intelligence](/source/British_intelligence) from the 1920s until the late-1980s, Elisabeth Greene, worked for [Secret Intelligence Service](/source/Secret_Intelligence_Service) (SIS/[MI6](/source/MI6)), and Sir [William Graham Greene](/source/William_Graham_Greene), was one of the founders of the [Naval Intelligence](/source/Naval_Intelligence) in the [First World War](/source/First_World_War) and still involved in [Intelligence](/source/Military_intelligence) in the [Second World War](/source/Second_World_War).Norman Sherry: [https://books.google.com/books?id=IWboCwAAQBAJ&dq=%22Elisabeth+Greene%22+MI6&pg=PT101 The Life of Graham Greene Volume 2: 1939-1955] ==References== {{reflist}} == Bibliography == *Jeremy Lewis: ''Shades of Greene. One generation of an English family.'' London: Jonathan Cape, 2010 == External links == *[https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/firm/view/1116227371 ''Database''] compiled by [University College London](/source/University_College_London)’s [Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-ownership](/source/Centre_for_the_Study_of_the_Legacies_of_British_Slave-ownership) for public use since 2013 * Susan Gardiner: ''Outrageous Fortune: the Greene family of Bury St Edmunds and Slavery in the Leeward Islands'', Suffolk Review, Autumn 2018. * Susan Gardiner: ''The Heart of the Matter'', Those Who Will Not Be Drowned, April 30, 2018 {{Governors of the Bank of England}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Greene, Benjamin Buck}} Category:1808 births Category:1902 deaths Category:People educated at King Edward VI School, Bury St Edmunds Category:People from Thatcham Category:British bankers Category:Deputy governors of the Bank of England Category:Governors of the Bank of England Category:High sheriffs of Berkshire Category:19th-century English businesspeople Category:Owners of plantations in the British West Indies --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Benjamin Buck Greene](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Buck_Greene) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Buck_Greene?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.