John Henry Green

Husband of Edith Alice Green, of Newark. Worked Ransome and Marles, before joining the company, he had been caretaker for many years of the YMCA in Northgate House. The 1901 census had found John working as a garden boy, living in Bingham Road, Radcliffe-on-Trent, with his maternal grandparents, railway watchman Samuel Osborne (born 1836, Radford, Nottingham) and Jane Osborne (born 1844 Tuxford).

British Army records, aged 18½ he enlisted and went to India as Private 8331 in the 3rd Battalion South Wales Borderers. This helps to explain why he played polo so well in India that he returned home with a massive silver trophy inscribed:

“To Green Sahib in remembrance of three happy years in the Punjab and all our winners. Marble Arab. Kalla Mote. Durban. Prince Edward. From W.F.N.”

The trophy resides in 2016 with John Henry’s grandson, John Hedley, who was led to believe that ‘W.F.N.’ was Lord North.

Given his aptitude with horses, it was no surprise on his return to England when he took a job as whipper-in with the Cottesmore Hunt, of Leicestershire and Rutland.
He married Edith Alice Sharpe (born 1888) and they had John (1914, Oakham) and May (1913, Bingham) then moved to Newark, adding Cicely (1921), Dorothy (1926), Raymond (1929) as they settled at 9 Marton Road.

John’s funeral service in the Parish Church on Tuesday 11 March was conducted by Canon Parkinson while the Reverend Bulley officiated in Newark Cemetery (WG308). His widow Edith was 94 when she passed away in 1982. Their oldest son, John, had gone on to marry one of the R&M telephone operators, Elsie Kirton, in 1945

Extract Newark's Black Friday by Trevor Frecknall, Chris Grant, Shaun Noble.