Jonas Greene

Sir Jonas Greene (1767-1828) was an Irish barrister and magistrate, who held the office of Recorder of Dublin.

He was born in Dublin, the eldest son of Richard Greene. He was called to the Bar, although few details of his legal practice seem to survive. In 1822 he was made Recorder of Dublin and knighted. The Recorder was the chief magistrate for Dublin city, with responsibility for keeping the peace. The office was an onerous one, and was generally seen as a heavier burden than that of a High Court judge. Greene from the available evidence seems to have been a particularly and diligent and hard-working official. A debate on the duties of the Recorder of Dublin in the English House of Commons, three years after his death, revealed that he held two sessions of his court every week, with extra sessions as the workload required.

He married in 1790 the leading Dublin actress Marianne Hitchcock. She was the daughter of Robert Hitchcock, the author and playwright, best remembered for An Historical View of the Irish Stage, and his wife Sarah, who like her daughter was a popular actress on the Dublin stage. They had at least three sons and four daughters. The eldest son, Richard Wilson Greene, followed his father to the Bar and became a senior judge. Of their daughters, only Harriet is known to have married. Her husband was the Reverend William Fortescue Gorman of Tannaghmore, County Antrim. They were the parents of William Gorman, Archdeacon of Ossory 1883-1911. Harriet died in 1839, aged about 32.

Jonas died at Bath in March 1828, having been ill for several months. Marianne died in 1854, and was buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery. Five of her children-Jonas junior, Rachel, Harriet, Sarah and Catherine-are interred in the same grave as their mother.

Photo of Richard Wilson Greene, Irish judge, eldest son of Sir Jonas Greene and his wife Marianne Hitchcock