William Greenwell was born 23 March 1820 at the estate known as Greenwell Ford near Lanchester, County Durham, England.
19 Facts About William Greenwell
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William Greenwell was the eldest son of William Thomas Greenwell and Dorothy Smales.
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William Greenwell had three brothers Francis, Alan, and Henry, and a sister Dorothy who published poetry under the name Dora Greenwell.
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William Greenwell matriculated at University College, Durham in October 1836 and graduated Bachelor of Arts in June 1839.
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William Greenwell started training to be a barrister at Middle Temple, but owing to ill health decided to leave London and return to University College in 1841, completing a licentiate in Theology in 1842.
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William Greenwell was bursar of University College in Durham from 1844 to 1847.
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William Greenwell was a founding member of the Tyneside Naturalists' Field Club in 1846, and later that year toured Germany and Italy.
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In 1868, William Greenwell excavated 76 inhumation burials from the Anglian cemetery at Uncleby.
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William Greenwell is noted for his work on the Grimes Graves along with his treatises on electrum coinage of Cyzicus, and cataloguing of the Late Bronze Age finds from Heathery Burn Cave.
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William Greenwell held the perpetual curacy of Ovingham with Mickley from 1847 to 1850.
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William Greenwell was appointed canon at Durham Cathedral from 1854 to his death, and became known as Canon William Greenwell.
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From 1863 to 1908, William Greenwell was librarian of Durham Cathedral, where he continued the work of cataloguing the holdings begun by Joseph Stevenson.
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William Greenwell was president of the Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham from 1865 to his death, and vice-president of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle from 1890 until his death.
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William Greenwell was appointed a Justice of the Peace in 1870, later chairing the Durham ward petty sessions, and was elected an alderman in 1904.
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William Greenwell was awarded the Medal of the Royal Numismatic Society in 1898.
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William Greenwell died, unmarried, at North Bailey, Durham, on 27 January 1918, and was buried at Lanchester.
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William Greenwell was a Liberal in politics, and in religion a Tractarian who in later life retreated to more conservative high-churchmanship.
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William Greenwell is known as originator of "Greenwell's Glory", used in fly fishing.
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In 2022, Kit Cawthorn, at Durham University, founded The William Greenwell Fly Fishing Society, named after The Canon.