Background
William Conyngham Greene was born in Ireland, son of Richard Greene, barrister and writer, and the Honorary
William Conyngham Greene was born in Ireland, son of Richard Greene, barrister and writer, and the Honorary
He was educated at Harrow School and Pembroke College, Oxford.
Greene entered the Foreign Office in 1877, was posted as Acting Third Secretary to Athens in 1880, and acted as Chargé d"Affaires at Stuttgart and Darmstadt 1883-1887. He transferred formally to the Diplomatic Service (then separate from the Foreign Service) in 1877 and was posted as 2nd Secretary at The Hague 1889-1891 and at Brussels 1891-1893. He was then promoted to be Secretary of Legation at Tehran in 1893 and promoted again to be "Her Majesty Agent at Pretoria with rank of Chargé d"Affaires" in 1896.
Pretoria was then the capital of the Transvaal Republic, and on 9 October 1899 the Transvaal government handed to Conyngham Greene an ultimatum stating that if in 48 hours British troops did not retire from the border, a state of war would exist.
The British government replied that the conditions imposed by the Transvaal were such that the British government could no longer discuss the subject, and the Second Boer War began on 11 October. On that day Conyngham Greene left Pretoria, and on his arrival at Cape Town a few days later he "was accorded a magnificent reception.
A crowd of 3,000 persons who had gathered sang "Rule, Britannia" and "God Save the Queen"." In 1901 Greene was appointed Minister to the Swiss Confederation. He remained at Berne until December 1905 and was appointed Minister to Romania in January 1906.
In January 1911 he was transferred to Copenhagen as Minister to Denmark where he stayed only two years.
In December 1912 he was made a Privy Counsellor and posted as Ambassador to Japan. He was the King"s representative at the enthronement of the Taishō Emperor in 1915. His obituary in the Times of London wrote that "He remained in Tokyo until the end of the First World War and proved himself a great Ambassador.
His departure in April 1919 was universally regretted." Sir Conyngham (as he had become) and Lady Lily Greene were among the passengers who landed from the Aquitania at Plymouth on 10 May 1919.