The Gaskell Society

The Gaskell Society

Celebrating the life and work of Elizabeth Gaskell

A tribute to author, scholar and life member of the Gaskell Society, the late Dudley Green. A Thanksgiving for his life will be held on 16 March 2022, St Martin-in-the-Fields, London.

Dudley Green died on 16 December 2021. He has been a true and faithful member – indeed life member – of the Gaskell Society. He has served on the committee, given lectures, written articles, joined study tours (‘some of the happiest holidays of my life’) in Brussels, Paris, Rome and Normandy. Dudley was a life member of the Brontë Society and came to our Society via Mrs Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë. Dudley was also a keen life member of the Kilvert Society.

Dudley spent his childhood on the Isle of Wight and graduated from the University of Oxford. For more than thirty years, he was classics master at Clitheroe Royal Grammar School, in Lancashire. He had chosen to teach there as it was near the Lake District and Hadrian’s Wall, which, with cricket, were his greatest passions. In 1992 Dudley published Discovering Hadrian’s Wall (of great use when we walked the Wall in 2010). After retirement, Dudley wrote the biography of Patrick Brontë, and edited his Letters for publication; he also wrote a life of Mallory (of Mobberley) – who may or may not have conquered Everest in the 1920s. 

In addition to his meticulous research and intellectual capabilities, Dudley was a gentleman with personal charm and great humour. We have missed his presence at meetings since he moved to London a few years ago. We are privileged to have known him and we shall always remember him. RIP, Dudley.

He was a man, take him for all in all.
We shall not look upon his like again. 

 There will be a Choral Eucharist, conducted by the Reverend Dr Sam Wells at 1pm on Wednesday 16 March 2022, in St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, central London.  The service will include a Thanksgiving for the life of Dudley Green. 

Helen Smith