George Washington Greene was a Baptist minister, educator, and missionary to China.
After early schooling, he entered Wake Forest College in 1866 at age fourteen and received the B.A. in 1870. He pursued theological studies at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Greenville, S.C., attending in 1870–71 and again from 1872 until his graduation in 1875. Licensed in 1866 and ordained in 1871, Greene preached widely in rural North Carolina while still a student.
Greene served the North Carolina Baptist State Convention as Sunday school secretary (1875) and later as recording secretary. He pastored Hickory Baptist Church (1876–77) and then became principal of Moravian Falls Academy, where he taught, wrote Bingham’s Elementary English Grammar (1881), and helped found Moravian Falls Baptist Church (1886). In 1890 he briefly returned to Wake Forest College as professor of Latin.
He married Dora Mauldin, with whom he had three children: Anna, Pansy, and Felix Bailey. She died in 1890 however.
In 1891 Greene married Valleria Ann Page, and they had three children: George William, Valleria (later Mrs. M. T. Rankin), and Mary Katherine who died in infancy. His widow and two surviving children later served as missionaries in China.
Appointed by the Foreign Mission Board on 8 June 1891, the Greenes sailed for Canton, China, where they spent the remainder of their lives. He preached, taught, and helped expand the Canton mission, wrote extensively for Chinese Christian workers, produced the first church history written in China, and contributed to the work of the China Baptist Publication Society. His chief commitment was theological education, and he worked to develop a model seminary and to elevate Chinese pastors as full partners in the mission.
Greene returned to North Carolina on furlough in 1910 but soon resumed his work in China, where he died suddenly of apoplexy in 1911, aged 65.
Cheung Chau
The Greenes, like other missionaries in South China, owned a holiday home on Cheung Chau, House #3A at Kwun Yam Wan. They were said to be among the earliest European residents of Cheung Chau, so as House #3A was built after 1920, they must have lived in another house before that time.
When Valleria died in 1934, their son George William (Will) took over ownership.
The house was badly damaged in the typhoon of September 1937, when it lost the roof and the west end of the house, including the kitchen. Another Baptist missionary family named Snuggs was in occupancy at the time and had to take refuge in the house next door.
The Evangelical Beacon, 19th October 1937.