Abstract
Arthur George Green died peacefully in his sleep on 12 September 1941, in the seventy-eighth year of his life. From leaving college in 1885 until the day of his death Green was continuously and actively engaged in the practice of chemistry. He was pre-eminently a chemist; all his enthusiasm, and it abounded in him, was for chemistry or for causes which had chemistry at the heart of them. The synthetic dyestuff industry was his foremost passion and practically all the energy of his long life was devoted to it, not merely because he had fertilized it by his early genius as an inventor, nor because it furnished an outlet for his talent as an experimentor, but because he believed in it fervently as a matter of major significance in the industrial and scientific development of the nation. The dyestuff industry was a ‘cause’ to Green. He was a servant to science, and a passionate preacher of science in industry. He was properly honoured for his work and for his devotion by his colleagues, becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society and the recipient of many honours, medals, etc., from other learned bodies. From the politician and the general public, however, Green received no recognition. On this account, and because of the intensity of his belief in the urgency of his cause, Green must have experienced many times the pangs of disappointment and frustration, but in spite of it, and of the many changes in his career, his life was happy and uninterrupted in the steady and fruitful practice of the branch of chemistry of which he was a master. To have been able to do this up to the very day of his death was his greatest reward.