Richard George Hubert Plunket Greene was born on 1 July 1901, the son of
Harry Plunket Greene, an Irish baritone who was most famous in the formal concert and oratorio repertoire, and
Gwendolen Maud Parry, the daughter of
Hubert Parry, English composer, teacher and historian of music. His grandmother,
Louisa Lelias (Lilias) Plunket, was an author as well (
Bound by a spell, or The Hunted Witch of the Forest, 1885). Waugh described him as "a piratical in appearance, sometimes wearing ear-rings, a good man in a boat, a heavy smoker of dark, strong tobacco, tinged, as were his siblings, with melancholy, but also infused with a succession of wild, obsessive enthusiasms. He brought to the purchase of a pipe or a necktie the concentration of a collector. During the next few years I saw him become a connoisseur of wine, a racing motorist, an exponent of the latest jazz, the author of a detective novel". Also at Oxford, Richard Plunket Greene made friends with
Anthony Powell. He was also friend with
Rosa Lewis. In the 1920s, he was a school-master at
Aston Clinton School. He introduced Waugh to the school’s headmaster, Albert Edward Bredan-Crawford. For a short period he was a business partner of sports-car designer
Archibald Frazer-Nash. On 21 December 1926, Evelyn Waugh was best man at Richard Plunket Greene's wedding to
Elizabeth Frances Russell (1899-1979), first cousin once removed of
Bertrand Russell. Her aunts were
Flora Russell and
Diana Russell and her great-grandmother was
Diana Russell, Duchess of Bedford.
Patrick Balfour, 3rd Baron Kinross was a guest at the wedding. They had one son Alexander Plunket Greene (1932-1990), who married fashion designer
Mary Quant. In 1934, they wrote
Eleven-Thirty Till Twelve, a detective novel set in London Society. Richard Plunket Greene died in 1978 in Falmer, England, and is buried at St Andrew Churchyard, Hurstbourne Priors, Hampshire, near his father and his brother David. When
Harman Grisewood, who wanted to write a biography of Gwendolen Maud, Plunket Greene's mother, wrote to Alexander Plunket Greene, this latter told him that his father destroyed everything to do with the family, all correspondence included. ==References==