The story of a man named Jonathan Green began before the middle of the last century in the North of England. Born in December of 1836 in the small Yorkshire village of Kirkby-Malham, Jonathan Green was first employed as a gardener. At the age of 43 Jonathan Green, who had recently been widowed moved his five children to the small industrial town of Chorley in Lancashire. Here he began a new life and a new business; one not centered on the manufacturing trades, but on growing turfgrass. During these years, at the height of the Industrial Revolution, one of the few sources of recreation available to working men was bowling on the green. Just about every town had its bowling green on the town square. Men formed bowling clubs and during the long Spring and Summer evenings would enjoy this form of recreation.
It is doubtful whether anyone today can truly comprehend life, as it was lived, in the last half of the nineteenth century in northern Europe. It was the sum of old cities with great factories, melancholy rows of red brick houses, people awakening to the sounds of factory whistles and clogs on the cobblestones. It was against this gray industrial background that the young widower began a career destined to restore some natural beauty into peoples lives.
