BURIED TOGETHER

Partner Elizabeth Maria Molteno

Queer Places:
Ohlanga Cottage, 108818 St, Langalibalele, Inanda, 4310, South Africa (Portion 398 of the Farm Piesangrivier (Piesangs Rivier) No. 805, Inanda, eThekwini Municipality, KwaZulu-Natal)
High View, The Close, Trevone, Padstow, Cornwall, PL28 8QT, United Kingdom
St. Merryn Churchyard, St Merryn, Church, Padstow PL28 8ND, United Kingdom

Alice Greene (1859 – March 1920) was a teacher, poet, and activist.

She was born in England into an intellectually distinguished family. She was the aunt of famed novelist Graham Greene and sister to Sir William Graham Greene, a senior official at the Admiralty. Overcoming early parental opposition to women pursuing higher education, Greene qualified as a teacher and established herself as a passionate educator, writer, and poet.

In 1887, Greene accepted a teaching position at the Collegiate School for Girls in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. It was here that she met Elizabeth Maria "Betty" Molteno, the school's headmistress and daughter of Sir John Charles Molteno, the first Prime Minister of the Cape Colony.

The two women formed a deeply committed, thirty-year partnership. Bound by shared values, they lived, worked, and engaged in political activism together as lifelong partners:

Following the Jameson Raid in 1895, Greene became deeply active in South African politics. She and Molteno strongly opposed Cecil Rhodes's imperial policies and British military action during the Second Boer War.

Moving to Cape Town, they actively campaigned on behalf of Boer women and children held in British concentration camps, collaborating closely with British campaigner Emily Hobhouse.

Greene and Molteno worked alongside prominent social reformers of the era, supporting the early struggles of Black South Africans and Mahatma Gandhi's non-violent campaigns for the rights of Indian South Africans. Both were dedicated feminists who advocated for women's suffrage.

They lived, worked, and fought for human rights side-by-side until Greene's death in 1920. After returning to England in their later years, Alice Greene passed away in March 1920 in Cornwall. She is buried in the churchyard of St Merryn in Cornwall (near Padstow and Trevone), where she shares a joint headstone and burial plot with her lifelong partner, Elizabeth Maria "Betty" Molteno, honoring their thirty-year bond in life and activism.

References:

• Greene, Alice; edited by John E. Barham. Alice Greene, Teacher and Campaigner: South African Correspondence, 1887–1902. Matador / Troubador Publishing, 2007.
• Hobhouse, Emily. Report to the Committee of the Distress Fund for South African Women and Children. London: Friars, 1901.
• Boucher, Maurice. "Elizabeth Maria Molteno (1852–1927)." Dictionary of South African Biography, Vol. III. Human Sciences Research Council / Tafelberg, 1977.
• Schoeman, Karel. Only an Anguish to Live Here: Olive Schreiner and the Anglo-Boer War 1899–1902. Human & Rousseau, 1992.
• Sherry, Norman. The Life of Graham Greene (3 Volumes). Jonathan Cape / Viking Press, 1989–2004.
• The Molteno Family Papers, Location: Manuscripts and Archives Department, University of Cape Town (UCT) Libraries (BC 330 / BC 1025).
• The Emily Hobhouse Papers, Location: Bodleian Library, Oxford University.
• St Merryn Parish Churchyard Records, Location: St Merryn, Cornwall, England (near Padstow).

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