Shirley Greenwood was born in Mirfield,Yorkshire, daughter of Wing Commander Alec Knowles- Fitton MBE, Chairman of the Extract Wool & Merino Co. with an associate business in Guelph, Ontario, and Chairman of the West Riding County Council.

Shirley was a child throughout the war & was educated privately at Malvern Girl’s College, Worcestershire. By this time the war was over & she attended the Slade School of Art in London for two years, followed by the Central School of Arts & Crafts also in London, where she studied Mediaeval Fashion, & there the seed was sown as it is relative to Heraldry.

Her career in the fashion world had to be put on hold as she then married Thomas Silvester, a jeweller working for his Great Uncle who was Chairman of The Goldsmiths & Silversmiths in London, now known as Garrard, the Court Jewellers. For the next twenty years she raised three children, latterly in the Island of Alderney in the Channel Isles where her husband died very prematurely.

As two of the children were still young, in order to educate them as she herself had been, she opened a Fashion Boutique & although with no business experience whatsoever she was very successful. During this time she met & married Major Alexander Greenwood, late of the Royal Lincolnshire Regt. who persuaded her to sell her business which still bears her name to this day, & move with him to Canada in 1980 where many Greenwoods had previously emigrated.

Shirley’s hobby’s up to this point was playing the piano, the fashion world & driving her Rolls Royce to rallies on Vancouver Island. A far change from Alex whose hobby was Genealogy, which led to a growing interest in Heraldry.

It was at a Convention in Victoria that Shirley decided to accompany Alex, & was so inspired with the Beley Lecture that was given by Ralph Brocklebank that she decided to petition for her own grant of Arms, which she received in 2003 when she travelled across Canada by train to receive them in Montreal from the Lieut.Gov. of Quebec, who at that time was Madame Thiebault.

From then on she became actively interested in the Society & was elected to the Board of the BC/Yukon Branch where she has served in various capacities ever since. Shirley’s strong commitment to the Branch and her enthusiasm for the tasks she undertakes has made her a source of strength to successive presidents. Her organizational skills and dedication have made a significant contribution to the work of the branch over a long period of time.
 

Honours and awards

• 2015 Honorary Fellow of the Royal Heraldry Society of Canada
• 2012 Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal
• 2009 RHSC Meritorious Service Award
• 2003 Grant of Arms, Canadian Heraldic Authority