Charles Greenidge was born in Bridgetown, Barbados, on 28 December 1929, the third child and only son of Charles Woseley Greenidge, a jeweller, and Pauline Mary née O'Brien. He was educated at Wesley Hall Boys School, Combermere, and Harrison College, and studied medicine at the University College of the West Indies, where he won a medal for obstetrics and gynaecology. He did junior jobs at University College Hospital, Hackney, and the Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital, where he became surgical registrar to Harold Dodd and Stephen Power. In 1967, he returned to Barbados as a consultant surgeon to St Joseph's Hospital, Ashton Hall. An extremely energetic, hardworking and determined individual, he had a busy practice, which consisted of obstetrics and gynaecology, orthopaedics and general surgery. In addition to his surgical practice, he was also a keen agriculturalist and ran a small farm with the assistance of his wife. He never quite retired, but spent more time on the farm after he finished hospital practice in 1982. He married Margaret Reynolds-Lewis, a doctor, in 1957. They had one son, Charles Woseley Greenidge, who became a consultant general and vascular surgeon, and is an associate lecturer at the University of the West Indies at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Barbados. Charles Greenidge died on 17 May 2002. His widow continued in general practice and farming.