Greenfield was ordained as a Church of England priest in 1879 and after various curacies was chaplain of the Poor Law Union in the district of Cuckfield, West Sussex, from 1884 to 1891, and also of the Sussex county lunatic asylum from 1885 to 1890. He then moved to South Africa and was headmaster of a school near Dundee, Natal, from 1896 until 1900 when, during the Second Boer War, he was taken prisoner by the Boers, was robbed of everything and died of pleurisy.[3]