Gordon Greenwood was born on 17 September 1913 and educated at the University of Sydney, where he received a Bachelor of Arts (1935) and Master of Arts (1937), both with First Class Honours in History and the University Medal. He was appointed the (Sir Samuel) McCaughey Professor of History at the University of Queensland in 1949. Over the next thirty years he greatly expanded the size and reputation of the History Department. He published many texts, and was involved in a range of institutes and organisations over the course of his career. He established the Australian journal of politics and history in 1955 and served as the editor until 1982. He was a member of the University of Queensland Senate from 1953 to 1983. He served as Chair of the Library Committee (1964 to 1976), leading efforts to develop and strengthen the Library's holdings, and chaired the library sub-committee of the Commonwealth Advisory Committee on Advanced Education. His advocacy for the importance of libraries was recognised in 1984 when the Library Association of Australia presented him with the Sir Redmond Barry Award. Greenwood was a member of the Social Science Research Committee of Australia, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, a member of the Australian Humanities Research Council and a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. In 1982, before his retirement, he was appointed as a Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George (CMG). In 1983, he was conferred the title of Emeritus Professor and awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters by UQ. He died in 1986. In 1989, the University of Queensland named the Gordon Greenwood building in his honour. Helen Derrick, his daughter, later posthumously published some of Greenwood's manuscripts.

Helen Derrick (nee Greenwood-Nadebaum), daughter of Gordon and Thora Greenwoord, was born in 1940.