John Grainger (antiquarian)

Canon John Grainger

John Grainger (19 March 1830, Belfast – 24 November ) was an Irish cleric and antiquarian.[1]

Grainger was educated at Belfast Academy and Trinity College, Dublin. He worked in his father’s shipping business until his father died.

After gaining a Doctorate of Divinity in 1870 he became Rector of Broughshane, County Antrim. He also served in Dublin and Belfast.[1]

He had an interest in geology and natural history, as well as Irish antiquities, and enjoyed travelling and collecting specimens.[1] He was an indiscriminating collector, who filled his house with a mass of often unlabelled specimens including stuffed birds, shells, insects, coins, minerals, a dolmen, weapons from New Zealand, and archaeological finds. According to Robert Lloyd Praeger his collection of Irish stone tools was ‘’especially valuable as a study in the gentle art of forgery’’.

In 1876 he was elected MRIA; he was also the first president of the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club.[1] He was a member of the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society.

He donated 60,000 items to the museum of the Belfast Natural History Society; the museum had to build an annexe to contain the collection.[2]

Family

He was the oldest of six children; he never married.[1]

Works

Partial list

  • 1853. Catalogue of the Shells found in the Alluvial Deposits of a Belfast site of the Irish Mesolithic. Proc. Roy. Irish Acad. 56 C, 1-195.
  • --- Results of excavations in High St., Belfast. Ulster Journ. Arch. ix. 113-121.
  • 1874. On the Fossils of the Post-tertiary Deposits of Ireland. Rep. Bmt. Assoc, for 1874; Sections, pp. 73–76.
  • 1882. Affairs in Ulster 1607–43 [1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Lunney, Linde (1 October 2009). "Grainger, John". Dictionary of Irish Biography. Retrieved 30 July 2026.
  2. ↑ Sawyer, Andrew (28 April 2011). "National Museums in Northern Ireland" (PDF). Irish Museums. Retrieved 30 July 2026.
  • Praeger, R. Ll. 1949. Some Irish Naturalists, a Biographical Note-book. Dundalgan Press, Dundalk, 1949
  • Belfast Nat. Hist. and Phil. Soc. Centenary Volume, 77, portrait. 1924.
  • James, K.W. 1991. Canon Grainger: country rector, magpie collector and Father of the Ulster Museum. Ulster Museum Publication No. 269.
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