John Grainger

Who was John Grainger?

John Grainger was an Irish cleric and antiquarian.

Grainger was educated at Belfast Academy and Trinity College, Dublin. After gaining a Doctorate of Divinity he became Rector of Broughshane, County Antrim. 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’’.