Rev. Canon John Grainger Collection Books

Reference code: SCI.GRAI
Level of description: Fonds
Title: Rev. Canon John Grainger Collection Books
Scope and content: The Reverend Canon John Grainger (1830–1891) was a Church of Ireland Rector for Broughshane, first President of the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. His geological and scientific collections, of fossils, minerals and other items of antiquity, including bronze weapons, were bequeathed to the Belfast Corporation, with the scale of the collection proving pivotal to the building of a municipal museum, the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery, later the Ulster Museum, with objects on display to this day.
This archive consists of several books of handwritten lists of the collection. One book titled “Geology” is annotated with “Despatched 24.7.1891” These are likely the notes of Robert Lloyd Praeger, who was tasked with cataloguing the collection and may refer to the removal from the Rectory in Broughshane to Central Library, Belfast in 1891.
Additional books, dated 1902, contain further lists, with case numbers, for fossils, polished stones and minerals, some marked as on loan from the Royal Dublin Society.
Other miscellaneous items included in this archive include: handwritten notes by J. Strachan on agate polished slices; a record of expenses incurred by the Belfast Naturalist’s Field Club for lectures delivered by Professor Grenville Arthur James Cole in 1897; a letter, dated 1896, from the Hull Scientific and Field Naturalists Club to Francis Joseph Bigger and the Belfast Naturalist’s Field Club offering thanks for a Praeger publication; cards with handwritten content notes by Kenneth James, Curator of Geology at the Ulster Museum.