John Harry Grainger: Architect and Civil Engineer
An online exhibition to accompany an exhibition of the same title presented in the Leigh Scott Gallery, Baillieu Library, The University of Melbourne, 15 October 2007–11 January 2008
Text by Brian Allison, co-curator.
Accompanying book: Brian Allison (ed.), John Harry Grainger: Architect and Civil Engineer, Melbourne: University of Melbourne, 2007.
Introduction
John Harry Grainger: Architect and Civil Engineer explores the life and work of a creative figure who has been largely overlooked by history. He receives a brief mention in the much examined life story of his famous son, the composer and pianist Percy Grainger, where he has been depicted as a proud but ineffectual father, a syphilitic and a drunkard. His prolific output as an architect and his extraordinary talents for bridge building have not received due recognition. The core of this exhibition is sourced from the Grainger Museum Collection at the University of Melbourne. Additional material was sourced from the Public Records Office of Victoria and the State Library Collection.
Obscure Origins
John Grainger’s birth certificate lists his date and place of birth as being 30 November 1854 at 1 New Street, Westminster. His parents are recorded as being a John Grainger, Master Tailor and a Mary Ann Grainger, née Parsons.
Little is known about Grainger’s early life prior to emigrating to Australia. Winifred Falconer, his companion in the latter part of his life, wrote in an unpublished manuscript in the mid-1930s that he lived with an uncle who was an important influence on him during his childhood. The gentleman was a personal friend of the great theologian Cardinal Newman and the young Grainger ‘derived great pleasure as well as knowledge from listening to their discussions of the world’s affairs.’ His uncle was also an opera enthusiast who took Grainger to his personal box at the opera.
Percy believed that his father received much of his education at a monastery school in France at Yvetot between Le Havre and Paris. This detail is confirmed by Winifred Falconer. John Bird, Percy Grainger’s biographer, states that J.H. Grainger claimed he was in Paris during the siege near the end of the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71). This begs the question: what was the son of a Westminster tailor doing at school in France? One possible explanation is that Grainger’s uncle – his guardian – may have had business interests on the Continent.
The experience of French culture in his formative years left Grainger with a lifetime love of French architecture. At some juncture, early in his career, he made a very detailed study of French revival styles – particularly Renaissance revival architecture – a style he used in his buildings repeatedly throughout his working career. If, as John Bird states, he was in Paris at age 16, conceivably he may have had an association with an architectural atelier where he could have received some training.
A clipping from the Argus newspaper on 4 August 1879 states:
Granger [sic] of Jenkins and Granger [sic] has been in the colony about 3 years. He came from London where he worked with Mr Wilson, the well-known engineer of the Metro. District Railways, and with him made special study of iron bridge making.
Marshall’s Biographical Dictionary of Railway Engineers lists a William Wilson (1822-1898) who acted for contractors on the Metropolitan and District Railway. Grainger may have been apprenticed to Wilson or was a junior in Wilson’s company; either way he received a solid grounding in civil engineering practices.