John Harry

30/11/1834

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John Grainger, who began his Australia-wide career in South Australia, was a ‘gifted and creative man’ showing great skill in the fields of architecture and engineering (Allison, 2007: 38).

Despite his famous son, Percy’s, belief that his father was from a Northumbrian family of builders, architects and engineers, John Grainger was born at 1 New Street, Westminster, England on 30 November, 1854 to John Grainger, Master Tailor and Mary Ann (neé Parsons) Grainger (Allison 2007: 38).

John Grainger’s companion in his later life, Winifred Falconer, wrote an unpublished manuscript in the mid-1930s, in which she claims he lived with an uncle who was most influential in his development. Young Grainger was present during conversations between his uncle and his personal friend, the great theologian Cardinal Newman, and attended opera performances in his uncle’s private box. South Australian musician and friend of Grainger, Herman Schrader, also made reference to this particular uncle taking him to concerts (Allison 2007: 39). Percy Grainger, and confirmed by Falconer, stated his father undertook much of his education at a monastery school in France at Yvetot between Le Havre and Paris. John Bird, Percy’s biographer, further states that J.H. Grainger claimed he was in Paris during the siege near the end of the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) (John Harry Grainger online exhibition).

Little is known about Grainger’s early training. In his unsuccessful application to become a Fellow of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects (RVIA) he wrote that he studied architecture with I.J. Eden & W.K. Green of Westminster, and engineering with a W.E. Wilson, also of Westminster. In the mid-1870s, whilst in Wilson’s employ, he travelled to Spain, Italy and France (Culture Victoria; Tibbits and Beauchamp, 2009: 1).

It is not known why John Grainger decided to emigrate to Australia, but at the age of 22 he embarked on the Tanjore, arriving in Adelaide on 1 February 1877 to a position in the office of H.C. Mais, Engineer-in-Chief of the South Australian Public Works Department (Tibbits and Beauchamp, 2009: 1). It did not take him long to settle into the social and cultural life of his new home. With the address of Melbourne Street, North Adelaide, he subscribed to membership of the South Australian Institute in 1878 (Application Book, GRG 19/97). Other connections saw him become Honorary Secretary on the inaugural committee of the Adelaide String Quartet Club in 1880, a position he resumed when the club was reformed in 1891. Herman Schrader was an inaugural instrumental member and later wrote of Grainger that his ‘love for music was very great and absolutely cosmopolitan, embracing all styles …’. Over the years, Grainger wrote several letters to the Editor, one suggesting a large outdoor performance of Handel’s Messiah in the Exhibition Grounds, and another, a critique of a chamber music concert (‘Christmas “Messiah” Performances’, 1892: 7; ‘Adelaide Chamber Concerts’, 1895: 3). His interests also extended to the visual arts. He was a water colourist and well versed in western art history (‘The Adelaide String Quartet Club’, 1891: 7; Allison, 2007: 40, 42; John Harry Grainger online exhibition).

Grainger became acquainted with the publican George Aldridge whose establishment, the Prince Alfred Hotel, was next door to the King William Street government offices in which Grainger worked. The friendship was not a long one as George died on 12 December 1879 (‘Deaths’, 1879: 5). The following year, however, Grainger married his youngest daughter Rosa (Rose) at St Matthew’s Church, Kensington on 1 October (‘Marriages’, 1880: 4). John and Rose’s only child, George Percy, was born in Melbourne on 8 July 1882. Percy Aldridge Grainger became famous on the world stage with his prodigious talents as a composer and pianist. Over time John and Rose’s marriage developed difficulties. John had drinking problems and is said to have contracted syphilus and passed it on to Rose, although there is some dispute on this point (Allison, 2007: 38; ‘Monument to Percy Grainger’s father’, 2013). According to Percy’s own memoirs, mother and son were abnormally close. By 1890 John was permanently separated from Rose and Percy, although there was contact and correspondence over the ensuing years. In fact, during his final years in which he was living in straitened circumstances with Winifred Falconer in Melbourne, he received income from Percy. John died a pauper on 13 April 1917 and was buried in an unmarked grave in Melbourne’s Box Hill Cemetery (Allison, 2007: 38, 44). His passing was not overlooked as a number of obituaries acknowledging his work and talents appeared in Victorian newspapers, with an obituary in Adelaide’s Advertiser describing him as ‘a man of exceptional ability in both the civil engineering and architectural professions’ (‘Personal’, 1917: 5). In 2013 a headstone was erected to appropriately recognise John Harry Grainger’s contribution to the built heritage of Australia (‘Monument to Percy Grainger’s father’, 2013).

While John Grainger was engaged by the South Australian Public Works Department, he also established a private practice. On 26 June 1878, Grainger wrote to the Engineer-in-Chief ‘requesting permission to resign my appointment as Railway Draftsman in your Department … as I have had numerous promises of support … it will be in my best interests to establish myself in this city with a view to practising my Profession’. Approval was given by the Commissioner of Public Works after the Assistant Engineer had noted that his private work had interfered ‘with the execution of his official duties’. (GRG 53/16/1878/1744). Grainger resigned on 22 July 1878 (GRG 53/16/1878/1962).

At that time, Grainger and his partner, H.E.Worsley, had won the competition for the Albert Street Bridge which still enables Frome Road to cross the Torrens River near the Adelaide Zoological Gardens. Concurrently, Grainger received commissions from wealthy Adelaide clients such as the Barr Smith family for whom he extensively rebuilt and remodelled their home, Auchendarroch, at Mt Barker (1879). In 1880, Grainger won two design competitions for bridges in Victoria, the Princes Bridge (with J.S. Jenkins) which spans the Yarra River and joins Swanston Street to St Kilda Road; and the Swing Bridge over the Latrobe River, five kilometres south of Sale, both of which are on the Victorian Heritage Register. These projects saw the Graingers move to Melbourne, although John kept a presence in Adelaide (Tibbits, 2012: 292). In 1880-81 his solo practice was at Stow Manse Chambers, Flinders Street, Adelaide. By 1882 he had formed a partnership with John Naish, architect, and again with H.E. Worsley, Licensed Surveyor, still at Stow Manse Chambers. In 1884 it was just Grainger & Naish, and from1885 to the end of their partnership in 1891 they were located in Morialta Chambers, Victoria Square (Boothby 1878-1883; Sands & McDougall Directories 1884-1891).

A number of his South Australian projects from these years, including the Albert Bridge and Auchendarroch, are listed on the South Australian Heritage Register. Others are St Aiden’s Anglican Church (1884) on Payneham Road, Marden, which has unusual brickwork more commonly seen in Victoria, possibly an outcome of Grainger’s move to Melbourne; a private theatre for the Barr Smith family at Torrens Park (1885), now Scotch College; a new smoking room for the listed Adelaide Club, North Terrace (1885, with Naish); the façade of the former Malcolm Reid Emporium on Rundle Street (1879), along with alterations or additions to St Andrew’s Anglican Church, Walkerville, and St Augustine’s Anglican Church, Victor Harbor (AHPI; SHR).

Upon moving to Melbourne, Grainger formed a partnership there with Charles D’Ebro who had sailed on the same ship to Adelaide and worked in the South Australian Engineer-in-Chief’s Department. Their four year alliance saw them win commissions in Victoria and beyond. There were water related projects in Benalla and Shepparton, the Fremantle (WA) Town Hall and National Bank, the Auckland (NZ) Free Public Library and Municipal Offices (now the Auckland City Art Gallery) and the Christ Church Congregational Church in Launceston (Tas). The practice won the design competition for the Brisbane Public Offices (now known as the Queensland Government’s Treasury Building) but in the end the design by John James Clarke was favoured and built (Tibbits and Beauchamp, 2009: 4; ‘Mr. Charles A. D’Ebro’, 1920: 6). They then submitted designs for the Brisbane Town Hall, and again had them rejected in favour of J.J. Clark (‘Grainger, John Harry’, 1994: 83). Andrew Dodd has examined the professional interactions between Grainger (and D’Ebro) and Clark, noting ‘few architectural competitions have had the same intensity and ferocity as the contest for the Brisbane Public Offices’ and that Grainger and D’Ebro were ‘incensed by the result’ (Dodd, 2012: 96-7).

During this Melbourne sojourn, Grainger and D’Ebro were responsible for the design of the Georges Building (1884) in Collins Street and the New Masonic Hall (completed 1886), also on Collins Street. The former, originally the Equitable Co-operative Society Premises, was built by David Mitchell, father of Nellie Melba and a Grainger family friend. The partnership with D’Ebro dissolved in 1885 and Grainger continued in his own busy practice. In 1890, he wrote to his father, ‘I lost all in speculation in mines and afterwards in trying to make it up I overdid it in hard work’ (quoted in Tibbits & Beauchamp, 2009: 5). His health also suffered through drinking and tobacco and he experienced some form of breakdown. Grainger had a fleeting visit to England after which he returned briefly to Melbourne before moving to Adelaide again (Tibbits & Beauchamp, 2009; Allison, 2007).

Grainger had maintained ties with the Aldridge family in Adelaide and re-established contacts in the city’s cultural life, however he was not able to gain the level of commissions he had previously experienced. Grainger, with offices in Pirie Street, won second and third prizes for his designs for a bridge over the River Light at Hamley Bridge in 1891. Mr A. Barnham Black of Grenfell Street provided the winning design (Advertiser, 1891: 4). The remainder of Grainger’s work involved projects at Hill River Station near Clare in the mid-North of South Australia and collaborating with a man by the name of Langley and the South Australian Portland Cement Company on cement works and a crushing mill. It was during this phase, in 1885, he met Winifred Falconer in Adelaide who became his lifelong companion. Work on the crushing mill saw Grainger move to Kalgoorlie in late 1896, but later that year Langley dismissed him and Grainger sued for wrongful dismissal and his share in the patent for the mill (Tibbits & Beauchamp, 2009: 6).

The next phase of Grainger’s life enabled him to fully use his wealth of architectural and engineering experience, and ironically, it was through the efforts of his previous rival, J.J. Clark. Clark, who had been the colonial architect in Queensland, moved to Western Australia in May 1896 to work within the health portfolio of the Public Works Department. He saw the need for a chief architect to oversee the planning and design of public buildings and it was this position that John Grainger took up in March 1897 (Dodd 2012: 92). This coincided with a mining boom which in turn led to increased building activity. Despite this, Grainger managed a private commission called the Australian Building in Colombo, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in 1898. Perhaps Grainger’s most satisfying public projects were the extensions to the Western Australia Government House, including a ballroom, and the Western Australian court at the Paris International Exhibition of 1900. Percy Grainger was fulsome in his praise of the former, and the latter saw John Grainger awarded membership of the Société Centrale des Architectes Français. Over the next few years Grainger again experienced health issues, although a sojourn in Rotorua, New Zealand in 1903 assisted. In 1905 he resigned and travelled to Europe with Falconer before settling for the final time in Melbourne in 1906 (Allison, 2007: 44).

Grainger formed a partnership with previous architectural contacts. Grainger, Kennedy & Little, later Grainger & Little, won significant commissions including St Michael’s Church, North Melbourne (c.1906), the interior – J.J. Clark designed the exterior – of the Town Hall Administrative Offices adjacent to the Melbourne Town Hall (c.1906), Collins House (1911, demolished) and the State Savings Bank on the corner of Burke and Elizabeth Streets (demolished). In 1909 the Victorian Government selected Grainger to conduct an inquiry into the Architectural Branch of its Public Works Department, and adopted his recommendations (Allison, 2007: 8-9).

Sadly, his health and economic circumstances declined until he was almost totally incapacitated. Despite these various low periods across his adult life, Grainger’s almost Renaissance capabilities across the fields of engineering, architecture, music and art were recognised by his contemporaries and are now being more fully acknowledged in the present day.

Alison McDougall and Ruth Fazakerley

Citation details
McDougall, Alison, and Fazakerley, Ruth, 'Grainger, John Harry', Architecture Museum, University of South Australia, 2015, Architects of South Australia: [http://www.architectsdatabase.unisa.edu.au/arch_full.asp?Arch_ID=133]