Early History
Grainger was born in High Friar’s Lane, the son of Thomas Grainger, a Quayside porter, and Amelia Burt, a seamstress. He was educated at St Andrew’s Charity School in Newgate Street and was apprenticed to a carpenter at the age of 12. In 1816, at the age of 20 he started in business as a builder in partnership with his brother George, a bricklayer. However George died and Richard carried on alone. His first important contract was in 1819, to build a group of houses in Higham Place for Alderman Batson, a prominent Newcastle Methodist. Through Batson’s influence he came into contact with various leading men in the town and married into a well-to-do family. His wife, Rachel Arundale, the daughter of a wealthy leather merchant brought him a dowry of £5,000. The couple eventually had thirteen children – six sons and seven daughters.
Read more about this topic: Richard Grainger
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or history:
“We early arrive at the great discovery that there is one mind common to all individual men: that what is individual is less than what is universal ... that error, vice and disease have their seat in the superficial or individual nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I believe my ardour for invention springs from his loins. I can’t say that the brassiere will ever take as great a place in history as the steamboat, but I did invent it.”
—Caresse Crosby (1892–1970)