Subsequent Career
With the completion of his major scheme for central Newcastle, Grainger looked around for another scheme to work on. In 1839 he paid £114,100 for the Elswick estate to west of Newcastle intending to build a railway terminus there surrounded by factories and houses. The expense of buying the estate almost bankrupted Grainger and by 1841 his creditors were demanding payment. He was saved from bankruptcy by John Clayton, who persuaded Grainger’s creditors to accept gradual repayment. Grainger was forced to live modestly. The riverside section of the Elswick estate was sold to William Armstrong, for a new armaments factory. Grainger built a number of streets of terraced houses, in Benwell and Elswick, for the workers at Armstrong's factory, and named several of them using the forenames of his thirteen children.
Grainger died in 1861 at his home at 5 Clayton Street West and is buried at St James Church, Benwell. At his death, his debts totalled £128,582 and his personal estate amounted to only £16,913. However, the sale of land in the Elswick estate helped to pay off these debts to such an extent that by 1901 the Grainger estate was worth over £1,200,000.
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