Robert Rainy
Scottish minister (1826–1906)
Robert Rainy (1 January 1826 – 22 December 1906), was a Scottish Presbyterian divine. Rainy Hall in New College, Edinburgh (the Divinity faculty at Edinburgh University) is named after him.
Life
He was born on New Year's Day 1826 at 28 Montrose Street in Glasgow, Scotland, the son of Dr. Harry Rainy LLD (1792–1876) a surgeon who later served as professor of forensic medicine in the University of Glasgow, and his wife Barbara Gordon (1793–1854). The family lived at 28 Montrose Street. One of his uncles was George Rainy, the noted slave plantation owner and personality involved in the Highland Clearances.
Robert initially studied medicine at Glasgow University to follow his father's career. However, his interests turned to the church, which had been the path of his grandfather, Rev George Rainy (1734–1810) of Sutherland, in northern Scotland. He was caught by the evangelical fervour of the Disruption of 1843, and moved to Edinburgh to train as Free Church minister at New College.
He was ordained by the Free Church at Huntly in Aberdeenshire in 1851 and then in 1854 moved to the Free High Church in Edinburgh (occupying the north-east section of New College).
The public source identifies “Robert Rainy” as scottish minister (1826–1906). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Robert, Rainy and Scottish.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 18, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7349145. VIAF identifies the subject as 63574315. The Library of Congress control number is no92010689. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1826, 1906, 1792 and 1876.
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This entry incorporates text from “Robert Rainy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.