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Nairn's Founder and a Short History

Lasting Legacy of a Young Ship’s Surgeon

 

Once called Invernairn - Gaelic for the mouth of the River of the Alders – the community saw the establishment of a Christian cell as early as the 4th century. So there was a settlement long before the town was granted the burgh’s first charter by Alexander 1 in the 12th century.

 

William the Lion, Alexander’s grandson, built a castle on the defensive site between the river and the High Street. This is approximately the situation of the present mansion and Constabulary Gardens . The name of the gardens refers to the office of Constable of Nairn, a former hereditary duty of the Cawdor family.

 

The vision of one man was responsible for turning the impoverished little market town and fishing community of Nairn into a thriving health resort in the 19th century. That vision has stood the test of time. The tourism industry remains one of the key components of the Nairn economy.

 

Dr John Grigor arrived in the town as a young ship’s surgeon in the early 1800s. He was responsible for many institutions that still exist today. Locals marked his lifetime of work in Nairn’s development by commissioning an imposing bronze statue in his memory. The statue stands in a leafy corner of Nairn at Viewfield, in front of the Georgian mansion house which is home to the Nairn Museum collection.

John Grigor was born in 1814, the son of an Elgin solicitor. At the age of 15, it was decided he would follow the family tradition – and his brother Robert – into a legal career. But a year into his legal studies Grigor changed direction and moved to Edinburgh University in 1831 to study medicine.

Four years later he secured a position as an assistant surgeon on a ship chartered by the firm of Jardine and Matheson, who were trading in the Far East . He failed to make his fortune on his travels and returned to Elgin in 1837. To help him find gainful employment, an uncle in the legal profession directed him to Nairn where there was no hospital and few surgeons. It was to be the turning point in the fortunes of young Grigor and the town to which he devoted his life.

 

Although he married, Grigor had no children of his own and a book published as a tribute to his life and work described Nairn as his adopted son. No higher a tribute could be paid to this often controversial figure. Though he had an acrimonious and brief spell as Provost of the Royal Burgh, he was a major player in shaping Nairn as it stands today. Grigor built many large homes and hotels in the town, capitalised on Nairn’s qualities of climate, sea and air, and turned the town into a prosperous watering place which attracted visitors from all over and Europe .

 

He played a major role in the advancement of public health services, including getting Nairn its first public water supply and fever hospital (now Craigroyston) which still stands in

Lodgehill Road

. He was responsible for the development of many other institutions such as the museum, the Literary Institute and the town’s salt water baths.

 

He also built Nairn’s first major tourist hotel, the Marine Hotel which later had Royal patronage from a daughter of Queen Victoria . The hotel was demolished two years ago and is now the site of a prestigious apartment block overlooking the town links.

 

For further information about Nairn’s history, visit the Nairn Museum. To locate places of historical interest in and around Nairn click here.