John MacEnery

John MacEnery (27 November 1796 – 18 February 1841) was a Roman Catholic priest from Limerick, Ireland[1][2] and early archaeologist[3] who came to Devon as Chaplain to the Cary family at Torre Abbey in 1822.

[4] In 1825, 1826 and 1829,[5] he investigated the prehistoric remains at Kent's Cavern in Devon,[6] having been shown the cave by Thomas Northmore.

[7] MacEnery concluded that the palaeolithic flint tools he found in the same contexts as the bones of extinct prehistoric mammals meant that early humans and the creatures such as mammoths co-existed.

[10] MacEnery left Torquay and his cave research in 1830 and it was left to Vivian, whose heavily edited version of his work was published in 1859, and then later to William Pengelly who publicised and explored the original manuscript of his findings in 1869, many years after MacEnery's death at age 43.

[9] MacEnery retired early due to ill health following an accident and lived for a time in Rome and Paris before returning to Torre Abbey in 1838.