Henry Musgrave

Originally from Edinburgh, Dr Musgrave (1767–1834)[2] moved to Lisburn, County Down when he was about 20[1] to practice as a doctor and open a dispensary.

[1] As a young man Samuel was involved with the United Irishmen and was imprisoned in 1796 for over a year on a charge of High Treason.

They first lived in Upper Arthur Street, then Donegall Square South and eventually built Drumglass House in Malone in 1855,[1] which now serves as Victoria College, a girls' boarding school.

[3] In 1867[4] the family also bought an estate of 23,673 acres[citation needed] in Carrick, Co Donegal where they sometimes held shooting parties.

Musgrave was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution[8] and then served an apprenticeship with the tea and wine merchant William Finlay in Corporation Street.

[1][8] The novelist, Forrest Reid, was an apprentice as a young man in the firm and wrote, "Though generosity was not a Musgrave characteristic I liked Henry: towards his brother, Edgar, when I watched him saving the backs of envelopes and lifting little bits of string from the floor, my feeling was more of curiosity.

Customers included cattle barons in South America and members of European aristocracy such as Victoria, Princess Royal, Empress of Germany and Alfonso XIII of Spain.

Four decades later, in 1965, Musgrave & Co was in such financial difficulties that the directors called an extraordinary meeting and announced their intention to liquidate, with a loss of 400 jobs, ending the story of a 120-year-old firm.

His main interests were education and the Presbyterian Church and he mostly made donations in Belfast and near the family estate in Donegal.

Musgrave bequeathed the garden to the City of Belfast in his will under the condition it was to be used as a public park or children's playground.

The statue stands outside the Linen Centre with the inscription 'the gift of Henry Musgrave Esq of this town to the memory of a great Ulster soldier'.

Another provision in Musgrave's will allowed the purchase of four houses in a terrace on University Road, along with money from other donors.