James Raine

A Church of England clergyman from the 1810s, he held a variety of positions, including librarian to the dean and chapter of Durham and rector of Meldon in Northumberland.

Raine served as secretary for the society, and by the time of his death in 1858 he had edited seventeen volumes for it, in addition to numerous other published works.

Protracted litigation concerning the tithe at Meldon harassed Raine for many years; but in 1846 the House of Lords decided the dispute in his favour.

He was incorporated ad eundem gradum in the university of Durham, and the same body conferred upon him the degree of D. C. L. in 1857, in recognition of his literary eminence and of his long service as judge of the ecclesiastical court.

Raine subsequently became literary executor to his friend, with the duty of arranging and editing the fourth volume of the History of Durham.

The object of the society as originally devised was "to publish such unedited manuscripts as illustrate the intellectual, moral, religious, and social conditions of those parts of England which lie between the Humber and the Firth of Forth, and on the west from the Mersey to the Clyde, from the earliest period to the Restoration".

From this time he devoted great energy and industry to the interests of the society, editing for it seventeen volumes, and establishing it on a permanent basis.