John Farrah, F.L.S., F.R.Met.S (28 May 1849 – 13 November 1907) was a British grocer, confectioner, biologist and meteorologist from Harrogate, North Riding of Yorkshire, England.

In the late 19th century he developed the business strategy for Farrah's toffee shop which he inherited from his family in Harrogate.

He was president of the botanical section of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union, working with Thomas Sheppard, George Edward Massee, William Eagle Clarke and Charles Crossland, and in 1903 discovered the mycological species Entoloma farrahi, which was named after him, although there has been some question as to its identity since then.

He was a close friend of Harrogate historian William Grainge and for some years they were "constant companions", supporting each other in their work.

American botanist George Francis Atkinson (1854–1918) describes Farrah in his 1903 diary of his visit to England.

(G.F. Atkinson (1903), Diary of Trip to Europe)[17][nb 17]John Farrah, who would not be called "Mr" or Esquire", was both modest and forthright.

Thomas Sheppard, in The Naturalist of December 1907, gives an account of Farrah's personality:[6] He was honest and straightforward to a degree that is rarely seen now-a-days.

He hated deceits and shams of every description, and rarely was he so bluff and out-spoken as when roused by some mean action, or what he considered a high-handed or improper procedure.

(T. Sheppard (1907), In Memoriam)[6]Farrah may have been a businessman, but in certain respects he preferred the rural idyll to industrial progress: "The motor car [is] the latest curse inflicted upon the country ...

[19] In the late 19th century he was owner and director of Messrs John Farrah (Limited), grocers and confectioners of Crescent Road and Royal Parade, Harrogate.

[8] In 1903 the American mycologist George Francis Atkinson said that Farrah earned "four or five thousand dollars yearly" (equivalent to $174,981.48 in 2024).

[1][2] In 1840 Swan invented a toffee recipe designed to take away the taste of the Harrogate spa waters which tourists would take at the nearby Royal Pump Room.

[1][23] Since Farrah's lifetime, the company has expanded products and premises, and was visited by Queen Elizabeth II in 1998.

(John Farrah, The flowering plants of Bowes)[6]In 1903 among unimproved grass on Rievaulx Terrace overlooking Rievaulx Abbey,[30] while assisting at the Fungus Foray of the Mycological Committee, Farrah discovered a "large indigo-blue" toadstool, which was named Entoloma farrahi after him in 1904.

[34] The spore size (to 10.8 μm in length),[35] if assumed to be correct even if the shape is wrong, would only fit E. bloxamii.

However, the fruit body which Farrah found in 1903 would closely resemble the endangered Entoloma species: big blue pinkgill, specifically E. atromadidum whose indigo colour (shading to black) is identical, if the 1904 drawing of the smooth spores were taken as an error.

For several years he was the constant companion of the late William Grainge, whose History of the Forest of Knaresborough is well known.

An average walk would be a 24-mile-long (39 km) round trip, and it was Grainge who introduced Farrah to many aspects of natural science.

[42] The painting was presented to Harrogate Field Naturalists' and Camera club in the late 1890s by John Farrah.