John Edgar

Background

He was born near Ballynahinch on 13 June 1798, the eldest son of Samuel Edgar (1766-1826) and Elizabeth McKee (1771-1839).

Career

Edgar died aged 68 on 26 August 1866, in Rathgar, Dublin, where he had gone to get medical treatment. Edgar is known as the origin of the because he poured alcohol out his window in 1829. On 14 August 1829 he wrote a letter in the Belfast Telegraph advocating temperance.

He formed the Ulster.

In 1834, Edgar told a parliamentary committee inquiring into the causes and consequences of drunkenness in the United Kingdom that there were 550 "dram shops" in Belfast and 1,700 shops selling intoxicants in Dublin as well as numerous illicit distillers "even in the most civilised districts of Ulster". The church was accused of proselytizing during the famine period.

Achievements

• He was also the founder of the Ulster Penitentiary for ladies which was a residential home for prostitutes. And was instrumental in getting the Deaf, Dumb and Blind Institute set up in Belfast.