Background
He was born in Glasgow, Scotland, the son of Doctor Harry Rainy (1792-1876) Professor of Forensic Medicine in the University of Glasgow, and his wife Barbara Gordon (1793-1854). Young Rainy was intended for his father"s profession, but instead returned to the path of his grandfather, Rev George Rainy (1734-1810) of Sutherland in northern Scotland.
Career
Rainy Hall in New College, Edinburgh (the Divinity faculty in Edinburgh University) is named after him. He was caught by the evangelical fervour of the Disruption movement, and after studying for the Free Church he became a minister, first in Aberdeenshire and then in Edinburgh, till in 1862 he was elected professor of Church history in the theological seminary, New College, a post he only resigned in 1900. In 1874 he was made principal of the college and was subsequently known as Principal Rainy.
To this day, the dining Hall in New College is called the Rainy Hall.
Though not a great scholar he was eminent as an ecclesiastical statesman, and his influence was far-reaching. After the strain of the fight with the so-called "Wee Frees" in 1904-1905 his health broke down.
In his final years he was living at 8 Rosebery Crescent in Edinburgh"s West End. However, and he went on a trip to Australia to recover his health, and sadly died in Melbourne on 22 December 1906.
His body was returned to Scotland and he is buried against the southern wall of Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh.
His monument is nearly identical to that of the brewer John McEwan, slightly to the east of Rainy. See Lives by Patrick Carnegie Simpson (1909) and R Mackintosh (1907). The main secular assembly space within New College is now called Rainy Hall.
lieutenant is used as dining halls for the University of Edinburgh"s student halls of residence at Mylne"s Court and Patrick Geddes Hall.