Peter Mainwaring, [1696?]-1785.

Mainwaring, probably born in 1696, was a student at Trinity College Cambridge [BA 1716, MA 1720, MB, MD]. He was in practice in Manchester before 1725 and in 1731 married Ann Malyn, daughter of Dr Robert Malyn (see below). Mainwaring was on the building committee of the new MRI in 1753 and was physician of the hospital from its inception until his retirement in 1778. He was made physician extraordinary in 1782 and donated many of his books to the Infirmary, forming the nucleus of the library. Mainwaring was as one of the earliest physicians to the Manchester House of Recovery. He was a justice of the peace and a loyalist. During the Jacobite rebellion of 1745, Mainwaring encouraged the local villagers of Ashton upon Mersey to arm themselves with whatever weapons could be got and sent them to the towns to oppose the rebels. Mainwaring was elected president of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society on its foundation in 1780. He died on 30 December 1785 aged 90.

There is some Mainwaring correspondence in the Clowes Manuscripts (box 35) held at JRUL.