Porter, John Grey Vesey (1817–1903), newspaper proprietor and improving landlord, was born 25 August 1817 in Kilskeery parish, Co. Fermanagh, only son of the Rev. John Grey Porter (1789–1873), non-resident prebend and rector (1813–42) of Donaghmoyne, Co. Monaghan, and Margaret Lindsay (qv) of Hollymount, Co. Mayo, granddaughter of the 1st earl of Lucan. His paternal grandfather was John Porter, bishop of Clogher (1797–1819). The family purchased (1830) the Belleisle estate near Lisbellaw, Co. Fermanagh, which became Porter's residence in 1839. In the early 1840s he attracted O'Connellite attention as a federalist. His pamphlet Ireland: some agricultural and political Irish questions calmly discussed (1843) was harshly reviewed in The Nation but complimented by Daniel O'Connell (qv). Subscribing to the Repeal Association for two years, he broke with O'Connell in 1845. Despite the wording of his pamphlet title, calmness and consistency were never strong features in his makeup; he was described by the well-disposed Impartial Reporter of Enniskillen in 1868 as ‘onward, forward . . . fidgetty, maggotty, yet blunt and fearless’ (Walker, 54). During the later 1840s he was an active poor law guardian, frequently chairing the board of the Enniskillen union. He strongly defended the privileges of local guardians when tensions arose between the Enniskillen board and the poor law commissioners during late 1847 and early 1848. However, in December 1847 it was his motion that sponsored the board decision to issue small sums of money in outdoor relief rather than rations, and this was one of the main factors prompting the commissioners to dismiss the board for mismanagement in April 1848.
In 1854 he became one of the original shareholders in the Dundalk and Enniskillen railway company, which secured parliamentary authority to construct several branch lines, including one to Lisbellaw which would benefit his estate. Later he restyled the house in a free manorial style, for which he engaged the architect Morley Hurder; the result was ‘grand enough in places, but incoherent.’ (Malcomson, 35). When in 1857, the company chairman, the 3rd earl of Erne, used his influence to have the Lisbellaw line abandoned in favour of one to Lisnaskea, his own town, Porter took the company to court. Failing to have the decision overturned, he produced a pamphlet in 1858 accusing Erne of abusing his position to benefit his own estate. Not only were they neighbours and fellow-shareholders in the company, Porter was deputy-lieutenant and Erne lieutenant of the county. Though Erne won an action for libel against Porter in 1859, he was awarded small damages. It seems the pair quickly made peace, for in 1862 Porter, Erne, and others combined to form the Lough Erne Steamboat Co., running the steamer Devenish (launched 1862) on the Enniskillen–Belleek route until late 1867, when they were forced to suspend operations due to severe competition from a new railway line. After the company went into liquidation in July 1867, Porter commenced his own passenger and freight service, or his ‘Royal Erne Navy.’ His iron-hulled screw steamer, Knockninny (1868) sailed on a daily route from Enniskillen to Belturbet, connecting with a coach to Dublin through Cavan town. The venture was not a commercial success, though Porter replaced the Knockninny with the Belturbet (which had a folding funnel to go under bridges), and continued to maintain the boat for excursions and for his private use until the 1890s. As a by-product of operating the steamship company, he became interested in the improved navigation and drainage of upper Lough Erne and agitated during the 1860s and 1870s for capital funding for large-scale schemes. In 1870 he opened a hotel at Knockninny designed to appeal to the gentleman angler.
Having withdrawn from the 1856 election, and threatened but failed to stand in the 1868 election (on the drainage and flooding issue), he manifested his general dissatisfaction with the Cole family (sitting members), the Orange Order, and the unduly slow pace of land reform when he became a liberal candidate for Co. Fermanagh in January 1874. By then he had appeared in court again, this time for horsewhipping Captain Leonard Poynter of the 16th regiment, the lover of his wife Elizabeth (‘Ellie’) Jane Hall (1845?–1887). She was the co-heiress of Inishmore Hall, an estate touching Belleisle, and they had married in 1863 when she was only about eighteen. They remained childless, and divorced after the much-publicised trial of 1871 which Poynter won, though getting only a farthing for damages. Porter achieved a respectable third place in the polls in a two-man constituency, despite alienating the most powerful interests in the county. The county freehold interest alone could not sustain his ambition for a parliamentary seat, and he was beaten into third place again in the general election of 1880. The Orange Order (strongly under landed control in Co. Fermanagh) was not happy with his blistering attacks on the procedural secrecy of ‘grand masters and wire pullers’ (Crawford, 278). Though tenant associations formally supported him in 1880, the body of county farmers mistrusted his vague statements of approval for land reform, conscious of the dictatorial sway he exercised as landlord on the Belleisle estate. It was only after public criticism that he abated rents on the estate in the later 1870s; and in April 1882, opposing the 1881 land act, he declared: ‘judicial rents . . . are only a trap to the tenants, a fraud on the landlords, and a general injury to the country’ (Gazette, 4 Apr. 1882). Though he professed sympathy for the position of catholic tenantry in Ulster, he offended congregations by criticising catholic priests for not teaching ‘a reasonable religion’ (ibid.).
He had founded the Lisbellaw Gazette, a twice-monthly journal, in January 1879, and this became the sole platform until its closure in 1903 for his idiosyncratic and often contradictory views, which included restoring an Irish parliament loyal to the crown. By the mid 1880s he was left with impracticable political ambitions and increasing social isolation. He had helped establish the Model School at Enniskillen, and campaigned for the revival of the protestant see of Clogher (separate from the bishopric of Armagh) which he endowed. This eventually came about on 4 June 1886, but not without adding to his reputation for eccentricity, as he sought repayment of his loan. One of his most productive schemes was the woollen mill at Lisbellaw. Bronchitic and nearly blind in the early 1900s, he died 5 October 1903 at Belleisle and was succeeded by his nephew, John (Archdale) Porter Porter (1855–1939). A collection of Porter's papers is in PRONI.