1917 – 2005. Belfast born architect. He was a designer of churches and schools in Northern Ireland, along with restoration work on buildings such as St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Armagh (where this photograph was taken), from the 1950s to 1990s. Brian was a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects and Member of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland. In 1951 he established the firm of P & B Gregory Architects with his architect father Padraic and later that decade designed the Cathedral of Christ the King in Johannesburg, South Africa. In 1964 he was one of those who responded to the call of Dr Conn and Patricia McCloskey from Dungannon to form the hugely successful Campaign for Social Justice which rocked the political establishments far and wide and which was the forerunner of the civil rights movement. Over the following five years the CSJ mounted an immensely successful publicity campaign in Britain and America and attracted worldwide attention to the scandals of discrimination, in what the Sunday Times later described as “John Bull's political slum”. Brian later persuaded Conn to write a book about the movement. In it the latter recounts how, at the inaugural meeting in a house in south Belfast, those present were "deeply conscious of how the quiet drip of discrimination had dampened the fires of dissent in our community". "Someone declared we must do everything we can to get the people up off their knees." The committee of twelve consisted of busy professional people. "Good brains had been selected," he said. "People whom we judged to be entirely reputable and who had in their personalities that essential thread of steel". He described them as "that little band of amateurs who by choice did not associate with any political party but rode the tiger when they came together to form the Campaign for Social Justice. Taking part were tired men after a full day's work, sometimes even splitting hairs in their efforts to be absolutely fair and accurate (with acknowledgement Irish News March 26, 2005).
