Three astronomers William Herschel, John Herschel and James Dunlop discovered most of the bright NGC and IC objects.
These three astronomers found in total 70% of the NGC and IC objects brighter than magnitude 13.
James Dunlop is third when it comes to finding bright deep sky objects and he did so from Parramatta, NSW, Australia in 1826.
The attached file lists people who found more than 25 bright NGC and IC objects.
The last column gives the place where they were found and the size of the telescope.
There is a short biography of James Dunlop at:
http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/dunlop-james-2008
Reference
http://www.klima-luft.de/steinicke/ngcic/ngcic_e.htm