David Hilbert presented the field equations of general relativity within a few weeks of Einstein, so if anything GR was more sure to appear than SR, which took years for others to even notice (Einstein became famous only after the 1919 experiment that confirmed GR). Pertinently to the recent Navier-Stokes drama, there was very little controversy between the two and they both admitted that the other got some aspect better.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_relativity_priority_di...