GRANT, SIR FRANCIS (1803-1878), English portrait-painter, fourth son of Francis Grant of Kilgraston, Perthshire, was born at Edinburgh in 1803. He was educated for the bar, but at the age of twenty-four he began at Edinburgh systematically to study the practice of art. On completing a course of instruction he removed to London, and as early as 1843 exhibited at the Royal Academy. At the beginning of his career he utilized his sporting experiences by painting groups of huntsmen, horses and hounds, such as the “Meet of H.M. Staghounds” and the “Melton Hunt”; but his position in society gradually made him a fashionable portrait-painter. In drapery he had the taste of a connoisseur, and rendered the minutest details of costume with felicitous accuracy. In female portraiture he achieved considerable success, although rather in depicting the high-born graces and external characteristics than the true personality. Among his portraits of this class may be mentioned Lady Glenlyon, the marchioness of Waterford, Lady Rodney and Mrs Beauclerk. In his portraits of generals and sportsmen he proved himself more equal to his subjects than in those of statesmen and men of letters. He painted many of the principal celebrities of the time, including Scott, Macaulay, Lockhart, Disraeli, Hardinge, Gough, Derby, Palmerston and Russell, his brother Sir J. Hope Grant and his friend Sir Edwin Landseer. From the first his career was rapidly prosperous. In 1842 he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy, and in 1851 an Academician; and in 1866 he was chosen to succeed Sir C. Eastlake in the post of president, for which his chief recommendations were his social distinction, tact, urbanity and friendly and liberal consideration of his brother artists. Shortly after his election as president he was knighted, and in 1870 the degree of D.C.L. was conferred upon him by the university of Oxford. He died on the 5th of October 1878.
GRANT, GEORGE MONRO (1835-1902), principal of Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, was born in Nova Scotia in 1835. He was educated at Glasgow university, where he had a brilliant academic career; and having entered the ministry of the Presbyterian Church, he returned to Canada and obtained a pastoral charge in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which he held from 1863 to 1877. He quickly gained a high reputation as a preacher and as an eloquent speaker on political subjects. When Canada was confederated in 1867 Nova Scotia was the province most strongly opposed to federal union. Grant threw the whole weight of his great influence in favour of confederation, and his oratory played an important part in securing the success of the movement. When the consolidation of the Dominion by means of railway construction was under discussion in 1872, Grant travelled from the Atlantic to the Pacific with the engineers who surveyed the route of the Canadian Pacific railway, and his book Ocean to Ocean (1873) was one of the first things that opened the eyes of Canadians to the value of the immense heritage they enjoyed. He never lost an opportunity, whether in the pulpit or on the platform, of pressing on his hearers that the greatest future for Canada lay in unity with the rest of the British Empire; and his broad statesman-like judgment made him an authority which politicians of all parties were glad to consult. In 1877 Grant was appointed principal of Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, which through his exertions and influence expanded from a small denominational college into a large and influential educational centre; and he attracted to it an exceptionally able body of professors whose influence in speculation and research was widely felt during the quarter of a century that he remained at its head. In 1888 he visited Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, the effect of this experience being to strengthen still further the Imperialism which was the guiding principle of his political opinions. On the outbreak of the South African War in 1899 Grant was at first disposed to be hostile to the policy of Lord Salisbury and Mr Chamberlain; but his eyes were soon opened to the real nature of President Kruger’s government, and he enthusiastically welcomed and supported the national feeling which sent men from the outlying portions of the Empire to assist in upholding British supremacy in South Africa. Grant did not live to see the conclusion of peace, his death occurring at Kingston on the 10th of May 1902. At the time of his death The Times observed that “it is acknowledged on all hands that in him the Dominion has lost one of the ablest men that it has yet produced.” He was the author of a number of works, of which the most notable besides Ocean to Ocean are, Advantages of Imperial Federation (1889), Our National Objects and Aims (1890), Religions of the World in Relation to Christianity (1894) and volumes of sermons and lectures. Grant married in 1872 Jessie, daughter of William Lawson of Halifax.
GRANT, JAMES (1822-1887), British novelist, was born in Edinburgh on the 1st of August 1822. His father, John Grant, was a captain in the 92nd Gordon Highlanders and had served through the Peninsular War. For several years James Grant was in Newfoundland with his father, but in 1839 he returned to England, and entered the 62nd Foot as an ensign. In 1843 he resigned his commission and devoted himself to writing, first magazine articles, but soon a profusion of novels, full of vivacity and incident, and dealing mainly with military scenes and characters. His best stories, perhaps, were The Romance of War (his first, 1845), Bothwell (1851), Frank Hilton; or, The Queen’s Own (1855), The Phantom Regiment and Harry Ogilvie (1856), Lucy Arden (1858), The White Cockade (1867), Only an Ensign (1871), Shall I Win Her? (1874), Playing with Fire (1887). Grant also wrote British Battles on Land and Sea (1873-1875) and valuable books on Scottish history. Permanent value attaches to his great work, in three volumes, on Old and New Edinburgh (1880). He was the founder and energetic promoter of the National Association for the Vindication of Scottish Rights. In 1875 he became a Roman Catholic. He died on the 5th of May 1887.
GRANT, JAMES AUGUSTUS (1827-1892), Scottish explorer of eastern equatorial Africa, was born at Nairn, where his father was the parish minister, on the 11th of April 1827. He was educated at the grammar school and Marischal College, Aberdeen, and in 1846 joined the Indian army. He saw active service in the Sikh War (1848-49), served throughout the mutiny of 1857, and was wounded in the operations for the relief of Lucknow. He returned to England in 1858, and in 1860 joined J. H. Speke (q.v.) in the memorable expedition which solved the problem of the Nile sources. The expedition left Zanzibar in October 1860 and reached Gondokoro, where the travellers were again in touch with civilization, in February 1863. Speke was the leader, but Grant carried out several investigations independently and made valuable botanical collections. He acted throughout in absolute loyalty to his comrade. In 1864 he published, as supplementary to Speke’s account of their journey, A Walk across Africa, in which he dealt particularly with “the ordinary life and pursuits, the habits and feelings of the natives” and the economic value of the countries traversed. In 1864 he was awarded the patron’s medal of the Royal Geographical Society, and in 1866 given the Companionship of the Bath in recognition of his services in the expedition. He served in the intelligence department of the Abyssinian expedition of 1868; for this he was made C.S.I. and received the Abyssinian medal. At the close of the war he retired from the army with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He had married in 1865, and he now settled down at Nairn, where he died on the 11th of February 1892. He made contributions to the journals of various learned societies, the most notable being the “Botany of the Speke and Grant Expedition” in vol. xxix. of the Transactions of the Linnaean Society.
GRANT, SIR JAMES HOPE (1808-1875), English general, fifth and youngest son of Francis Grant of Kilgraston, Perthshire, and brother of Sir Francis Grant, P.R.A., was born on the 22nd of July 1808. He entered the army in 1826 as cornet in the 9th Lancers, and became lieutenant in 1828 and captain in 1835. In 1842 he was brigade-major to Lord Saltoun in the Chinese War, and specially distinguished himself at the capture of Chin-Kiang, after which he received the rank of major and the C.B. In the first Sikh War of 1845-46 he took part in the battle of Sobraon; and in the Punjab campaign of 1848-49 he commanded the 9th Lancers, and won high reputation in the battles of Chillianwalla and Guzerat (Gujarat). He was promoted brevet lieutenant-colonel and shortly afterwards to the same substantive rank. In 1854 he became brevet-colonel, and in 1856 brigadier of cavalry. He took a leading part in the suppression of the Indian mutiny of 1857, holding for some time the command of the cavalry division, and afterwards of a movable column of horse and foot. After rendering valuable service in the operations before Delhi and in the final assault on the city, he directed the victorious march of the cavalry and horse artillery despatched in the direction of Cawnpore to open up communication with the commander-in-chief Sir Colin Campbell, whom he met near the Alambagh, and who raised him to the rank of brigadier-general, and placed the whole force under his command during what remained of the perilous march to Lucknow for the relief of the residency. After the retirement towards Cawnpore he greatly aided in effecting there the total rout of the rebel troops, by making a detour which threatened their rear; and following in pursuit with a flying column, he defeated them with the loss of nearly all their guns at Serai Ghat. He also took part in the operations connected with the recapture of Lucknow, shortly after which he was promoted to the rank of major-general, and appointed to the command of the force employed for the final pacification of India, a position in which his unwearied energy, and his vigilance and caution united to high personal daring, rendered very valuable service. Before the work of pacification was quite completed he was created K.C.B. In 1859 he was appointed, with the local rank of lieutenant-general, to the command of the British land forces in the united French and British expedition against China. The object of the campaign was accomplished within three months of the landing of the forces at Pei-tang (1st of August 1860). The Taku Forts had been carried by assault, the Chinese defeated three times in the open and Peking occupied. For his conduct in this, which has been called the “most successful and the best carried out of England’s little wars,” he received the thanks of parliament and was gazetted G.C.B. In 1861 he was made lieutenant-general and appointed commander-in-chief of the army of Madras; on his return to England in 1865 he was made quartermaster-general at headquarters; and in 1870 he was transferred to the command of the camp at Aldershot, where he took a leading part in the reform of the educational and training systems of the forces, which followed the Franco-German War. The introduction of annual army manœuvres was largely due to Sir Hope Grant. In 1872 he was gazetted general. He died in London on the 7th of March 1875.
Incidents in the Sepoy War of 1857-58, compiled from the Private Journal of General Sir Hope Grant, K.C.B., together with some explanatory chapters by Capt. H. Knollys, Royal Artillery, was published in 1873, and Incidents in the China War of 1860 appeared posthumously under the same editorship in 1875.