Grant, John Webster

Author

b Truro, Nova Scotia, Canada 1919. Pictou Academy; Dalhousie Univ (BA, MA); Princeton Univ; and Pine Divinity Hall, Halifax. In 1943 he was ordained in the United Ch of Canada. After a short time at West Bay, Nova Scotia, he worked in Ottawa with the Wartime Information Board (as director of information for Protestant churches). He was briefly (in 1945) a chaplain in the Canadian navy, and lectured in theology back at Pine Divinity Hall. In 1946 he came to the UK, studying at Keble Coll Oxford as a Rhodes scholar; DPhil 1948. From 1949 to 1959 he was Prof of Church History at the Union Coll of British Columbia, Vancouver, including a spell as visiting Prof at the United Theological Coll of S India and Ceylon at Bangalore. He became editor-inchief of the Ryerson Press in 1959, and 4 years later was appointed Prof of Church History at Emmanuel Coll, Univ of Victoria, Toronto. He chaired a church unity commission 1966–71, and served on the committee for The Hymn Book (Canada, 1971). His books include major studies of the Canadian churches and English Free Ch history from 1870–1940. His hymns ‘are all translations, or rather [as here] re-translations in a more contemporary style’—W Milgate. No.522.