Grant, Robert

Author

b Bengal, India 1779, d Dalpoorie, W India 1838. Coming to England in 1790, after further schooling he entered Magdalene Coll Cambridge (classics), where together with his brother Charles (later Colonial Sec) he was a prizewinning student. Called to the Bar 1807, MP for the Elgin Burghs in 1926, presenting a Bill for Jewish Emancipation 1833 and subsequently representing Inverness and (by way of contrast) Norwich and Finsbury, Middx. He became a Privy Councillor in 1831, Advocate General a year later, and in 1834, when he was knighted, Governor of Bombay. His hymns, commended in Julian for their graceful versification and tender feeling, were published 1806–1815 in the Christian Observer over pseudonymous initials, in Elliott’s Psalms and Hymns (1835), and (posthumously) Sacred Poems, 1839. ‘A hymn-writer of great merit’, says Julian. No.104.