Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 22.djvu/386

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Grant
380
Grant

Martyn in 1805, and Thomas Thomason in 1808.

He died suddenly at his house in Russell Square on 31 Oct. 1823. There is a monument erected to his memory by the East India Company in St. George's, Bloomsbury. A funeral sermon preached at St. John's, Bedford Row, by his friend Daniel Wilson, afterwards bishop of Calcutta, is to be found among Wilson's works.

Grant had three sons: Charles, lord Glenelg [q. v.]; Robert [q. v.], who was knighted and became governor of Bombay; and Thomas William, who died 15 May 1848. One of his two daughters (Charamelle) was married to Samuel March Phillips, sometime undersecretary of state for the home department, and the other to Patrick Grant of Redcastle, Inverness-shire. Grant's widow died 23 Jan. 1827.

[Obituary notice in Gent. Mag. for 1823, by Thomas Fisher, reprinted in 1833, and the chief source of other contemporary notices; Anderson's Scottish Nation; Colquhoun's William Wilberforce, his Friends, and his Times; Higginbotham's Men whom India has known; Kaye's Christianity in India.]

E. J. R.

GRANT, CHARLES, Lord Glenelg (1778–1866), politician, eldest son of Charles Grant (1746–1823) [q. v.] was born on 26 Oct. 1778 at Kidderpore in Bengal, and came to England with his family in 1790. He was, together with his brother Robert [see Grant, Sir Robert, 1785–1838], entered as a pensioner at Magdalene College, Cambridge, on 30 Nov. 1795; was fourth wrangler and senior chancellor's medallist in 1801; graduated B.A. in 1801, and M.A. in 1804; in 1802 gained the members' prize for Latin essay, and was elected to a fellowship at his college. In 1805 he won one of the four prizes offered to the university by Claudius Buchanan [q. v.], vice-provost of the college of Fort William in Bengal, for an English poem on 'The Restoration of Learning in the East.' Grant's poem was printed at the university press. In 1819 the university conferred on him the honorary degree of LL.D.

Grant became a member of the Speculative Society of Edinburgh in January 1802, when he read an essay on the 'Usefulness of the Study of Mythology.' He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn on 30 Jan. 1807, but did not practise. He was an early contributor to the 'Quarterly Review,' and wrote the review of Miss Berry's edition of Madame du Defiand's 'Letters to Horace Walpole,' in vol. v.

From 1811 to 1818 he was M.P. for the Inverness and Fortrose burghs. In 1818 he succeeded his father as member for the county of Inverness, and represented that constituency until his elevation to the peerage in 1835.

Grant first distinguished himself in the House of Commons by a brilliant maiden speech in support of Lord Castlereagh's Preservation of Public Peace Bill on 13 July 1812, and again by a speech in support of the East India Company on 31 May 1813. In December of the same year he became a lord of the treasury under Lord Liverpool, and in August 1819 chief secretary for Ireland, and a member of the privy council. He held the Irish secretaryship till 1823. His policy was conciliatory; he endeavoured to suppress Orange demonstrations, and to devise a system of national education which should satisfy catholics and protestants alike. At the same time he suggested changes in the systems of police and magistracy, and anticipated many reforms subsequently effected. His speech on 7 June 1822 in opposition to the second reading of the Constables (Ireland) Bill was published as a pamphlet, and was highly praised by the 'Edinburgh Review.'

In 1823 Grant was appointed vice-president of the board of trade, and in September 1827 entered Canning's last ministry as president of the board of trade and treasurer of the navy. These offices he retained in the succeeding ministries of Goderich and Wellington, but resigned office in June 1828 with the other members of the Canningite party. He was president of the board of control under Earl Grey from December 1830 to July 1834, and in Lord Melbourne's first ministry from the latter date till its resignation in November following. As president of the board of control Grant took a leading part in the history of the East India Company at a critical period. The charter, renewed in 1813 for twenty years, was expiring. Grant proposed a compromise between the views of the ministry and those of the court of directors. On 28 Aug. 1833 his bill, introduced 28 June, became law. By its provisions the company retained its political rights, but surrendered to the crown all its property in return for an annuity and a guarantee fund. Additional clauses, on which Grant had insisted in opposition to the court of directors, provided for the establishment of bishoprics at Bombay and Madras.

Grant was appointed colonial secretary in Lord Melbourne's second ministry (April 1835). On 8 May he was raised to the peerage, with the title Baron Glenelg, the name of his estate in Scotland. His term of office saw the total abolition of West Indian slavery by the suppression of apprenticeship, which had been abused by the planters. But his policy elsewhere was sharply criticised. An