Sanaval, Tortona, Cunio, Savona, Genoa, &c.’ (information supplied by the War Office 7 Dec. 1887). On 3 Dec. 1800 Keir was appointed lieutenant-colonel in the 22nd light dragoons, with which corps he landed in Egypt after the cessation of hostilities in 1801. The regiment was disbanded on the peace of Amiens, and Keir was placed on half-pay. For a short time he was aide-de-camp to the Prince of Wales, and afterwards was first aide-de-camp to Lord Moira, commanding in North Britain from December 1804 to May 1806, when he was appointed adjutant-general of the king's troops in Bengal. He commanded the advance of Major-general St. Leger's force on the Sutlej in 1810. Subsequently, while on the Bengal staff, Keir, who became colonel in 1810 and a major-general in 1813, was appointed to command a small force of cavalry and grenadiers sent against Ameer (Amir) Khan (a noted Pathan freebooter, afterwards nawab of Tonk) in 1814. In 1815 he was made commander-in-chief and second member of council in the island of Java, a position he held until the island was restored to the Dutch after the peace. In 1817 he was appointed to the Bombay staff and commanded the Guzerat field force, part of the army of the Deccan, in the operations against the Pindarrees. In February 1819 he was in command of a force assembled on the frontier of the Sawunt Warree state. The latter proving intractable the troops entered the country, carried the strong hill fort of Raree by storm and marched to the capital, where a treaty was signed with the regency, which met with the full approval of the governor-general. In March the same year he commanded a force sent against the rajah of Cutch, which, after defeating the enemy and capturing the hill fortress of Bhooj, received the submission of that province. In October 1819 Grant-Keir, as his name was then written, was despatched by the Bombay government with a strong armament for the suppression of piracy in the Persian Gulf. The attack was specially directed against the Joasmi, a tribe of maritime Arabs of the sect of Wahabees or followers of the Arab religious reformer, Abd-ul-Wahab (Bestower of Blessings), whose pirate craft had long been the terror of the coasts of western India. Rhas-ul-Khymah, their stronghold, had been destroyed by a small force from Bombay in 1809, but their power was again in the ascendant. Rhas-ul-Khymah was captured with small loss on 9 Dec. 1819, and on 8 Jan. 1820 Grant-Keir signed a general treaty of peace on the part of the British government with the chiefs of the tribes of maritime Arabs of the Persian Gulf, by whom it was subsequently signed at different times and places. It provided for the entire suppression of piracy in the Gulf. For his services Grant-Keir received the thanks of the governor-general in council and the Persian decoration of the Lion and Sun. He returned home on the expiration of his staff service, and assumed later the name of Keir Grant. He was made K.C.B. in 1822, lieutenant-general in 1825, G.C.H. in 1835, colonel 2nd royal North British dragoons (Scots greys) in 1839, and general on 23 Nov. 1841.
He married in 1811 a daughter of Captain Jackson, R.N. He died at his residence, Chapel Street, Belgrave Square, London, 7 May 1852, aged 80.
[War Office Records; Dod's Knightage, 1851; Philippart's Royal Military Cal. 1820, iii. 267–269; H. T. Prinsep's Transactions in India (London, 1825, 2 vols.); Mill's Hist. Brit. India, ed. Wilson, vol. viii.; Low's Indian Navy, chap. vii.; Gent. Mag. 1852, i. 619.]
GRANT-DUFF. [See Duff.]
GRANTHAM or GRANTHAN, HENRY (fl. 1571–1587), translator, published in 1571 ‘An Italian Grammar written in Latin by Scipio Lentulo, a Neapolitane, and turned into English by H. G.’ The volume, dedicated to Mary and Frances, daughters of Henry, lord Berkeley, reached a second edition in 1587. Tanner also ascribes to Grantham ‘XIII Questiones translated out of Boccace's “Philocopo” from Italien into English by H. G.,’ London, 1571, 1587, 12mo. The dedication is dated ‘6 March 1566.’ It is possible that another translation by H. G.—i.e. Girolamo Cataneo's ‘Most briefe Tables to know redily how many ranckes of footemen … go to the making of a just Battaile,’ London, 1588, 4to—may also be by Grantham.
[Tanner's Bibl. Brit.; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Grantham's Grammar.]
GRANTHAM, THOMAS (d. 1664), schoolmaster, a native of Lincolnshire, was a nephew of Sir Thomas Grantham, knt., of Radcliffe, Nottinghamshire, who bequeathed to him the rectory of Waddington in the same county, and an inn called the Reindeer in Lincoln. He was educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he took the degree of M.A. in 1634, and was ordained (University Register). He is, however, undoubtedly identical with the Thomas Grantham who
