Page:Imperialdictiona02eadi Brandeis.pdf/743

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
GRA
703
GRA

which was drawn out by Sir Walter Scott, and subscribed by Francis Jeffrey, Mackenzie (the Man of Feeling), Sir William Arbuthnot, and other distinguished names. This pension, with several legacies from deceased friends, enabled her to spend the last years of her long life in comparative affluence. Of all her numerous family only one son survived her, who published a new edition of her "Letters from the Mountains," with notes and additions, in 1845.—G. BL.

GRANT, Charles, whose name is inseparably associated with the early history of missionary effort in British India, was a native of Scotland, and born in 1746, a few hours after the death of his father on the battle-field of Culloden. Having been brought up and usefully educated by an uncle at Elgin, in 1767 he repaired to India in a military capacity. Eventually, however, he entered the Indian civil service, becoming a writer in the Bengal establishment. By his energy, ability, and probity he rose to be secretary of the board of trade, an important office in those days, when the commerce of the East India Company was a main element of its power; afterwards he was appointed fourth member of the board by Lord Cornwallis, who admired him much. During his residence in India Mr. Grant laboured zealously, and spent liberally, to promote the interests of christianity both among Europeans and natives, a task much more difficult and arduous than it can now easily be conceived to have been. The health of his family induced him to return permanently in 1790 to England, which he reached the possessor of an ample competency. He became naturally a leading man in the Anglo-Indian circles of the metropolis; but, while taking an active part in the manipulation and discussion of political, commercial, and financial questions connected with India, he did not neglect the promotion of the interests of christianity in the country which he had left. One of his first tasks on his return was to draw up an elaborate paper, "Observations on the State of Society among the Asiatic subjects of Great Britain," written in 1792, but not submitted till 1797 to the inspection of any but private friends. In the latter year he laid it before the court of directors, with a letter, in which he explained its relevancy to certain proposals then being mooted for the toleration of missionary effort in India. Unpopular as then were Mr. Grant's views, they commanded respectful attention, though it was long before they bore much fruit. He was not only a director of the company, but an ardent champion of its rights, and recognized as able and experienced, as well as sincere, in the house of commons itself, which he entered in 1802, and where he represented for two years the town, and for fifteen the county of Inverness. At last in 1808, with the commencement of negotiations between the government and the company for the renewal of the charter, the promotion of christianity in India became a public question, and was keenly agitated in parliament and the press. By some it was even maintained that the native system of religion and ethics was a good one, and ought not to be disturbed. As a member of the house of commons, Mr. Grant pleaded energetically for his own views; and among the important papers of which he procured the production before parliament was his own disquisition previously referred to, and which was now printed, by order of the house, for the instruction of its members. His long series of efforts were crowned with important, though tardy and imperfect success. In the charter act of 1813, the claims of christianity were for the first time conspicuously recognized. Provision was made for an augmentation of the ecclesiastical establishment in British India, for the institution of an episcopal see at Calcutta, for a regulated access of missionaries to natives, and for the appropriation of a fixed sum to native education. We may add that, in 1804, Mr. Grant had been appointed deputy-chairman of the company, of which he became chairman in the following year; and he continued for a considerable period to fill with little intermission one or other of these high offices. The foundation of Haileybury college has been ascribed to him, and while devoting himself mainly to the affairs of India, he did not neglect other interests. He had early added his efforts to those of Wilberforce for the abolition of the slave trade. He was an energetic promoter of schemes which promised benefit to his native country, such as the Caledonian canal; and to the last, in public and in private, he laboured for the extension of education in Scotland. He died at London on the 31st of October, 1823. A detailed memoir of him was published in the Annual Biography and Obituary for 1825, and interesting notices of his efforts for the promotion of christianity in India, are contained in Mr. John William Kaye's recent work on that subject.—F. E.

* GRANT, Charles, first baron Glenelg, son of the foregoing, was born in 1783, at Kidderpore in Bengal. Accompanying, when a boy of seven, his father to England, he was sent, after a suitable preparatory education, to Magdalen college, Cambridge, where he achieved high distinction, being fourth wrangler and senior medalist in 1801. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's inn in 1807; in the same year he entered the house of commons as member for the Fortrose burghs, and there was published at Cambridge his poem "On the restoration of learning in the East," a proof of the tendency given by his father's pursuits to the mind of "young Charles Grant," as he was long familiarly called. It was probably through his father's influence that he was appointed a commissioner for the liquidation of the nabob of Arcot's debts. He was a lord of the treasury from 1813 to 1819 (exchanging in 1818 the representation of the Fortrose burghs for that of Inverness-shire; a seat which he retained up to his elevation to the peerage), chief secretary for Ireland from 1819 to 1822, vice-president of the board of trade from 1823 to 1827, president of that board and treasurer of the navy from August, 1827, to January, 1828, when he threw in his political fortunes with the more liberal section of his party, represented by Lord Palmerston and the late Lord Melbourne. He entered the Grey ministry as president of the board of control, and in that office endeavoured to carry out his father's most cherished principles. It was under his auspices, and through his efforts, that was issued, on the 20th February, 1833, the memorable despatch which profoundly modified the relations between the British government of India, and the support which it had up to that period given to the native superstitions and worship. In Lord Melbourne's ministry of 1834 he received the seals of the colonial secretaryship; and in the following year was elevated to the house of lords. His occupancy of the colonial office was marked by the fierce controversy arising out of the final adjustment of the results of negro emancipation, and by the outbreak of the rebellion in Canada, so that the post was anything but a bed of roses. On the 6th of March, 1838, he was singled out by the late Sir William Molesworth as the object of a special vote of censure, an attack which failed; but on the 8th of February in the following year, his lordship announced to the house of peers that he had resigned the colonial secretaryship, on learning that his colleagues had decided on removing him to another office, understood at the time to have been that of lord privy seal. He was succeeded by the marquis of Normanby, and has since lived in comparative retirement from public life. Lord Glenelg enjoys a pension of £2000 per annum, and has never been married.—F. E.

GRANT or GRAUNT, Edward, the faithful friend of Roger Ascham and William Camden, and the master of Westminster school for twenty years (1572-91). In the most brilliant age of English literature he was esteemed the best classical scholar of his time. He published in 1575 "Græcæ linguæ spicilegium," which was subsequently, in 1597, epitomized by his usher and successor, Camden, and has since passed through a countless number of editions. In 1577 he was appointed to the twelfth stall in Westminster abbey; and on resigning in Camden's favour his headmastership of the school in 1591, was presented to the living of Barnet in Middlesex. He became sub-dean of Westminster; and in 1598 obtained the rectory of Toppersfield in Essex. He died in 1601, and was buried in Westminster abbey. He collected and published Ascham's letters and poems, subjoining his own tribute in the form of an "Oratio de vita et obitu Rogeri Aschami ac dictionis elegantiâ, cum adhortatione ad adolescentulos," 8vo, London, 1577. In a pathetic dedication to Queen Elizabeth, he so effectually recommended his pupil Giles Ascham to her protection by letting the world know how much, though a queen, she stood obliged to his father, that Lord Burleigh took the young man under his effectual protection. Many of Dr. Grant's verses may be found scattered among the commendations which, in the springtime of our literature, it was the fashion to prefix to works of merit.—His son Gabriel, a clergyman in the diocese of London, was also distinguished for his elegant Latin.—(See Wood's Athenæ.)—R. H.

GRANT, Sir Francis, of Cullen, an eminent Scotch lawyer and judge, was a cadet of the family of Grant of Grant, and was born about 1660. He was educated at one of the colleges in Aberdeen, and afterwards was sent to prosecute his legal studies at Leyden, under the illustrious commentator John Voet. On