James Augustus Grant
| Capt. James Augustus Grant | |||||||||||
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| Born | 1827 | ||||||||||
| Died | 1892 | ||||||||||
| Residence | 19 Upper Grosvenor Street, W. [1885] | ||||||||||
| Occupation | armed services | ||||||||||
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Contents
Notes
Office Notes
AI Council 1887 Member
House Notes
Lieut. Col. in 1885 list
1885.01.27 proposed
Notes From Elsewhere
James Augustus Grant, CB, CSI, FRS, FRGS (11 April 1827 — 11 February 1892) was a Scottish explorer of eastern equatorial Africa.
Grant was born at Nairn in the Scottish Highlands, where his father was the parish minister, and educated at Nairn Academy, Aberdeen Grammar School and Marischal College, Aberdeen. In 1846 he joined the Indian army. He saw active service in the Sikh War (1848–49), served throughout the Indian Mutiny of 1857, and was wounded in the operations for the relief of Lucknow.
He returned to England in 1858, and in 1860 joined John Hanning Speke in the memorable expedition which solved the problem of the Nile sources.[1] The expedition left Zanzibar in October 1860 and reached Gondokoro, where the travellers were again in touch with what they regarded civilization, in February 1863. Speke was the leader, but Grant carried out several investigations independently and made valuable botanical collections. He acted throughout in absolute loyalty to his comrade.
In 1864 he published, as supplementary to Speke's account of their journey, A Walk across Africa, in which he dealt particularly with "the ordinary life and pursuits, the habits and feelings of the natives" and the economic value of the countries traversed. In 1864 he was awarded the patron's medal of the Royal Geographical Society, and in 1866 given the Companionship of the Bath in recognition of his services in the expedition.
Grant served in the intelligence department of the Abyssinian expedition of 1868; for this he was made C.S.I. and received the Abyssinian medal. At the close of the war he retired from the army with the rank of lieutenant-colonel.
Grant had married in 1865, and he now settled down at Nairn, where he died in 1892. He was buried in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral.[2]
Member of the Athenauem Club from 1870
A Scottish soldier and explorer, companion of Speke on his final Nile journey (1860-3) which he described in his own account A Walk Across Africa (London: Blackwood, 1864). He saw service in the Sikh War of 1848-9, the Indian Mutiny of 1857, and the Abyssinian campaign of 1868, rising to Lieutenant-Colonel. Speke met him in India where they were in the Indian Army together. Grant joined the army in 1846, and became strongly attached to Speke. After the rift between Burton and Speke he maintained a life-long hostility to Burton, as the extensive correspondence with Speke and C. P. Rigby reproduced here shows. He seems never to have met Burton in person—“ I have always felt bitterly towards Burton & declined to be introduced to him when asked by Mrs. Burton
Publications
External Publications
House Publications
On the native tribes visited by Captains Speke and Grant in Equatorial Africa. 30 June 1863