John Peter Grant

Sir John Peter Grant, GCMG, KCB, (28 November 1807 – 6 January 1893), was a British colonial administrator who served as Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal and as Governor of Jamaica.

Life

John Peter Grant was born in London on 28 November 1807. His parents were the similarly named John Peter Grant, who came from Rothiemurchus, Inverness-shire, and his wife, Jane, a daughter of William Ironside from Houghton-le-Spring, County Durham.

Grant was educated at Eton College from 1819, spent some time at Edinburgh University and then, in 1827, became a student at the East India College in Haileybury. He joined the Bengal Civil Service in the following year and spent some time at Fort William College in Calcutta before being appointed as an assistant magistrate in Bareilly. The experience there did not suit him and he returned to Calcutta in 1832.

There followed a nine-year period during which Grant held various secretarial posts in the administration.

Jamaica

Grant was responsible for the disestablishment of the Anglican Church in Jamaica, which took place in 1870, and he also established a constabulary in 1867 as well as instituting Crown Colony rule there.

He died at Upper Norwood on 6 January 1893.

Family

On 16 February 1835, Grant married Henrietta Isabella Phillippa Plowden at Calcutta Cathedral. She was the daughter of another Bengal Civil Service officer, Trevor Chichele Plowden. The couple had five sons and three daughters, one of whom subsequently married Sir Richard Strachey.