John Marshall Grant
John Marshall Grant | |
|---|---|
| Born | c. 1822 |
| Died | 1902 |
| Allegiance |  United Kingdom |
| Service | Royal Engineers |
| Rank | Colonel |
Colonel John Marshall Grant (c. 1822 – 1902) was a commander of the British Royal Engineers who was a leading member of the Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment that founded British Columbia as the Colony of British Columbia (1858–1866).
Military career
[edit]John Marshall Grant was the third son of General Duncan Grant of the Royal Artillery, and was born at sea and was raised in Gibraltar.[1]
He joined the British Army in January 1842 to serve in the West Indies and Demerara from 1844 to 1851. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1845, second captain in 1853, and captain in 1855.[1] He served in Jamaica from 1852 to 1855, after which he returned to England to work for the Commission of Barracks until 1858, when he received the charge of the second group of Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment, with which he remained for five years until he returned to Shorncliffe, England, in 1863. He was promoted to lieutenant-colonel in 1865 and to colonel in 1873, as which he served on the staff at army headquarters as assistant quartermaster-general from 1866 to 1870, when he became commander of the Royal Engineers at Chatham, until 1873, and Dover, from 1873 to 1875. He served as Deputy Adjutant-General of the Corps at Horse Guards until 1881, when he was appointed commander of the Royal Engineers at Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, from which he retired on 21 April 1882. [1]
Grant, like his Commanding Officer in British Columbia Richard Clement Moody, died at Bournemouth, on 1 April 1902.[1]
Family
[edit]John Marshall Grant's son was Colonel Suene Grant (1851 -1919), also of the Royal Engineers, who directed the Recruiting Department at Minehead in Somerset during WW1.[2] Suene Grant married Caroline Elizabeth Craigie Napper,[3] who was the daughter of a colonel of the Bengal Staff Corps.[4] Their son was Colonel John Duncan Grant VC CB DSO[2] who was awarded the Victoria Cross, on 24 January 1905, for gallantry at the highest altitude for any action in the Victoria Cross's 165-year history: that of the Tibetan Plateau which has an average height of around 15,000 feet.[4]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d "Grant, Captain John Marshall, The Colonial Despatches of Vancouver Island and British Columbia 1846-1871, The University of Victoria B. C."
- ^ a b "Imperial War Museum: Lives of the First World War: Colonel Suene Grant".
- ^ "Imperial War Museum: We Remember: Colonel Suene Grant: Life Story"".
- ^ a b "Key Military: Colonel John Duncan Grant Profile".