Sir John Peter Grant

A carte-de-visite portrait of the British colonial administrator Sir John Peter Grant (1807-1893), who served as Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal and as Governor of Jamaica.

John Peter Grant was born in London on 28 November 1807, the son of John Peter Grant of Rothiemurchus in Scotland.

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.

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

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.

Photographed by William Kilburn of 222, Regent Street, London.