Country Code
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GB
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Repository Code
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233
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Repository
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National Library of Scotland
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Reference
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GB233/MS.17901-17926
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Title
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Papers of James Augustus Grant and Family
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Dates
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1790-1892
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Access Status
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Open
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Description
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Papers of James Augustus Grant (1827-92), the African explorer, and his family. This collection covers all parts of Grant's career, including family and other correspondence, his journals, his African sketches, and other papers. MS.17901-4 Family correspondence. Grant was the youngest son of the Rev. James Grant (1790-1855), minister of Nairn, and his wife Christina (d.1877). His brothers Alexander (1820-60) and George (1825-55) were respectively an officer in the Madras Army and a merchant in Calcutta and Rangoon. His sister Margaret (1823-1913) married in 1845 the Rev. Peter Mackenzie (1818-1913), minister of Urquhart (Dingwall). All corresponded regularly, giving a vivid picture of family doings and of life in India in the 1850s. See also MS.17927. MS.17901 Letters of Alexander to his father, 1849-53 (f.1); to James A., 1848-60, nd (f.46); of James A. to him, 1848-60 (f.151); of Alexander to Margaret and her husband, 1850-8 (f.162); and of Margaret and her husband to him, 1851-7 (f.234) 260ff. Quarto and under. MS.17902 Letters of George to his father and mother, 1849-35, n.d. (f.1); of Alexander to him, 1852-5 (f.117); of George to James A., 1847-34 (f.121); of James A. to him, 1852-3 (f.117); and of George to Margaret and her husband, 1850-5 (f.183). 211 ff. Quarto and under. MS.17903 Letters of his father to James A., 1843-55 (f.1); and of James A. to his father and mother, 1848-54 (f.19), 129 ff. Quarto and under. MS.17904 Letters of James A. to Margaret and her husband, 1848-58 (f.1); of Margaret to him, 1848-61, n.d. (f.10); and of her husband to him. 254 ff. Quarto and under. MS.17905 Letters of Grant to his wife Margaret T., 1866-71, n.d. (f.1); and of his wife to him, 1867 (f.159). These letters come from periods when Grant was apart from his wife, in Kashmir in 1866-7, in Abyssinia in 1868, and in Europe in 1871. 185 ff. Quarto and under. MS.17906-7 Correspondence and papers of and concerning Grant's elder son, also James Augustus (1867-1932). After Oxford he went to South Africa where he worked as a surveyor on the Kimberley Bechuanaland Railway, accompanied Joseph Thomson on his last expedition, and became involved in Cecil Rhodes's plans for Central Africa. Later he was a Member of Parliament and was created a baronet in 1926. See also MS.17928. MS.17906 Letters of Grant to his son, 1885-7, n.d. (f.i), mostly written while the latter was at Oxford and dealing with Grant's activities and family affairs; and letters of and concerning his other son Alister (killed in the Boer War in 1900), 1900 (f.129). 141 ff. Octavo. MS.17907 Letters of James A. Grant jun. to his father and mother, 1883-1900, nd. (f.1), mostly written from South and Central Africa; letters of Joseph Thomson to Grant, 1883-91 (f.187), mostly concerning his expedition with his son; and proof of Thomson's paper on the expedition to the Royal Geographical Society, 28 Nov. 1892, with manuscript of Grant's comments (published in The Geographical Journal, vol. 1, 1893, pp.97-121) (f.205). 219 ff. Folio and under. MS.17908 Various family letters, 1821-91, n.d. (f.1); letters and documents relating to Grant's service in the Bengal Army, 1854-70 (f.50); and miscellaneous letters, 1842-1908, n.d. (f.109). See also MSS.17932-3, 17944, 17946, 17948. 139 ff. Folio and under. MS.17909-11 Letters to Grant. Letters from explorers and others concerning Africa are grouped alphabetically in MSS. 17909-10, others in MS. 179~1. See also MSS.17931-17909. Letters of Sir Edwin Arnold, 1875 (f.1); Sir Samuel White Baker, 1866-92, nd. (f.5); Ernst Behm, 1875 (f.81); Sir Samuel James Browne, 1879 (f.83); Verney Lovett Cameron, 1876 (f.87); Paul Belloni Du Chaillu, 1871-87 (f.89); Sir Francis Galton, .1864 (f.93); Charles George Gordon and Sir Charles Moore Watson, 1874-9, nd. (f.97); Sir Harry Hamilton Johnston, 1884 (f.126); Sir John Kirk, 1867-79 (f.129); Johann Ludwig Krapf, 1870 (f.151); and David Livingstone, 1865 (f.iss). 156 if. Quarto and under. MS.17910. Letters of Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, 1864-8, nd. (f.1); Robert Henry Nelson, 1892 (f.37); Thomas Heazle Parke, 1890 (f.39); August Petermann, 1875 (f.40); Christopher Palmer Rigby, 1864-75 (f.42); Georg Schweinfurth, 1874 (f.65); John Harming Speke, 1854-64 (f.67; also letters of Speke to Rigby, 1859-60, and of Speke's family to Grant, 1864-76, nd.); William Grant Stairs, 1890 (f.120); Sir Henry Morton Stanley, 1878-90, n.d. (f.123); and Armin Vambery, 1865 (f.151). 152 ff. Quarto and under. MS.17911 Letters of Lieutenant Alexander Turnbull, 1850-3 (f.1); Mrs M. Currie, 1854-7, nd. (f.24); Major William G. Keppel and his parents, 1857-60 (f.69); and others, mostly fellow officers in the Bengal Army, 1851-90, n.d. (f.91) 283 ff. Quarto and under. MS.17912-17 Grants journals. MS.17912 4 Feb-31 Dec 1846, covering his first journey to and arrival in India. 78 ff. Duodecimo. MS.17913 23 Apr. 1848-12 Apr 1849, describing his service in the Second Sikh War. 64 pp. Octavo. MS.17914 20 May 1852 - 20 Mar 1854, describing hunting expeditions in North India with John Hanning Speke. 84 ff. Octavo. MS.17915 23 Feb 1858 - 31 Dec 1963, describing his African expedition with Speke in great detail. Some of the material in this journal was used for Grant's A Walk across Africa (Lond., 1864). Inverted at the end are a list of letters written 1858-62, photographic and botanical notes, a list of porters, African vocabulary, etc. 320 pp + 52 inverted pp. (Grant's own numbering, added at a later date in which the even numbers are generally omitted). Quarto. MS.17916 1 Jan 1864 - 29 Dec 1876, dealing with his triumphant reception in England, his final military service in India and Abyssinia, and his life in retirement at Nairn, including frequent engagements in London and tours abroad. 185 ff. Quarto. MS.17917 5 Jan. 1877-19 Oct 1891, continuing his life in retirement. 1+ 180 ff. Quarto. MS.17918 Journal of James A. Grant Jun. kept during his membership of Joseph Thomson's expedition in 1890. 11 ff. + many blank ff. + I inverted f. Quarto. MS.17919-21 Grant's sketches, mostly watercolour, some pencil or pen and ink, made on his African expedition with John Harming Speke, 1860-3. They include scenes, portraits, objects, and incidents. Some are the source of woodcuts in Speke's Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the_Nile Edin., 1863, and some of these have notes in Speke's hand. The majority were mounted by Grant in i88o in two albums and provided with printed introduction, list and captions, the latter mostly repeating contemporary inscriptions; an earlier arrangement is indicated by pencil numbering. MS.17919 68 sketches, 250 x 175 mm., mounted in an oblong folio album. MS.17920 62 sketches, 175 x 125 mm., and 13 lithographs, various sizes (from several articles in the Botanical Magazine and the Proceedings of the Zoological Society accompanied by offprints of the articles), mounted in an oblong folio album. MS.17921 Unmounted sketches. 17 ff. Folio and under. MS.17922 Various papers, including Grant's agreement with Speke, 186o (f.2); Grant's expenses during the African expedition (f.5); table of temperature and rainfall, 1860-3 (f.4); notes on Speke's latitudes, etc. (f.10); journal, 12 - 22 Apr 863 (f.14+); speech on the expedition delivered in Calcutta, 4 Dec. 1865 (f.52); zoological notes (f.56); lecture on Kashinir (f.87); note by Christopher P. Rigby on the second volume of Sir Richard Burton's Zanzibar (London, 1872) (f.107); Lists of committees, etc., on which Grant served (f.108); a family memoir (f.121); and a map of the Nile from Gondokoro in southern Sudan to central Egypt (f.124). See also MS.17933. 125 ff. Folio and under. MS.17923 'Map of Thibet by J.H. Speke', continuing in fact, on a scale of eight miles to the inch, the roughly triangular area of Ladakh bounded by the rivers Spiti, Indus, and Zaskar. For Speke's mapping activities in the early 1850s see his What led to the Discovery of the Source of the Nile, Edin. and Lond., 1864, pp. 6sqq. 420 x 410 mm. MS.17924 Copy of A Map of the Route explored by Captains Speke & Grant from Zanzibar to Egypt, Lond., 1803, with ink and pencil annotations by Grant. 610 x 360 mm. MS.17925 Copy of James A. Grant, Memoranda, n.p., n.d. [after Apr. 1880], consisting of biographical data, with some later ink additions by Grant. On the title-page is written 'Margaret Grant's Copy'. See also MS.17940. 32 (printed) pp. Octavo. MS.17926 Newspaper cuttings on Grant's death, funeral, etc., pasted into an album. It is signed on f.i 'Margaret Mary Mackintosh 1892.'. i + 40 + many blank ff. Small quarto.
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Level
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Fonds
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Admin
History
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Grant joined the Bengal Army in 1848 and was at the siege of Multan, the battle of Gujerat, and the relief of Lucknow. From 1860 to 1863 he was seconded to the Royal Geographical Society's expedition under John Hanning Speke, when the source of the Nile was identified and Uganda and southern Sudan visited. After further service in Kashmir and secondment to Napier's Abyssinian expedition, he retired with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in 1868. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1864 and made a Companion of the Bath in 1866.
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Finding Aids
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NLS Catalogue of Manuscripts Acquired Since 1925 Volume XIII
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Related Material
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For additional papers see MSS.17927-48.
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Associated Persons
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