William John Alexander Grant was born on 1 May 1851. He was educated at Harrow and at Merton College, Oxford, where he learned the art of photography. In 1876, he was appointed photographer on the British Relief Expedition (leader Allen Young), instructed by the Admiralty to land dispatches in the region of Baffin Bay for George Strong Nares of the British Arctic Expedition, 1875-1876. Between 1878 and 1883, Grant made a further four voyages to the Arctic in the Dutch schooner Willem Barents, and sailed in the British yachts Eira and Kara . During this period, he photographed much of the Arctic between the west coast of Greenland and Novaya Zemlya, later exhibiting his photographs at the Royal Photographic Society in London, of which he was a fellow. He made no further voyages to the Arctic but visited Egypt in 1894 and made a thousand-mile voyage up the Amazon River shortly before his death. He died on 10 March 1935 at Cullompton, Devon.
From the guide to the William Grant collection, 1880-1881, (Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge)
