James Augustus Grant

James Augustus Grant ( born April 11, 1827 in Nairn, Scotland, † February 11, 1892 same place ) was a British officer and Africa traveler. He explored from 1860 to 1864 with John Hanning Speke, the sources of the Nile.

Grant was born in Nairn in the Scottish Highlands. He attended Marischal College in Aberdeen. He joined in 1846 the Indian army and fought during the First and Second Sikh War under Gough (1849 ) and during the Sepoy Rebellion ( 1857-1858 ) in India. He was wounded at Havelock in 1857 at the relief of Lucknow and rose to the colonel.

Together with John Hanning Speke 1860-63 he undertook an expedition to the sources of the Nile, when he came to Lake Victoria (now in Uganda). The diary of his two and a half year journey he published in 1864 as A Walk Across Africa. Grant was awarded a gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society for his services.

In 1868 he accompanied the Abyssinian expedition under Robert Napier and then entered as a lieutenant colonel from the service.

Grant was married since July 25, 1865, Margaret Laurie, with whom he had two sons and three daughters. His eldest son followed in the footsteps of his father and also undertook journeys through Africa. He accompanied Joseph Thomson in his expedition to Bangweulusee and charted the headwaters of the Congo and the Zambezi. The younger son fell in February 1900 as a cavalry officer in the Boer War.

Publications

• A walk across Africa, or Domestic Scenes from My Nile Journal. Edinburgh & London: William Blackwood 1864
• Summary of the Speke and Grant Expedition. (In:. , Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, 1872)
• Botany of the Speke and Grant Expedition. (In: Transactions of the Linnean Society, 1872. )
• Khartoom as I saw it in London in 1863. W. Blackwood, 1885