GRANT, Frederick Thomas

Born at Maidstone, Kent. After leaving school was articled to Messers Ruck and Smith, architects and surveyors. Became involved in particular with local government work and, at the early age of twenty nine, was appointed Borough Engineer and Surveyor at Gravesend, a position he held for thirty eight years, before his retirement in 1938. He was a Rotarian and President at one time of the local Historical, Literary and Scientific Society. As a boy Grant was interested in the Lepidoptera but his friendship with a group of enthusiastic local entomologists which included G.E.Frisby, a Coleopterist and Hymenopterist, encouraged him to take up these groups. His work on Coleoptera subsequently led him to make several interesting captures including Catopidius depresss Murray, on an office window in Gravesend, which K.G.Blair introduced on his behalf to the British list (EMM., 78, 1942, p.172). Other interesting captures were Conopalpus testaceus Ol. at Cobham; Heterostomus villiger Reitter at Ringwood; and Otiorrhynchus porcatus which he took in some numbers in his garden. T.R.E.Southwood, who wrote his obituary in Proc.SLENHS., 1959, pp.xliii-xliv, (with portrait), and who admitted that his 'early footsteps in the 'other orders'' were guided by Grant 'whose knowledge, not only of entomology, but of zoology in general, was wider and deeper than he himself was prepared to admit', wrote of him: 'He was an accurate and precise man in all he did, his collections are models of good mounting and besides full data labels on every specimen, he kept detailed journals. These were arranged both under species and serially, each group of individuals of the same species taken on the same day being alloted a number. His serial journal for Coleoptera contains 7645 entries, which must represent the collection, mounting and identifying of over 10,000 specimens. The first were collected in 1926 and the last, which are perfectly mounted as all the others, in 1950, when he was eighty years of age.' 'Much of his collecting was done in Cobham Park, Kent, often in company with Capt. J.A.Stephens, but like so many entomologists he spent his holidays in localities such as Wicken Fen, the New Forest and the Lake District. He also took numerous specimens as he went about his duties in Gravesend'. Grant's collections were bequeathed to the BENHS. After extraction of 'the material required' (James and Gardner (1973) p.78) the remainder, together with his journals, passed via Southwood to the Imperial College Field Station at Silwood Park. James Hogan informs me that this collection was then acquired by the HDO in late 2002 and that it has now been incorporated into the main British collection. Notebooks and photographs of each of the drawers before incorporation are also in the Department. The collection includes material from G.E.Frisby, T.R.E.Southwood and O.W.Richards. (MD 1/03, 10/03)