Sugar, Slaves and High Society: The Grants of Kilgraston 1750-1860

This is, above all, a book about the history of a Scottish family but it is also a story of opportunism, wealth, good fortune and tragedies set against the background of slavery in Jamaica. Many of the defining moments and characters of the nineteenth century touched the Grants of Kilgraston: the Parthenon marbles; the White Rajahs of Sarawak; Queen Victoria; Napoleon Bonaparte; the abolition of slavery; the Crimean War; the Relief of Lucknow; and the sacking of the Chinese Imperial Palace. 

Kilgraston was the childhood home of three surviving nephews of a Chief Justice of Jamaica: Sir Francis Grant, who became the first Scottish President of the Royal Academy; Sir James Hope Grant, who was a celebrated cavalryman and general; and John Grant, the 3rd laird, who was once described as “…an institution…”. 

Making use of a previously unpublished archive and other sources, the book follows three generations of an upwardly mobile Scottish family and describes how fortunes were made, wealth was squandered, lives were lost at home and abroad, and two brothers became knights of the realm. The story moves from a desolate glen in Speyside to Halifax, the newly established garrison town in Nova Scotia, and then to Jamaica where slaves worked in terrible conditions to produce the sugar which was required in ever increasing quantities in Great Britain and elsewhere. Kilgraston estate, near Perth, was purchased and the house rebuilt with funds repatriated from Jamaica.

Kilgraston house, now a successful school, became the much-loved home to the Grants who quickly established themselves as part of the elite of Perthshire, Scottish and British society. The lairds of Kilgraston, ably assisted by their well-connected wives, gave their families a liberal education, encouraged them to ride and to shoot, to play musical instruments, to appreciate art and, in the case of the sons and one notable daughter, to forge their own successful careers at home and abroad.

The book recounts a number of stories about the Grants of Kilgraston: remote Glenlochy and clan kinship; two teenagers leaving their family behind in Scotland to seek their fortunes in the colonies; life in the small frontier town of Halifax, Nova Scotia; a legal career, sugar plantations and slavery in Jamaica; headstrong and extravagant sons; the scandalous divorce after Lord Elgin had returned with the Parthenon marbles; the search for an Old Master painting in Italy; a White Rajah and broken promises in the fledgling state of Sarawak; a royal ball at Braemar; the death of the heir to Kilgraston after the battle of Alma and of his uncle on St. Helena; and the early careers of Sir Francis Grant, a self-taught portrait and equestrian artist who was mocked by JMW Turner, and Sir Hope Grant, a fearless soldier and talented musician who cheated death on several occasions.

R.P.J. Blake does not shy away from the fact that the wealth generated from the use of slaves in Jamaica underpinned the lives of the Grants of Kilgraston, who, as devout Christians, appear, with one notable exception, not to have questioned the morality of slavery. Life went on, and expensive standards were maintained, in Scotland for so long as the income from Jamaica was received. Without such income, it soon became evident that the running costs of the house and estate could not be met.