Naturalist and medical scientist. Born in Edinburgh, the son of a lawyer, Grant was educated at the High School of Edinburgh and studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, graduating in 1814. Grant was to give up medicine in favour of natural history, undertaking research in zoology and marine biology, notably sponges. He became an outspoken intellectual in Edinburgh in the heady and free-thing times which represented later stages of the Scottish Enlightenment. He embraced Étienne Geoffroy's ideas on evolution, had quoted similar ideads from Erasmus Darwin's Zoönomia and is remembered for his influence on the young Charles Darwin (1809-82). Grant returned to medicine and was appointed as the first Professor of Comparative Anatomy at University College London (UCL) in 1827, continuing in this role until his death. He served as Dean of the Medical School in UCL in 1847. However, he was overtaken by time and his latter career was remarkable. Grant was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1824 and of the Royal Society in 1836. He died at his home in London and lies buried in Highgate Cemetery. His name is remembered through the Grant Museum of Zoology at UCL, the taxonomic family Grantiidae and in the name of the snake Gonionotophis grantii.
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