Robert Grant

Sir Robert Grant was born in Bengal, India, in 1779 into a Scottish family deeply involved in British public life and evangelical Christianity. He came to England as a boy, studied at Magdalene College, Cambridge, distinguished himself in mathematics and classics, and was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1807. Grant later entered Parliament, represented several constituencies, became a privy councillor, and supported legislation to remove civil disabilities imposed on Jewish people.

Grant also wrote devotional poetry and hymns shaped by Scripture and the evangelical Anglican culture of his family. His best-known hymn, “O Worship the King,” is a free meditation on Psalm 104 whose earliest confirmed printing is in John Venn’s 1824 collection of psalms and hymns. Other enduring texts include “Saviour, When in Dust to Thee” and “When Gathering Clouds Around I View.”

In 1834 Grant was knighted and appointed Governor of Bombay. He died near Pune in western India on July 9, 1838. The following year his brother Charles Grant, Lord Glenelg, published Sacred Poems, presenting a posthumous authorized collection of Robert Grant’s devotional writings.