THE BRITISH WAR MEDAL AND BRITISH RED CROSS SOCIETY MEDAL FOR WAR SERVICE TO BEATRICE GRANT, A MEMBER OF THE GRANT FAMILY OF KILGRASTON AND PITKEATHLY, WHO SAW SERVICE DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR WITH THE Y.M.C.A.
Two: British War Medal (officially named, impressed in plain block capitals: B. GRANT.), British Red Cross Society Medal for War Service (unnamed, as issued), British War Medal with ornate floral engraved silver plated top suspender brooch, British Red Cross Medal with its original top suspender brooch, BWM attractively toned, generally Extremely Fine and virtually as struck.
Group accompanied by biographical details, extract Burke's Landed Gentry of Great Britain re. the Grant family of Kilgraston, and copied WW1 Medal Index card and medal roll.
Beatrice Grant (1866-1927) was the fifth daughter of Charles Thomas Constantine Grant of Kilgraston and Pitkeathly (1831-1891), who saw service initially with the Royal Navy and subsequently in the service of the Rajah of Sarawak, and the great-great-niece of Lieutenant-General Sir James Hope Grant, G.C.B. (1808-1875). Beatrice Grant saw service during WW1 with the YMCA in France, is recorded on her Medal Index card as having entered that theatre of operations in July 1915. She is recorded on the British War Medal roll as having seen service with the YMCA at Rouen, July 1915-1919, the BWM roll confirming her home address as Drummonie, Bridge of Earn, Scotland. Beatrice Grant never married and died on 5/10/1927 at Prestonkirk, East Lothian.
Within days of the declaration of war in August 1914 the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) had established some 250 recreation centres in the United Kingdom, which provided comforts for troops, many of the centres being at or near railway stations or other places through which large numbers of troops were passing. The first YMCA contingent was posted to France for active service in November 1914 and organised similar centres at various places throughout France, including Rouen. These various YMCA centres served vast quantities of refreshments to the troops that used their facilities. The centre at the railway siding at Etaples served more than 200,000 cups of cocoa each month. The YMCA staff in France were largely voluntary and mostly female, though there were some male staff who were over military age or unfit for active service,
Beatrice Grant's medals at one time formed part of an extensive display of family medals and decorations on display in the Grant family seat, Kilgraston and Dromonie House, Bridge of Earn, Perthshire. In addition to Beatrice Grant's medals, that display included the orders, medals and decorations of Lieutenant-General Sir Hope Grant (1808-1875), the hero of the Indian Mutiny and China campaign of 1857-60, Francis (Frank) Augustus Grant (1829-1854), who died in the Crimea, Captain Robert Henry (Harry) Grant (1840-1878), Royal Artillery, who saw service on the North-West Frontier of India, 1860, and Lieutenant-Colonel John Patrick Grant (1872-1950), Seaforth Highlanders, who is depicted as the central figure in Lady Butler's famous 1902 painting "Stand Fast Craigellachie", the framed group of family including a manuscript list of those medals, a photocopy of which accompanies Beatrice Grant's medals.
The Grant family of Kilgraston had close ties of marriage and kinship to the Brooke family, Rajahs of Sarawak. Beatrice Grant's father, Charles Thomas Constantine Grant of Kilgraston, served as Aide de Camp to the Rajah of Sarwak. The following is a brief account of the relationship between the Grants of Kilgraston and the Brooke family, the White Rajahs of Sarawak.
The Grants of Kilgraston had close ties of marriage and kinship to the Brooke family, Rajahs of Sarawak. Lieutenant Francis Augustus Grant was a brother in law of John Brooke Johnson-Brooke (1823-1868), one-time Crown Prince of Sarawak and the elder brother of Charles Brooke, the second white Rajah of Sarawak. John Brooke Johnson-Brooke, who married Francis Augustus Grant's sister, Anne, in 1855, was then the heir-apparent to the throne of Sarawak. A dispute with his uncle, Sir James Brooke (1803-1868), the first white Rajah of Sarawak, regarding the ability of Sarawak to maintain its independence unsupported, led to Sir James Brooke disinheriting his nephew and banishing him from Sarawak. The Grants of Kilgraston and the Brookes, Rajahs of Sarawak, had established close ties some time prior to the marriage of Anne Grant and John Brooke Johnson-Brooke in 1855. Sir James Brooke, who went on to become the first white Rajah, saw service during the First Burmese War, 1824-1826, with the East India Company's 18th Bengal Native Infantry. Severely wounded, he resigned his commission and subsequently established himself as a merchant adventurer at Singapore, which had been a British colonial naval base and commercial centre since 1819. Brooke went on to play a leading role in establishing friendly links between Singapore and Sarawak, which at that time was a subject territory of the Kingdom of Brunei. In 1840 Brooke assisted the Sultan of Brunei in putting down an insurrection, and as a reward was granted the sovereignty and trade of Sarawak, being proclaimed Rajah of Sarawak in 1841. During the late 1840's Brooke befriended Charles Thomas Constantine Grant of Kilgraston, an elder brother of Anne and Augustus Grant, who was then serving as a midshipman aboard the Royal Navy's HMS Agincourt. Resigning his commission, Grant was appointed Aide de Camp to Brooke and later rose to become the Rajah's private secretary. When he took up his post with the future Rajah of Sarawak, Charles Grant became a member of a tight-knit circle of Scotsmen who had entered the service of the Rajahs of Sarawak, chiefly from the families of Brooke, Johnson and Grant, who strengthened their ties both with the white rajans and mutually through intermarriage, the marriage in 1855 of Anne Grant and John Brooke Johnson-Brooke being an early example of the many ties that were forged during the ensuing decades. The connection between the Brooke family and the Grants of Kilgraston was to come full circle in 1950, when August Grant's great-nephew, Lieutenant-Colonel John Patrick Grant of Kilgraston (who assumed the additional title of Nisbet-Hamilton of Biel in 1920 to become John Patrick Nisbet-Hamilton-Grant of Biel) died without an heir, wherupon he was succeeded by his cousin, Vice-Admiral Basil Charles Barrington Brooke C.B., C.B.E. (1895-1983), the grandson of Anne Grant and John Brooke Johnson-Brooke, and a cousin of Charles Vyner Brooke, the 3rd and last White Rajah of Sarawak.
