MACPHERSON GRANT, George (1781-1846), of Ballindalloch, Banff and Invereshie, Inverness.

Macpherson Grant had an ‘expensive’ education and in 1798 was said to be training as a writer to the signet, but he does not seem to have persevered in this line.Ibid. 345, Macpherson to Grant, 27 Apr. 1795; 564, Grant to Macpherson, 24 Mar. 1798. He succeeded his great-uncle as laird of Ballindalloch in 1806 and three years later was brought in on a vacancy for Sutherland by Lord and Lady Stafford. He followed their current opposition line, voting against government on the address, 23 Jan., and the Scheldt inquiry, 26 Jan., 23 Feb., 5 and 30 Mar. 1810. He voted against the committal of Burdett, 5 Apr., for Parnell’s motion on Irish tithes, 13 Apr., and for the discharge of John Gale Jones, 16 Apr., but not for sinecure reductions, 17 May, or parliamentary reform, 21 May 1810. His only other recorded votes during that Parliament were against government on the Regency bill, 21 Jan., Wellesley Pole’s circular letter, 22 Feb., Irish tithes, 11 June 1811, McMahon’s appointment, 14 Apr., and in favour of Catholic relief, 24 Apr. 1812.

In 1812 Macpherson Grant made way for Lord Stafford’s nephew James Macdonald, but he again filled the breach when Macdonald resigned the seat in 1816 over his political differences with the Staffords, who were now supporting government. He voted with them against Tierney’s censure motion, 18 May 1819, but his only other known votes between 1816 and 1820 were for Catholic relief, 9 May 1817, and for inquiry into criminal law reform, 2 Mar. 1819; and he was granted six weeks’ leave of absence on account of ill health on 20 May 1819.CJ, lxxiv. 464. He was appointed to the Poor Law committee, 9 Feb. 1819. He was credited by the reporters with a speech complaining that the proposed Jamaican military establishment was too low, 13 May 1817, but this was almost certainly made by Alexander Cray Grant. Macpherson Grant died 24 Nov. 1846.