William Grant was one of the unfortunate victims of two attempts, both of doubtful validity, which the Bishop of Valladolid, Dr Jose Antonio de Rivadeneira, made to ordain them. They were conditionally re-ordained when they returned to Scotland.(MT)

According to Church records, his mother's surname was indeed Grant, and he was born on 28th September 1821. He was baptised on 1st October 1821 in the Church of the Incarnation, Tombae.

Report of the ordination of William Grant in the Scottish Catholic Directory of 1847.

The Rev. William Grant, born in the Braes of Glenlivat, Banffshire, on the 19th September 1821;—entered St Mary’s College, Blairs, in July 1836, whence he proceeded to the Scottish College, Valladolid, in 1838. There he was ordained Subdeacon on the 20th December 1845, Deacon on the 11th April, and Priest on the 13th April 1846, by the Bishop of Valladolid. He returned to Scotland in May of the same year, and is at present stationed at Creighton Moss, near Edinburgh.

The following obituary of William Grant is taken from the Scottish Catholic Directory of 1850:

This estimable young clergyman, who has been so suddenly cut off in the midst of a career of usefulness, was born in the Braes of Glenlivat, Banffshire, on the 19th September, 1821. Feeling himself called to devote his life to the service of religion, he entered St. Mary’s College, Blairs, as an ecclesiastical student, on the 21st July, 1836. Having there made some progress in his studies, he was sent, on the 3d November, 1838, to complete them in the Scots’ College of Valladolid, where he was ordained Subdeacon, on the 20th December, 1845; Deacon, on the 11th, and Priest, on the 13th April, 1846, by the Bishop of that Diocese. He returned, in May of the same year, to his native country, and entered upon his missionary duties. His first mission was among the railway labourers in the neighbourhood of Fushie Bridge. These had, for some time previously, been in a very demoralised state; and various revolting incidents had given the whole body in that district an unenviable notoriety. Mr. Grant applied himself, with extraordinary zeal and devotedness, to the work of restraining and subduing, by the influence of religion, these lawless natures. He soon effected a complete revolution among them; and, during the year of his pastoral connexion with them, not a case of such misconduct occurred, as either to alarm the well-disposed, or call for the interposition of a Magistrate. Mr. Grant was removed to Dumfries, in August, 1847. In the discharge of his duties there, he first caught the infection of small-pox, and again, while similarly engaged, that of typhus fever. From both he recovered; and, during the frightful prevalence of cholera in Dumfries, he was day and night by the bedside of the victims, attending at once to their immediate and physical wants, and, above all, to the necessities of their souls, and their salvation in a future world. In fact, then, and during the whole of his brief career, he lived for the poor and suffering members of Jesus Christ, and burned with a zeal, which many of those who differed from him in creed, allowed to be truly apostolical. He outlived the pestilence in Dumfries, and was slowly recovering his strength, exhausted by previous illnesses and constant toil, when he was sent, early in January, 1849, to Stirling, to give temporary aid to his fellow-clergyman, Mr. Malcolm. The fate, which he had braved in Dumfries, here overtook him. Enfeebled by all he had gone through, nature yielded at the first assault; and, on Tuesday the 6th February following, an attack of cholera carried him off in seven hours, it being his third violent illness within nine months. On the first symptoms of the disease declaring themselves, he was immediately attended by two physicians of Stirling; and could human skill have saved him, his friends would not now have to deplore his loss in the flower of life, and bloom of age.

He was a young man, noted at College for steadiness and scholarship, though, latterly, his Missionary labours absorbed his whole faculties and time. Such was the impression left of his virtues, that many Protestants came forward to attend his funeral, on the Thursday after his death, and among these (a fact which we deem highly honourable to the citizens of Stirling), the Provost, and two of the clergy of the town. Another rev. gentleman sent to Mr. Malcolm a very kind letter of sympathy and apology for his absence. Mr. Grant’s mortal remains lie interred in the old Churchyard of Stirling.