Grantham was born on 15 March 1899 and was educated at
Wellington and the
Royal Military College, Sandhurst He was granted a regular army commission and gazetted a second lieutenant in the
18th Hussars as of 12 September 1917 but was attached to the 5th Reserve Regiment of Cavalry stationed at Tidworth, where it trained men for nine different cavalry regiments, including the 18th Hussars. He was promoted a Lieutenant in the 18th Hussars 13 March 1919 but resigned his commission on 30 May 1919. After resigning his commission and leaving the army he went up to
Pembroke College, Cambridge later in 1919 and after graduating in 1922 he joined the Colonial Office as an Eastern Cadet in Hong Kong. He was the Deputy Clerk of the
Legislative Council of Hong Kong for a short period in 1933. In 1934, he was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple and attended the
Imperial Defence College later that year. Grantham became
Colonial Secretary of Bermuda from 1935 to 1938, and of Jamaica from 1938 to 1941. He then served as Chief Secretary of
Nigeria from 1941 to 1944 and as
Governor of Fiji and
High Commissioner for the Western Pacific from 1945 to 1947. Immediately after his tenure as High Commissioner ended, he became
Governor of Hong Kong, until 1957. He opposed his predecessor, Sir
Mark Young's proposal of expanding social services on the grounds that the local Chinese population cared little about social welfare. Instead, he proposed the election of Unofficial members of the Legislative Council among British subjects only with the Governor holding reserved power to override LegCo decisions. ==Legacy of governorship==