His father was a baker, and the family had to leave school and begin work as soon as they were free to do so, but most of them continued to educate themselves, and three of the six sons became prominent figures in the newspaper world in the Highlands.
William (photographed below) worked for a time as a printer's devil, then with a firm of dyers, and in an architect's office, until he had acquired a sound knowledge of shorthand, typing and book-keeping, largely by private study, and was able to secure an appointment as the 'Highland News' representative in Stornoway.

Roots
As soon as he came to Stornoway, he began to put down roots in the community, and it was clear that he had become a 'naturalised Lewisman' and had settled in the island for life, long before his marriage in 1906 to Johanna Morison, a teacher on the staff of the Nicolson Institute.
Mrs Grant, who was associated with her husband in founding the 'Gazette', and who became proprietrix after his death, was the youngest daughter of Roderick Morison, a retired ship's captain and coxswain of the first lifeboat stationed at Stornoway by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
The family home was a thatched house at 29 Newton Street, but in the great gale of the winter of 1877-78, while Mrs Grant was still a baby, the roof was blown away.
Her brother, the late Rev. Roderick Morison of Stornoway High Church, who was then a lad of seventeen, carried her from the wreckage to a relative's house further along the street, where the family stayed until a new 'white house' was built, in which she lived until her marriage, and which still exists.
Both the founders of the 'Gazette' were closely associated with the Nicolson Institute in the exciting early days of W. J. Gibson's rectorship when the Nicolson was one of the pioneer schools in Scotland, when, for instance, photography was taught as a science subject, when original research on bee-keeping was carried out in the school, a new observation hive
invented which was called after the school, and a disease which was worrying bee-keeping throughout Britain was first identified.
Mrs Grant was the first pupil of the Nicolson to take the leaving certificate in English on what was then known as the honours grade. Mr Gibson was so pleased with this, one of the early successes of his newly established secondary department, that he went to her home with news as soon as it came to hand.
Later she taught for a number of years in the Nicolson and is still affectionately remembered by many of her pupils.
Mr Grant's association with the Nicolson began when Mr Gibson, far in advance of his time where vocational training was concerned, established a commercial department in the school. Although he had never trained as a teacher, Mr Grant had a natural flair and for many years he combined the duties of a reporter with part-time work in the Nicolson, the duties of official shorthand writer to the Sheriff Court, local observer for the Meteorological Office (latterly for the Air Ministry) and for a time Burgh Treasurer.

Opportunity
Despite this multiplicity of jobs and the unremitting work which they entailed, he never acquired sufficient capital to give Lewis a paper of its own, as he wished to do, but the opportunity to found the 'Stornoway Gazette' came when his brother Duncan, who had been a printer in Nuneaton for a number of years, returned to the Highlands and went into partnership with Norman Macrae, the editor of the 'North Star' in Dingwall.
This family tie with a mainland partnership owning a printing press made a local paper for Lewis a practical possibility, and Mr Grant decided to sever his connection of nearly a quarter of a century with the Highland News, and launch out on his own.
It was a difficult decision to take. He was giving up a certainty for a gamble, and it was a gamble at that time. Although Stornoway was a busy fishing port, it was obvious even then that conditions in the industry were beginning to change in a way unfavourable to Stornoway, and there was no alternative industry in prospect. Indeed a leading Scottish geographer about that time described Stornoway as 'a dying town'.
A young man at the start of his career might have found the decision easy, but for a man in his mid-forties with a young family to think of, it was more difficult. While the crucial decision was still to be taken, Mrs Grant resolved his doubts. "Write your letter", she told him, "and I'll post it!"
The letter was sent, and in the first week of 1917, the 'Stornoway Gazette' appeared.
The new paper was given a rapturous welcome by Lewis folk all over the world. So far as readership was concerned, the paper was a success from the start.
On the economic side, however, it was an uphill fight and the founder had to continue all his subsidiary employments to subsidise the new venture. Indeed it was only a year or two before his death that he was able to relinquish the last of them, his post as Commercial master in the Nicolson Institute, and even that he could not have done except for the fact that freelance reporting for daily newspapers augmented his earnings from the 'Gazette'.

Difficulties
There were difficulties connected with the production of the newspaper, especially the difficulty of exercising editorial control at a distance. At one stage, Duncan Grant ran an Inverness paper of his own, the Inverness Citizen, and the 'Gazette' was printed there instead of in Dingwall. During the General Strike of 1926, the Inverness Citizen was merged with the Courier, and for a short spell the 'Gazette' was printed on the 'Courier's' press.
Later, Duncan Grant was one of a group of Inverness businessmen who bought over the 'Highland News', then in a sad state of decline. As managing director, he re-established the paper on the lines it followed until Roy Thomson bought it over. It thus happened that for many years the Gazette was printed under contract by the Highland News from which William Grant had broken away to found it.
When William Grant died in 1932 at the early age of 59, his widow became the proprietrix, and his younger son editor. James Shaw Grant, who had just finished his studies at Glasgow University, was waiting for an opening on the staff of the 'Glasgow Herald', when he was unexpectedly called on to take over the 'Gazette'. He continued to edit the paper until his appointment as chairman of the Crofters Commission in 1963.
The first manager of the new 'Gazette' printing works in 1948 was Sam Longbotham, who had run the paper as managing director since 1963 until his death.
He had worked as a young man with Duncan Grant in Inverness after a period in America where he acquired wide experience on the staff of the 'New York Herald' and 'Tribune' and popular magazines. He came to the 'Gazette' from the staff of the 'Daily Express' in Glasgow.
The opening of the printing office, like the establishment of the paper, had its moments of crisis.
The press on which the first locally printed issue was produced was on loan to the 'North Star' in Dingwall during the war and the post-war years. The 'Gazette' had to be printed on it one week, and the machine had to be dismantled, shipped to Stornoway, and re-erected in time to print the next week's issue there.
The only access to the ex-naval canteen which served as a printing office was through a narrow close, so that the printing press had to be reduced practically to nuts and bolts to get it in. The inevitable teething troubles developed, but the printing office staff, having put in their full day's work, offered to stay on through the night and in fact worked until lunch time the following day without a break to complete the first run.
A few years later, Mr Longbotham had to dismantle the printing machine for a second time when the 'Gazette' moved out of the ex-naval canteen into the spacious premises on the corner of Kenneth Street and Francis Street which were purchased from Tod's of Stornoway Ltd and where the 'Gazette' is now established.