Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, via WWW, August 19, 2013 (Grantham, Sir Alexander William George Herder (1899-1978); colonial governor; born 15 March 1899 at Chippenham, The Avenue, Surbiton; son of Frederick William Grantham, barrister, and his wife, Alexandra Ethelred Marie Sylvie Emilie von Herder; he was educated at Wellington College, the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and Pembroke College, Cambridge; he served in the First World War after being commissioned to the 18th hussars in 1917; Grantham joined the colonial administrative service as a Hong Kong cadet in 1922, learned Cantonese, and served mainly in the colonial secretariat for about ten years; in 1934, he attended the Imperial Defence College and was called to the bar at the Inner Temple; he served as colonial secretary in Bermuda from 1935 to 1938 and in Jamaica from 1938 to 1941, and as chief secretary in Nigeria from 1941 to 1944, before being appointed governor of Fiji and high commissioner for the Western Pacific in 1945; he was knighted in 1945; he assumed the governorship of Hong Kong on 25 July 1947 and retired on 31 December 1957, having been the colony's longest serving governor; he was appointed CMG in 1941, KCMG in 1945, and GCMG in 1951; in retirement Grantham lived in London, where he kept an interest in the welfare of Hong Kong and spoke and wrote occasionally to discourage others from 'rocking the boat;' he also wrote an autobiography of his colonial service, Via ports: from Hong Kong to Hong Kong, which was published by the Hong Kong University Press in 1965; he died on 4 October 1978)
Sir Alexander Grantham, 1960 title frame (Sir Alexander Gratham, Governor-General of Hong Kong)
Via ports: from Hong Kong to Hong Kong, 1955 title page (Alexander Grantham)
