James Grant was a Scottish born British Royal Navy officer and navigator in the early nineteenth century. He served in Australia in 1800–1801 and was the first to map the Bass Strait between mainland Australia and Tasmania.
Grant's nautical chart of the Bass Strait
His Majesty's Armed Survey Vessel Lady Nelson was commissioned in 1799 to survey the coast of Australia. At the time large parts of the Australian coast were unmapped and Britain had claimed only part of the continent. The British Government were concerned that, in the event of settlers of another European power becoming established in Australia, any future conflict in Europe would lead to a widening of the conflict into the southern hemisphere to the detriment of the trade that Britain sought to develop. It was against this background that Lady Nelson was chosen to survey and establish sovereignty over strategic parts of the continent.
Print from an engraving by Samuel John Neele appearing in James Grant's The Narrative of a voyage of discovery, performed in His Majesty's vessel the Lady Nelson, of 60 tons burthen, with sliding keels, in the years 1800, 1801, and 1802, to New South Wales, published July 1803, by T. Egerton, Whitehall, London.
Lady Nelson and Francis off the mouth of Hunter River
Chart of the sound between the Islands of the Kent Group showing the track of the Lady Nelson during the 1801 survey
Murray's chart of Port Phillip
