Canon Edward Grant died on this day 125 years ago. Passionate about education and its potential to transform lives, Grant used his influence as Vicar of Portsmouth to raise funds to establish the School of Science and Art in Pembroke Road (precursor of Portsmouth Polytechnic, and now, University) as well as reviving PGS following its closure in the 1860s. Grant was a popular local figure and was widely mourned in the town. He sacrificed his prospects of promotion in the Church by his staunch espousal of Liberal causes. The son of an OP who attended the old Penny Street school, Edward Grant attended Winchester College and then went up to New College, Oxford, where he took holy orders and became a Fellow of the College. In 1860 he took a parish in Dorset and, in 1868, the Warden and Fellows of Winchester College appointed him Vicar of St Thomas, Portsmouth, a position he held until his death on the 24th May 1899. Grant's father, Robert, had served as the first Vicar of St Paul's in Southsea. In the early 19th century his grandfather, Thomas, had been "Clerk of the Cheque" in the dockyard and his uncle, Sir Thomas Grant, invented a machine for condensing salt water into fresh, as well as a ship's biscuit making machine, at Clarence Victualling Yard.