William Grant, Lord Grant

In the early 1950s, Grant was twice an unsuccessful parliamentary candidate for the Labour-held constituency of Edinburgh East.[9] At the 1951 general election, aided by the lack of a Liberal Party candidate, he reduced the majority of the sitting Member of Parliament (MP) and current Lord Advocate, John Wheatley, by nearly half. However at the by-election in April 1954 after Wheatley became a judge, Labour increased its majority to over 5,000,[12] reversing a swing to the government in the previous six by-elections that year.[12]

Still without a parliamentary seat, Grant was appointed in January 1955 as Solicitor General for Scotland.[13] He succeeded William Rankine Milligan who had been promoted to Lord Advocate to replace James Latham Clyde, who had been raised to the bench as a Senator of the College of Justice in the place of Lord Cooper.[14]

He took office as Milligan's deputy in the last months of Winston Churchill's premiership. Grant was later selected as the Unionists' prospective parliamentary candidate for the Unionist-held seat of Glasgow Woodside. At the general election in May 1955, Grant's oratory drew over a thousand people to his eve-of-poll rally on 25 May in Hillhead, with hundreds more turned away.[15] Two girls fainted in the excitement, which the Glasgow Herald newspaper suggested set "a minor record for 1955 political meetings".[15] He held the seat[16] for the Unionists, with an increased majority,[17][18] assisted by favourable boundary changes.[19]

Grant and Milligan were retained in office both in the 1955–57 government of Churchill's successor, Anthony Eden, and in the post-1957 government of Harold Macmillan.[20] Grant became a privy counsellor in the Queens's 1958 Birthday Honours.[21]

At the general election in October 1959, Grant was re-elected in Glasgow Woodside.[22] When Milligan was appointed as a judge in 1960, Grant was promoted to fill the vacancy as Lord Advocate.[23]

His successor as Solicitor General, David Anderson, was not an MP. This left Grant as the government's only spokesperson in the Commons on Scottish legal matters.[10]

As Lord Advocate, Grant held ultimate authority to decide whether any prosecution should proceed. One of the cases which he declined to bring was a charge of obscenity against the publishers of Lady Chatterley's Lover, following the unsuccessful prosecution in England. In November 1960, Grant announced in the Commons that the book was "tedious" and that he would not prosecute.[24] The Labour MP Emrys Hughes congratulated Grant for his "extreme common sense",[24] and a subsequent High Court challenge to his decision failed.[25]

However, Grant was no liberal. In Winnipeg in 1961, he opposed recent British moves to restrict capital punishment, describing them as mistaken and a threat to public safety.[26]

In 1962, Grant led the defence in the Scottish courts of a claim for about £60 million (£1.36 billion in 2023[27]) in damages by the Glasgow-based Burmah Oil Company against the government of the United Kingdom.[10][28] During the Japanese conquest of Burma in 1941 and 1942, the company's assets in Rangoon had been destroyed under a "scorched earth" policy by retreating British forces.[29] Having been advised in the late 1940s to sue the government of Burma, the company's company's 12 years of litigation had failed to establish liability against Burma.[28] The trial judge, Lord Kilbrandon, ruled in favour of the oil company.[29] His judgment was overturned by the First Division of the Inner House of the Court of Session, which was in turn overruled by the law lords in Burmah Oil Co Ltd v Lord Advocate.[29] Burmah Oil's legal victory was retrospectively nullified by the War Damage Act 1965.[30]

After the death in April 1962 of the Lord Justice Clerk, George Thomson, it was expected that the government would follow the usual practice of appointing the Lord Advocate to the judicial vacancy.[31] The decision was in fact usually made by the Lord Advocate, who traditionally appointed himself,[32] with a substantial rise in salary.[10][33] (In 1967, then Lord Advocate Gordon Stott was elevated to the judiciary, and later joked "I appointed myself, and a jolly good judge I turned out to be").[34]

However, after the office had been vacant for more than three months, the Labour MP James Hoy raised the issue at Prime Minister's Questions on 31 July, suggesting that the delay was due to government fears of losing a by-election.[35] (At the 1959 election, Grant had a majority of only 2,084 in his Woodside constituency, down from 4,303 in 1955.[31][36] Woodside was by then considered a marginal seat.[37]).

Prime Minister Harold Macmillan declined a challenge from opposition leader Hugh Gaitskell to explain the reasons for the delay, but promised that a new Justice Clerk would be in place before the Scottish courts resumed on 2 October.[35][31] On 25 September, a week before the courts opened, Grant was raised to the bench with the judicial title Lord Grant.[38] The Glasgow Woodside by-election was held on 22 November. As expected,[39] it was won by the Labour candidate Neil Carmichael.[40]

As a judge, Grant gravitated towards criminal cases. He also undertook a lot of the court's administrative duties.[2]

In 1963, the Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Noble appointed Grant as chairman of a committee of inquiry into Scotland's sheriff courts.[41] The committee included David Brand QC, several solicitors, and others.[41]

The Committee on the Sheriff Court, known as the Grant Committee,[42] reported in July 1967, recommending a major reorganisation of the courts to end the long delays in criminal cases. Its recommendations included an increase in the number of full-time sheriffs, the abolition of juries in civil cases in the sheriff courts, increasing the maximum sentence imposed by sheriffs from two years to three, and broadening the recruitment base for sheriffs to include solicitors and academic lawyers.[43]

The report led to the Sheriff Courts (Scotland) Act 1971.[42]

Grant was the first chairman of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society as well as a director of Scottish Opera.[44]