Alexander Grant (British Army officer)

Sir Alexander Grant (1775 – 29 September 1827) was a British Army officer who served as the first Commandant of St Mary's Island from 1816 to 1826.

An officer with the newly-founded Royal African Corps, Grant negotiated the purchase of St Mary's Island in the Gambia River from the King of Kombo in 1816, following the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The island was the first settlement in what would later become the Gambia Colony and Protectorate. During his time as commandant, Grant founded the town of Bathurst on the island, which later became Banjul and the capital city of The Gambia as an independent country. Grant also purchased MacCarthy Island, further down the Gambia River, and founded on it Georgetown - now Janjanbureh - as a settlement for freed slaves.

Grant was knighted in 1821, and served as Acting Governor of Sierra Leone from 1820 to 1821, and again later in 1821. He returned to Britain in 1826, and died a year later from illness.