[3][4] Barton's uncle, naval architect and engineer Jonathan Grindrod (1804-1896), was also involved with the Royal Mersey Yacht Club, being the Rear-Commodore.

His brother William, who later became a Church of England minister, left in 1851 aged nineteen and continued his education at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was awarded a B.A.

[10] At some period after this date Barton took up residence in Sri Lanka (Ceylon), from where he operated in partnership with other merchants for about twenty years.

Their businesses were described as “Colonial Merchants and Commission and Insurance Agents”[11] They had some involvement with the tea trade,[12] and in a letter to the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, 30 January 1884, Barton also made claim to the export of eleven elephant to New York in 1871.

[13][14] Barton Grindrod and his two partners (Elliott Bradbridge & Henry Jenkins) became involved with a proposal to cut a shipping canal through Rameswaram Island.

This was in order to provide a continuously navigable sea route via the shallows of the Palk Strait that separates India from Sri Lanka.

An agreement was drafted between the partners and the Secretary of State for India for the construction and management of the canal, following a route proposed by Sir John Coode.

[15][16] In 1887 shares were offered in the South India Ship Canal, Port and Coal Station Limited to finance the project.