[3] In 1887, as an infant orphaned as a result of a massacre of Aboriginal people by the Native Police during the Australian Frontier Wars, he was 'rescued' by taxidermists Robert Grant and E.J.

Then, contrary to the laws of the time they smuggled him aboard the steamer ship 'Barcoo' from Cairns, Queensland, across state jurisdictions and eventually to Lithgow, New South Wales.

There, he lived with the extended Grant family until Robert and Elizabeth moved, together with their son Henry, to another Scottish diaspora community in the Sydney suburb of Annandale, New South Wales.

'[8]While at Wittenberg Grant was noticed by social scientists from the Royal Prussian Phonographic Commission which had been established by the psychologist and musicologist Carl Stumpf, and by linguist Wilhelm Doegen, to study the languages and culture of the men held captive as German prisoners of war.

Grant was transferred to the Wünsdorf POW camp and like many of the colonial soldiers from the British and French empires there, he became an object of study as part of this major research project.

One German scientist argued that the POW camps were "a völkerschau [people show] without comparison",[9] and Grant later told his war colleague Roy Kinghorne that "he was measured all over, and upside down and inside out".

[2] During his incarceration (April 1917 to December 1918), Grant became president of the British Help Committee (The Red Cross) and organised food parcels and medical supplies for the large number of Indian and African prisoners held at the Halbmondlager prisoner-of-war camp for coloured soldiers, near Zossen.

[7] The Wünsdorf POW camp is also significant as the site chosen by Max von Oppenheim and the Nachrichtenstelle für den Orient (German Intelligence Bureau for the East) to persuade Muslim prisoners of war — men who had been fighting for the British and French — to change sides and join the Ottoman-German Alliance.

)[13] Grant became a sought-after public speaker, giving lectures on numerous subjects including the experience of war, Aboriginal rights, and the significant role of women in society.

[2] Beyond his public appearances Grant was admired by many as a raconteur, a bagpipe player, and as a reciter of the poetry of Robert Burns and numerous Australian poets including Henry Lawson with whom he had a friendship.

[4] Throughout his wartime experience and during his public speaking work and advocacy for indigenous rights during the 1920s, Douglas Grant had achieved a level of fame that ensured that the press noted his activist activities.

[16] A number of commentators, such as the historian John Maynard, have described Grant's effort to establish connections between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities as that of a cultural 'bridge-builder'.

[4] In 1931, the cumulative effects of racial prejudices, exacerbated by his Grant suffering from "shell shock" (probably post-traumatic stress disorder), and a decade of insecure work in Sydney, Lithgow, other parts of rural NSW and Victoria, together with the stresses of being in the public eye, resulted in him being admitted to the military wing (Ward B) of Callan Park Mental Hospital.

[17] Grant remained at Callan Park Hospital from 1931 until 1939, during which time he designed and built a replica of the Sydney Harbour Bridge as a memorial to the ‘fallen’ of WW1 that is still standing today.

[18] He also engaged in sporting activities such as golf and bowls, ran errands, and spent occasional afternoons drinking in the nearby Balmain and Rozelle pubs, much to the annoyance of his nurses.

There, relatives such as June Madge remembered him as an interesting and much loved presence within their households although noting that Grant was subject to racism in the wider community.