to a wealthy family, as a young man he went to Peru where his father had business interests and where he joined his brother William Russell Grace who had formed a partnership with John Bryce to operate as ship chandlers.

The Grace brothers' influence with the Peruvian government saw them obtain most of the contracts to provide munitions and battle ships during the Peru-Chile War of the Pacific between 1877 and 1884.

When the war ended, Michael Grace traveled to England and in 1887 put together a consortium of lenders to provide the funding necessary to stabilize the cash-strapped government of Peru.

The Grace brothers, along with Michael Grace's English son-in-law, Richard Hely-Hutchinson, 6th Earl of Donoughmore, widened their business in Peru to include control of the guano deposits along the Pacific coast, vast tracts of land containing both oil and mineral deposits including silver mines at Cerro de Pasco that were reported by The New York Times in its June 22, 1885 edition as "probably the richest and most extensive in the world."

In conjunction with the Cerro de Pasco mines, the Grace's acquired a ninety-nine year lease, the first seven of which were free, on the financially troubled Oroya Railroad originally built in early 1870s by American promoter Henry Meiggs but not fully completed.

"[2] From a base in Lima, the Grace brothers set up representative offices throughout most of South America and through their Compania Salitrera obtained control over all nitrate exported by the government of Chile.

However, with Michael based in London, England for half the year plus his extensive travelling to South America, when William developed health problems in the early 1890s it made it necessary for John to come to New York to help oversee operations.

While on an annual business trip to London, England in the late summer of 1920, the then seventy-eight-year-old Michael Grace died.