Walter Colquhoun Grant Walter Colquhoun Grant ( 27 May 1822 – 27 August 1861 ) was British Army officer and a pioneer settler in what is today British Columbia . He served briefly as a colonial surveyor but left after a few years to rejoin the army . He died while in the service in India at 39 . Early life . Grant was born in Edinburgh on 27 May 1822 into a military family , his father , Colquhoun Grant , having been chief of intelligence for Arthur Wellesley , 1st Duke of Wellington during the Napoleonic Wars . Grant first joined the British Army sometime before 7 April 1843 when he was promoted , by purchase , to lieutenant in the 2nd Dragoons ( Royal Scots Greys ) , having previously served in the regiment as a cornet . He purchased the rank of captain on 18 April 1845 . Settlement in the colony . Grant was the youngest captain in the British Army at age 24 when he lost his fortune and started anew by buying of land from the Hudson ' s Bay Company at what would become Sooke , British Columbia . Although some sources claim he left the army altogether , the " London Gazette " shows that initially at least he merely transferred to the 47th Regiment of Foot . This would have raised a certain amount of capital , as cavalry commissions were more expensive than those in infantry regiments . Vancouver Island was first opened to settlement by the Hudson ' s Bay Company in 1849 . At the outset there was little interest because of land cost ( £1 per acre compared to free in the Oregon Territory ) and because of the requirement that settlers bring other workers or families with them . Grant was the only settler to make the commitment initially and became the first colonist to settle on the island . He sent 8 settlers on in advance and upon his arrival in 1849 he is said to have shot a cow believing it to be a buffalo . Although he lacked the necessary skills , he was employed by the HBC as its first surveyor . He resigned that role in March 1850 without completing a single survey . Following his arrival , he cleared some of the land he had purchased and set up a sawmill . The land was located from Fort Victoria . Grant left the colony in 1850 to prospect for gold in Oregon and came back in 1853 to sell his land . Achievements . While in the colony he collected data about the flora , fauna , natives and trade the later published in Journal of the Royal Geographical Society and did a map of Vancouver Island drawn by John Arrowsmith . He reported the population in 1853 was 450 people , 300 at Victoria , 125 at Nanaimo and the remainder at Fort Rupert . He ignored native peoples in his count . In addition to being the first to bring non - HBC settlers to the Colony of Vancouver Island , Grant is credited with bringing the first sports event , cricket , to what is now British Columbia when he arrived in 1849 . He introduced what is now considered a noxious , invasive plant , Scotch broom , to the island . Later life . On 1 August 1854 he was appointed Captain Commandant ( though confusingly he was also granted local rank as major ) of a detachment of the Mounted Staff Corps to serve with a part of the British Army that was being deployed to Turkey in advance of what would eventually become the Crimean War . He was promoted local lieutenant colonel on 27 October 1855 . He was granted regimental rank as a cornet in the 2nd Dragoon Guards on 30 November 1855 , and promoted to lieutenant on 16 June 1857 . We was awarded the Turkish decoration of the Order of the Medjidieh , 4th Class for his service . The conflict in Crimea over , he served in India . He was brigade major at Lucknow , and during the Indian Mutiny commanded 1st Hodson ' s Horse . He died in India at the age of 39 .