The founder of a multitude of Hamilton businesses rose from modest beginnings to forge ahead in retail, with an eye for fashion.

Ervin Grant, who ran Grant’s Boutique with his wife, Deborah, for 45 years until closing the business in 2019, set out as an entrepreneur in the 1960s when there were few Black-run businesses in Hamilton.

Although Mr Grant was known for retailing clothes, he tried his hand at other businesses — including a modelling school and a pizzeria.

Dionne Pearman, his daughter, who followed her parents into retail, described him as a natural at the trade.

“Dad never went to university but he was a hard worker,” she said. “He was a superb salesman with tremendous interpersonal skills.

“He loved and respected all his customers. He was very generous and always willing to give discounts to many of his customers and lend a helping hand to many families.”

Mr Grant gave work to relatives and young teenage friends of the family in his various businesses.

His parents came to Bermuda in the 1930s as emigrants from Saint Kitts & Nevis. He grew up on Pond Hill and helped raise his siblings after his mother’s death when he was 4.

He attended Central School, now Victor Scott Primary School, and moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with a foster family, where he attended Westinghouse High School.

Mr Grant graduated during the civil rights era. He pitched in to help when the activist leader Martin Luther King Jr called for young Black men to volunteer and travel south for the rebuilding of a church in Texas that had been torched by the Ku Klux Klan.

Back home, Mr Grant worked as a dock-worker before training in electronics to repair television and radios.

He went back to school to finish the GCE examinations after moving to Manchester in England, where he supported himself by working as a waiter.

Mr Grant came back to Bermuda in 1966. While he worked as a waiter at the Eagle’s Nest Hotel in Pembroke, followed by the Belmont Hotel and the Hamilton Princess, he had his sights set on business — although it took a bank loan to get started.

His first business, Stitch and Tac, opened in 1969. It sold fabric and Mr Grant hired seamstresses for tailoring and making clothing.

Next came training models and running fashion shows. Mr Grant hired a modelling coach from England.

London Town Boutique, in the upper level of the Walker's Arcade in Hamilton, specialised in “funky clothes with flashing lights, and UFO jeans in bright colours”, his wife recalled.

Mr Grant was searching for a sales clerk to help out and hired Deborah Simons — who became his wife in 1973. The couple had three children: Dionne, Dean and Evan.

Grant’s Boutique, his signature business, opened in Washington Lane in 1974.

Mr Grant noticed the growing popularity of pizza in the 1980s and made Ervintino's his next venture. The business, running out of the Imperial Building on Church Street, also sold tourist T-shirts.

Ms Pearman said: “Dad did not have a culinary background.

“He would crack up laughing and would say that he would buy pre-made pizza crusts and used a regular oven to bake pizzas.”

Debbie’s Boutique, named after his wife, appeared on Burnaby Street. T-shirt Palace, a shop selling T-shirts and souvenirs in the Emporium Building on Front Street, operated from 8am until midnight.

Other shops followed: 14th Street Boutique, Downtown Express Boutique, Midtown Warehouse, and Sugar Sugar Boutique.

Grant’s Boutiques moved to the upper level of Washington Mall in 2015. Mr Grant decided to close down in December 2019, citing competition from online shopping.

Ms Pearman said her father died only nine days before what would have been her parents’ 53rd anniversary.

She added: “He was a loving, devoted husband, father and grandfather, and devout in his faith.

“After he retired, many customers would always stop in the streets and tell him how much they missed his store.

“We will miss him so much as he left such a memorable legacy in Bermuda.”

• Ervin Royston Grant, a retailer and prolific entrepreneur in Hamilton, was born on January 1, 1941. He died on February 15, 2026, aged 85