The large Plymouth Brethren Community in Inverness led to a corresponding large community of Conscientious Objectors. Brothers John and Donald Grant were living together with their families in 1916 when both were swept up in Conscription by the Military Service Act.

Donald, 28 in 1916, worked as a Grocer in Inverness, and applied to the Local Tribunal for exemption from Military Service on economic and conscientious grounds. Despite his religious faith, which held that he could and would not harm another person, the Inverness Tribunal passed him Exempt from Combatant Service Only on the 24th of May 1916. This verdict was unacceptable to Donald, and he appealed twice at the successively higher Invernessshire Appeal and Central Tribunals in June and July.

Despite appealing against this Non-Combatant service, it appears that John accepted it after his final appeal failed to secure Absolute Exemption on either grounds. In August 1916, he was sent to the Hamilton Barracks to join the Non-Combatant Corps, 3rd Scottish Battalion. As a member of the Non-Combatant Corps, he would have been expected to act much as any other soldier, obeying orders and wearing a uniform. The NCC were intended to free up combatant soldiers from routine, labour and logistical tasks, giving the army more effective fighting men for the front lines. Some Conscientious Objectors willingly and happily accepted NCC service, and found the provision to obey both conscience and law acceptable. Others found it a difficult balance - firmly part of the war effort, but decidedly not a soldier, they could not satisfy their conscientious objection to warfare. NCC service fulfilled only part of an objection to war, and COs who accepted it grudgingly would have to strike a difficult balance between orders and conscience.

It is possible that Donald, like his Brother John having made several appeals against Non-Combatant Service, was part of the latter group. If he remained with the NCC for the duration of the war, it is likely that he served at Home and Abroad on labour and logistical tasks until demobilisation in mid to late 1919.