Samuel Hieronymus Grimm the son of Johann Jakob Grimm was born 1733 at Burgdorf in the Canton of Berne, Switzerland and baptised there on 18th January 1733. He was orphaned at the age of 16 on the death of his father but showed early talent as a painter and a poet and in the 1750s became a pupil of Johann L. Aberli in Berne. In 1758 he produced his first known professional work of views of glaciers in the Bernese Oberland and he published his poems in 1762. He moved to Paris in 1765 and then in Ferbruary 1768 to Henrietta Street, Covent Garden in London where he stayed for the rest of his life. He never married.

Over the next twenty-five years he produced over 3,500 drawings and watercolours of landscapes, historical buildings and artefacts throughout England. These works were primarily commisioned by The Society of Antiquaries, Gilbert White, Sir William Burrell and Reverend Sir Richard Kaye. His work was exhibited at the Royal Academy every year from 1769 until 1781 and then in 1783, 1784 and 1793 and he was elected to the Society of Arts in 1773. Grimm's commisions for Sir William Burrell produced a collection 886 watercolours in seven volumes devoted to Sussex that were bequeathed to the British Museum in 1796. This collection is an oustanding contribution to Sussex history.

On 14th April 1794, Grimm died at a friend's house in Tavistock Street and he was buried four days later at St. Paul's, Covent Garden where Kaye conducted the funeral