Grantham

Grantham is a small market town in Lincolnshire, England with about 35,000 inhabitants (40,000 including Great Gonerby). Situated on the River Witham, it has the East Coast Main Line (between the stops for Peterborough and Newark Northgate) and the A1 main road from London to Edinburgh running past it (the town was bypassed in 1962). The main shopping High Street, until recently, was part of the busy A52 (which runs to nearby Nottingham), and Wharf Road and London Road (next to Sainsburys) still are. There is a motorway-style service station at the north end of the bypass, on the roundabout. The roundabout is in the process of being circumvented by a new junction. The main local landmark is the impressive parish church of St Wulframs, which has the sixth highest spire (282 ft) among English churches, and is also home to the country's first public library. In 1598, Francis Trigge, the rector of Welbourn gave £100 for a small library of books for the clergy and literate laity of Grantham. Two hundred and fifty of the original volumes remain and are kept in the parish church.

Two world-famous people associated with the town are Sir Isaac Newton, who was educated at the still existing The King's School, Grantham, and Baroness Margaret Thatcher, who attended the Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School (K.G.G.S). Thatcher, born in Grantham, is still remembered personally by many inhabitants of the town.

Politically the town is part of the Grantham and Stamford constituency (recently altered), is represented in Parliament by Conservative Party Member of Parliament (MP) Quentin Davies, and has a long history of electing Conservative members of Parliament. The local council, South Kesteven District Council, is also Conservative led, with the current political spread as 31 Conservative, 11 Independent, 10 Labour and 5 Liberal Democrat councillors. This change from former Labour leadership reflects the changing demographics of this area. Villages with more middle class residents in South Kesteven keep the Conservative proportion of the vote well beyond reach.

Grantham is home to the world's only 'living' pub sign: a beehive of South African bees perched in a tree since 1830. The town is also notable for the first female police officer in the UK: on November 27, 1914, during the First World War, Miss Mary Allen and Miss E F Harburn reported for duty on the beat. Mary Allen was a former suffragette and had been previously arrested outside the House of Commons, and later went on to be the commandant of the UK's Womens Police Service, from the 1920s up to 1940. She helped to set up women's police forces in other countries, including Germany. Edith Smith had the first powers of arrest from August 1915. Edith Smith Way is the name of the road outside the Guildhall Arts Centre, parallel to St Peter's Hill. The Angel & Royal Hotel is one of Britain's oldest inns. King John held court there in 1213. The George Hotel nearby (now a shopping centre) was mentioned in Charles Dickens’ novel Nicholas Nickleby. Also in the town is the Blue Pig. Much of the town's property is owned by Buckminster Estate, since the days of the Earl of Dysart.

During the 1980s the town was twice voted The Most Boring Town In Britain in a national poll. This was partially a backlash to Thatcherism although some locals took a perverse pride in the award and it proved to be a spur for development in the town (for instance a cinema and bowling alley opened soon after).

In 1905, Richard Hornsby (1790-1864) & Sons of Grantham (founded 1815) invented the revolutionary caterpillar track, for use with Hornsby's oil engines; these engines were invented by Herbert Akroyd Stuart from which compression-ignition principle the diesel engine evolved. In 1909, they showed the British Army their invention, who were bemused, but took it no further than that. A short time later, Hornsby sold the patent for the caterpillar track in 1914 to Holt Tractors of California, USA for $8,000. Thanks to the ownership of the patent, this company would become the world-dominating Caterpillar Inc. Tractor Company. Benjamin Holt even claimed to be the real inventor. In 1914, the British Army's Colonel Ernest Swinton saw one of Holt's caterpillar tractors towing a piece of artillery, and realised its literally ground-breaking role as an attack vehicle. One year later the tank was born, being made in nearby Lincoln by William Foster. It first saw action at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette on September 15, 1916.

St Wulfram's church

During the famous Dambusters Royal Air Force (RAF) mission in May 1943, the RAF Bomber Command's No. 5 Group and the operation HQ, as Barnes Wallis nervously learnt the grim news, was in a building which later housed a county council education department, and was built by Richard Hornsby & Sons in 1865, and is now a private house. In 1944 (including D-Day), this was the headquarters for the USA's 9th (IX) Troop Carrier Command, being known as Grantham Lodge. RAF Spitalgate trained pilots in the war, and was not an operational base.

Aveling & Porter of Rochester, Kent, would join with Barford & Perkins of Peterborough to become Aveling-Barford Ltd in 1934, largely due to financial help from Ruston & Hornsby. The new company took a former site of Hornsbys, naming it the 'Invicta' works, which is from the motto on the coat of arms of Kent, and translates as 'unconquered'. It did not fare well with the sinking market for large dumper trucks and road rollers, and now as Barford Construction Equipment, it makes dumpers for construction sites, being owned by Wordsworth Holdings PLC(USA). A trailer company, Crane-Fruehauf, has moved into part of the factory, from its former home of Dereham, when it went into receivership in early 2005.

British Manufacturing and Research Company (or BMARC), on Springfield Road, made munitions for many years. It was owned by the Swiss company, Oerlikon, until 1988 then became part of Astra Holdings PLC, and was bought by British Aerospace in 1992 who then closed the site.

The food processing industry now employs the largest contingent of Grantham's citizens, including Fenland Foods (part of Northern Foods) on the Earlesfield Industrial Estate, Moypark (formerly Padley), and a large frozen vegetable factory (PAS) near Easton. The Woodland Trust is based on Dysart Road. There is a small FM transmitter near the town's bypass on Gorse Lane from which Radio Lincolnshire can be heard on 104.7 and Lincs FM on 96.7.

The major claim to fame of Grantham Town Football club (nicknamed 'The Gingerbreads') is that Martin O'Neill started his management path from there. The club was founded in 1874 and they currently play in the 7,500 capacity (covered 1,950, seats 750) South Kesteven Sports Stadium (although average attendances are well below capacity). The ground also doubles as the town's athletics stadium (one of only three in Lincolnshire), next to the Grantham Meres Leisure Centre on Trent Road.