Grantham
| Grantham | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 |
|||
| Coordinates | 52 ° 55 ′ N , 0 ° 38 ′ W | ||
|
|||
| Residents | 44,580 (as of 2016) | ||
| administration | |||
| Post town | GRANTHAM | ||
| ZIP code section | NG31 | ||
| prefix | 01476 | ||
| Part of the country | England | ||
| region | East Midlands | ||
| Shire county | Lincolnshire | ||
| District | South Kesteven | ||
| British Parliament | Grantham and Stamford | ||
| Website: grantham-online.co.uk | |||
Grantham is a middle town in the English county of Lincolnshire and the administrative seat of the district South Kesteven . According to the census, it had 44,580 inhabitants in 2016.
The town, about 35 km east of Nottingham , gained fame as the hometown of Margaret Thatcher and the early training center of Isaac Newton .
history
The place Grantham goes back to the Anglo-Saxon settlement of the British Isles, but only gained greater importance in the 10th century during the rule of the Danish Vikings . In the Domesday Book of 1086 Grantham is mentioned as a market town with around 1,000 inhabitants. In the Middle Ages, the place on a trunk road between northern and southern England was an important trading center for wool and leather goods.
In the 13th century, the church of St. Wulfram was built in Grantham, whose 85 m high steeple shapes the silhouette of the city to this day. In 1598 one of the first public libraries in Great Britain was established in the church. Born in 1643 in the neighboring village of Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth , the future scientist Isaac Newton attended from 1655 to 1660 the high school ( King's School ) established in Grantham in 1528 . Other well-known graduates of the educational institution, which still exists today as The King's School , were the playwright Colley Cibber , the philosopher Henry More and the politician William Cecil Burghley .
In 1797 the city was connected to the River Trent and the British canal network with the opening of a canal . The railroad reached Grantham in 1850, initially coming from Nottingham . Two years later, in 1852, the Great Northern Railway , now known as the East Coast Main Line between London and Scotland, opened via Grantham . The improved transport connections were accompanied by strong population growth. In 1801 around 4,300 people lived in Grantham, in 1851 already around 11,000.
In the second half of the 19th century, the place developed into a center of mechanical engineering. The engineer Richard Hornsby invented a forerunner of the chain drive in Grantham in 1905 . Hornsby sold its patent a few years later to Benjamin Holt (founder of a predecessor company of Caterpillar ), who had also developed chain drives in parallel.
On November 27, 1914, during the First World War , the first female police force in Great Britain was deployed in Grantham. Two decades later, during World War II, Grantham was an important location for the arms industry. A Royal Air Force bomber squadron had also been stationed in Grantham since 1937 . The place was one of the goals of the German Air Force.
Margaret Thatcher was born in Grantham on October 13, 1925 . The future British Prime Minister lived there until 1944 and attended the "Kesteven and Grantham Girls Grammar School".
In 1974 the administrative counties of England were reorganized . The previous administrative county of Kesteven , of which Grantham had belonged since 1888, was dissolved and integrated into the county of Lincolnshire , which until then was only a ceremonial county .
economy
The importance of engineering and metalworking industries to Grantham declined in the second half of the 20th century. Today the food industry plays a major role.
With RAF Barkston Heath there is a British military base a few kilometers outside.
traffic
Grantham is on the A1 (north-south) and A52 (west-east) motorways. The closest motorway is the M1 Motorway , which runs approximately 25 miles west of Grantham.
Due to its location on the East Coast Main Line and branches towards Nottingham and Sleaford , the place is connected to the British rail network with frequent long-distance connections to London and Scotland as well as to the metropolitan areas of East England. In the passenger traffic Grantham is served by the railway companies Central Trains , Great North Eastern Railway and Hull Trains .
Town twinning
A town partnership between Grantham and Sankt Augustin in North Rhine-Westphalia has existed since 1980 .
Personalities
sons and daughters of the town
- Henry More (1614–1687), philosopher and poet
- Jessie Lipscomb (1861-1952), sculptor
- Charles Dixon (1873-1939), tennis player
- Syd Cain (1918–2011), film architect and storyboard designer
- Nicholas Parsons (1923-2020), actress and presenter
- Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013), politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
- Nicholas Maw (1935–2009), composer
- Barry Dagger (born 1937), marksman
- Vince Eager (* 1940), pop musician
- Roger Blandford (* 1949), astronomer and astrophysicist
- Timothy Grubb (1954-2010), show jumper
- Katie Colclough (born 1990), racing cyclist
- Patrick Bamford (born 1993), football player
- Amy Hunt (* 2002), sprinter
