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Grantham is a market and industrial town in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England, straddling the London–Edinburgh East Coast Main Line and the River Witham and bounded to the west by the A1 north–south trunk road. It lies some 23 miles (37 km) south of the county town, Lincoln, and 22 miles (35 km) east of Nottingham. The population in 2016 was put at 44,580. Grantham was the birthplace of the UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Isaac Newton was educated at the King's School. The town was the workplace of the UK's first warranted female police officer, Edith Smith in 1914. The UK's first running diesel engine was made there in 1892 and the first tractor in 1896. Thomas Paine worked there as an excise officer in the 1760s. Grantham was an ancient parish with its church dedicated to Saint Wulfram. Registers exist from 1562. A later church, dedicated to Saint John the Evangelist has registers from 1842. There was also a Wesleyan Methodist chapel and chapels of other denominations. (Source: GENUKI) In 1909 Grantham absorbed the civil parishes of Harrowby Within and Little Gonerby in their entirety. Other former townships and parishes (Manthorpe cum Little Gonerby, Sapperton, Spittlegate and Barrowby) have all been partially absorbed into the town. [edit] Research TipsLincolnshire is very low-lying and land had to be drained for agriculture to be successful. The larger drainage channels, many of which are parallel to each other, became boundaries between parishes. Many parishes are long and thin for this reason. There is much fenland in Lincolnshire, particularly in the Boston and Horncastle areas. Fenlands tended to be extraparochial before the mid 1850s, and although many sections were identified with names and given the title "civil parish", little information has been found about them. Many appear to be abolished in 1906, but the parish which adopts them is not given in A Vision of Britain through Time. Note the WR category Lincolnshire Fenland Settlements which is an attempt to organize them into one list. From 1889 until 1974 Lincolnshire was divided into three administrative counties: Parts of Holland, Parts of Kesteven and Parts of Lindsey. These formal names do not fit with modern grammatical usage, but that is what they were, nonetheless. In 1974 the northern section of Lindsey, along with the East Riding of Yorkshire, became the short-lived county of Humberside. In 1996 Humberside was abolished and the area previously in Lincolnshire was made into the two "unitary authorities" of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire. The remainder of Lincolnshire was divided into "non-metropolitan districts" or "district municipalities" in 1974. Towns, villages and parishes are all listed under Lincolnshire, but the present-day districts are also given so that places in this large county can more easily be located and linked to their wider neighbourhoods. See the WR placepage Lincolnshire, England and the smaller divisions for further explanation.
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