Grantham Museum is located at St Peter's Hill, Grantham, Lincolnshire, England, in the building provided for it in 1926.
The building also previously housed the public library, and was partly funded by the Carnegie UK Trust which was continuing Andrew Carnegie's project of building libraries across the United Kingdom. Grantham's library is now in the Isaac Newton Centre, and the museum occupies the whole of the 1926 building.
The idea for the museum can be traced back to meetings of the Grantham Scientific society in the 1890s. [1] The basis of the collection is material provided by Henry Preston, the first Curator and Founder, and twentieth century additions included material about Sir Isaac Newton, Edith Smith, [2] and Margaret Thatcher. There is also material about the Dambusters Raid. [3] The museum hosts a variety of exhibitions during the year.
The museum is currently managed by the Grantham Community Heritage Association (GCHA). This charity was formed in 2011 to take over the management of the museum from Lincolnshire County Council with a view to reopening the facility for the Queen's Jubilee in June 2012.
In 2013, a few months before the death of Margaret Thatcher, the GCHA announced plans to raise funds to obtain a statue of the former prime minister. [4] [5] The statue was installed on St Peter's Hill Green, close to the museum, in 2022, on a 3.2-metre (10 ft) tall plinth to discourage vandalism. [6]
Sir Isaac Newton was an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author who was described in his time as a natural philosopher. He was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment that followed. His pioneering book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, first published in 1687, consolidated many previous results and established classical mechanics. Newton also made seminal contributions to optics, and shares credit with German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for developing infinitesimal calculus. He is considered one of the greatest and most influential scientists in history.
Lincolnshire is a ceremonial county in eastern England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to the north, the North Sea to the east, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire and Rutland to the south, and Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire to the west. The county town is Lincoln.
Grantham is a market and industrial town in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England, situated on the banks of the River Witham and bounded to the west by the A1 road. It lies some 23 miles (37 km) south of Lincoln and 22 miles (35 km) east of Nottingham. The population in 2016 was put at 44,580. The town is the largest settlement and the administrative centre of South Kesteven District.
The Parts of Kesteven are a traditional division of Lincolnshire, England. This division had long had a separate county administration, along with the two other Parts of Lincolnshire, Lindsey and Holland.
Grantham and Stamford is a constituency in Lincolnshire represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2019 by Gareth Davies, a Conservative.
Alfred Roberts was an English grocer, preacher, and local politician. He served as alderman of Grantham from 1943 to 1952 and mayor of Grantham from 1945 to 1946. His second daughter, Margaret, was the first female prime minister of the United Kingdom.
The King's School is a British grammar school with academy status, in the market town of Grantham, Lincolnshire, England. The school's history can be traced to 1329, and was re-endowed by Richard Foxe in 1528. Located on Brook Street, the school's site has expanded over the course of its history, with some school buildings dating back to 1497.
Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School (KGGS) is a grammar school with academy status for girls in Grantham, Lincolnshire, established in 1910. It has over 1000 pupils ranging from ages 11 to 18, and has its own sixth form.
Colsterworth is a village and civil parish in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England, less than half a mile (0.8 km) west of the A1, about 7 miles (11 km) south of Grantham, and 12 miles (19 km) north-west of Stamford. The village with the hamlet of Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth had a recorded population of 1,713 at the time of the 2011 census, in an area of 1,465 hectares.
Navenby is a village and civil parish in the North Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. Lying 8 miles (13 km) south from Lincoln and 9 miles (14 km) north-northwest from Sleaford, Navenby had a population of 2,128 in the 2011 census and in March 2011, it was named as the 'Best Value Village' in England following a national survey.
Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990. Her portrayal in the arts and popular culture has been mixed. In the words of one critic she attracted "musical opprobrium like no other British political leader". Such opinion is divergent from mainstream opinion polling which tends to place her as the most popular British prime minister since Winston Churchill.
Edith Smith was the first female police officer in the United Kingdom with full power of arrest.
A statue of Margaret Thatcher, the first female prime minister of the United Kingdom, stands in the Members' Lobby of the Houses of Parliament in London. It is a bronze sculpture of Margaret Thatcher, the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It was commissioned in 2003 following a change in rules to allow the depiction of living prime ministers in Parliament under certain conditions. The bronze statue, sculpted by Antony Dufort, was unveiled on 21 February 2007 by Michael Martin, Speaker of the House of Commons, with Thatcher in attendance.
Finkin Street Chapel is a Grade II listed building in Grantham, Lincolnshire. The Wesleyan Methodist chapel was built in 1840 and was the childhood church of Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Douglas Jennings MRSS is an English sculptor and a Member of the Royal Society of Sculptors.
Christopher Turnor MP, JP, DL, was an English Conservative Party politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1841 to 1847, and a promoter of Lincolnshire architecture.
The Dunfermline Carnegie Library opened in Dunfermline, Scotland, on 29 August 1883 and was the world's first Carnegie Library funded by the Scottish-American businessman and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. It was designed by Edinburgh architect James Campbell Walker who also designed the nearby Dunfermline City Chambers. Andrew Carnegie donated £8000 to building and stocking what would be the first of over 2,500 Carnegie Libraries. The library was made a Category B listed building in 1971.
Mahomet Thomas Phillips was an English-Congolese sculptor and stone carver. His work features in cathedrals and churches in England and beyond, including in a memorial to Edith Cavell in Peterborough Cathedral, and a reredos for the Cathedral of St John the Baptist in St John's, Newfoundland in Canada. He worked with a number of well known architects including Temple Moore, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and Sir Charles Nicholson.
Grantham Guildhall is a municipal building on St Peter's Hill, Grantham, Lincolnshire, England. It is a Grade II listed building.
A statue of Margaret Thatcher stands in her birthplace, the town of Grantham in Lincolnshire, England. The statue is 10 feet 6 inches (3.2 m) high, cast in bronze, and depicts the late British prime minister Baroness Thatcher, dressed in the full ceremonial robes of the House of Lords. It stands on a 10-foot-6-inch (3.2 m) plinth. Created by sculptor Douglas Jennings, and costing £300,000, it was erected on 15 May 2022, on St Peter's Hill Green, close to the Grantham Museum. Eggs were thrown at the statue within two hours of its installation, and a week later red paint was thrown at it. It was formally unveiled on 31 May.
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