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“Gentlemen, I am,

“Yours

“Oliver Cromwell.”

It was six years after this that Isaac Newton went to school in Grantham. Since the Restoration, but for the pulling down of the market cross by Mr. John Manners in 1779, which he was compelled to put up again the following year, nothing of note happened at Grantham till the Great Northern Railway came and subsequently Hornsby’s great agricultural implement works arose.

PRICE OF VOTES

Grantham had been incorporated in 1463, and received the elective franchise four years later, in the reign of Edward IV., who more than once visited the town. The two families at Belvoir and Belton usually influenced the elections. But in 1802 their united interests were opposed by Sir William Manners, who had bought most of the houses in the borough. But the Duke of Rutland and Lord Brownlow won. There were then two members, and the historian makes the naïve statement, “previous to this election it had been customary for the voters to receive two guineas from each candidate; at this election the price rose to ten guineas.”