Family and Education

bap. 8 Oct. 1677, 2nd s. of Vincent Grantham of Goltho Hall by Margaret, da. of Sir Richard Fanshawe of Ware Park, Herts.  educ. ?Eton 1690.  m. Elizabeth, s.p.1

Offices Held

Freeman, Lincoln 1710, chamberlain 1715; trustee, rebuilding St. Peter-at-Arches, Lincoln 1719.2

Commr. forfeited estates [S] 1716–d.3

Biography

Grantham’s family had been Lincoln merchants in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, frequently holding municipal office and representing the city in Parliament. By the mid-16th century they had established themselves at Goltho, some ten miles away, but such prosperity had evidently ebbed by the Revolution, since Grantham’s father was forced to obtain a parliamentary Act in the 1691–2 session to lease part of that estate to settle portions and debts. Grantham’s return for Lincoln in 1710 almost certainly owed a great deal to Whig support, but contemporaries were unsure of his politics, he being classed as ‘doubtful’ in the ‘Hanover list’. His actions within the House did not help to dispel such confusion, for although he was listed as one of the ‘worthy patriots’ who in the first session detected the mismanagements of the previous administration, he voted on 7 Dec. 1711 with the Whigs in support of the motion of ‘No Peace without Spain’. He proved an inconspicuous Member, and the only references to him in the Journals concern two grants of absence on 5 Feb. 1711 and 3 Mar. 1712. Perhaps significantly, in July 1712 he did not join with fellow Member Thomas Lister in presenting the Lincoln address thanking the Queen for her promise to communicate peace terms. Unsuccessful against the Church party interest in 1713, he returned to Parliament in 1715 as a Whig, and, having been given assurances of preferment by Robert Walpole II*, was appointed the following year a commissioner for forfeited estates in Scotland. He was heavily defeated at Lincoln in 1722, and died on 28 Jan. 1723, leaving extensive Lincolnshire properties to his widow, with the remainder going to his brother Vincent.4

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Authors: Paula Watson / Perry Gauci

Notes

• 1. IGI, Lincs.; Lincs. Peds. (Harl. Soc. li), 424 [erroneously printed as Robert]; PCC 27 Richmond.
• 2. Lincs. Peds. 424.
• 3. Cal. Treas. Bks. xxxi. 83.
• 4. Lincs. Peds. 421–2; HMC Lords, iii. 453; London Gazette, 3–5 July 1712; Nottingham Univ. Lib. Mellish mss 144–83/38, 39, Grantham to Ld. Chief Justice Parker (Sir Thomas*), 17 Jan., 12 Oct. 1715; Hist. Reg. Chron. 1723, p. 9; PCC 27 Richmond.