and from 1841 to 1844 lord-lieutenant of Ireland. On his death without male issue his nephew, George Frederick Samuel Robinson, afterwards marquess of Ripon (q.v.), succeeded as Earl de Grey.
GRANTHAM, a municipal and parliamentary borough of
Lincolnshire, England; situated in a pleasant undulating
country on the river Witham. Pop. (1901) 17,593. It is an
important junction of the Great Northern railway, 105 m. N.
by W. from London, with branch lines to Nottingham, Lincoln
and Boston; while there is communication with Nottingham
and the Trent by the Grantham canal. The parish church of St
Wulfram is a splendid building, exhibiting all the Gothic styles,
but mainly Early English and Decorated. The massive and
ornate western tower and spire, about 280 ft. in height, are of
early Decorated workmanship. There is a double Decorated
crypt beneath the lady chapel. The north and south porches are
fine examples of a later period of the same style. The delicately
carved font is noteworthy. Two libraries, respectively of the
16th and 17th centuries, are preserved in the church. At the
King Edward VI. grammar school Sir Isaac Newton received
part of his education. A bronze statue commemorates him.
The late Perpendicular building is picturesque, and the school was
greatly enlarged in 1904. The Angel Hotel is a hostelry of the
15th century, with a gateway of earlier date. A conduit dating
from 1597 stands in the wide market-place. Modern public
buildings are a gild hall, exchange hall, and several churches
and chapels. The Queen Victoria Memorial home for nurses was
erected in 1902–1903. The chief industries are malting and the
manufacture of agricultural implements. Grantham returns one
member to parliament. The borough falls within the S. Kesteven
or Stamford division of the county. Grantham was created a
suffragan bishopric in the diocese of Lincoln in 1905. The
municipal borough is under a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12
councillors. Area, 1726 acres.
Although there is no authentic evidence of Roman occupation, Grantham (Graham, Granham in Domesday Book) from its situation on the Ermine Street, is supposed to have been a Roman station. It was possibly a borough in the Saxon period, and by the time of the Domesday Survey it was a royal borough with 111 burgesses. Charters of liberties existing now only in the confirmation charter of 1377 were granted by various kings. From the first the town was governed by a bailiff appointed by the lord of the manor, but by the end of the 14th century the office of alderman had come into existence. Finally government under a mayor and alderman was granted by Edward IV. in 1463, and Grantham became a corporate town. Among later charters, that of James II., given in 1685, changed the title to that of government by a mayor and 6 aldermen, but this was afterwards reversed and the old order resumed. Grantham was first represented in parliament in 1467, and returned two members; but by the Redistribution Act of 1885 the number was reduced to one. Richard III. in 1483 granted a Wednesday market and two fairs yearly, namely on the feast of St Nicholas the Bishop, and the two following days, and on Passion Sunday and the day following. At the present day the market is held on Saturday, and fairs are held on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday following the fifth Sunday in Lent; a cherry fair on the 11th of July and two stock fairs on the 26th of October and the 17th of December.
GRANTLEY, FLETCHER NORTON, 1st Baron (1716–1789), English politician, was the eldest son of Thomas Norton of Grantley, Yorkshire, where he was born on the 23rd of June 1716. He became a barrister in 1739, and, after a period of inactivity, obtained a large and profitable practice, becoming a K.C. in 1754, and afterwards attorney-general for the county palatine
of Lancaster. In 1756 he was elected member of parliament for Appleby; he represented Wigan from 1761 to 1768, and was appointed solicitor-general for England and knighted in 1762. He took part in the proceedings against John Wilkes, and, having become attorney-general in 1763, prosecuted the 5th Lord Byron for the murder of William Chaworth, losing his office when the marquess of Rockingham came into power in July 1765. In 1769, being now member of parliament for Guildford, Norton became a privy councillor and chief justice in eyre of the forests south of the Trent, and in 1770 was chosen Speaker of the House of Commons. In 1777, when presenting the bill for the increase of the civil list to the king, he told
George III. that parliament has “not only granted to your
majesty a large present supply, but also a very great additional
revenue; great beyond example; great beyond your majesty’s
highest expense.” This speech aroused general attention and
caused some irritation; but the Speaker was supported by Fox
and by the city of London, and received the thanks of the House
of Commons. George, however, did not forget these plain words,
and after the general election of 1780, the prime minister, Lord
North, and his followers declined to support the re-election of the
retiring Speaker, alleging that his health was not equal to the
duties of the office, and he was defeated when the voting took
place. In 1782 he was made a peer as Baron Grantley of
Markenfield. He died in London on the 1st of January 1789.
He was succeeded as Baron Grantley by his eldest son William
(1742–1822). Wraxall describes Norton as “a bold, able and
eloquent, but not a popular pleader,” and as Speaker he was
aggressive and indiscreet. Derided by satirists as “Sir Bullface
Doublefee,” and described by Horace Walpole as one who “rose
from obscure infamy to that infamous fame which will long stick
to him,” his character was also assailed by Junius, and the general
impression is that he was a hot-tempered, avaricious and unprincipled
man.
See H. Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III., edited by G. F. R. Barker (1894); Sir N. W. Wraxall, Historical and Posthumous Memoirs, edited by H. B. Wheatley (1884); and J. A. Manning, Lives of the Speakers (1850).
GRANTOWN, the capital of Speyside, Elginshire, Scotland.
Pop. (1901) 1568. It lies on the left bank of the Spey, 2314 m.
S. of Forres by the Highland railway, with a station on the Great
North of Scotland’s Speyside line connecting Craigellachie with
Boat of Garten. It was founded in 1776 by Sir James Grant of
Grant, and became the chief seat of that ancient family, who had
lived on their adjoining estate of Freuchie (Gaelic, fraochach,
“heathery”) since the beginning of the 15th century, and
hence were usually described as the lairds of Freuchie. The
public buildings include the town hall, court house and orphan
hospital; and the industries are mainly connected with the
cattle trade and the distilling of whisky. The town, built of grey
granite, presents a handsome appearance, and being delightfully
situated in the midst of the most beautiful pine and birch woods in Scotland, with pure air and a bracing climate, is an attractive resort. Castle Grant, immediately to the north, is the principal mansion of the earl of Seafield, the head of the Clan Grant. In a cave, still called “Lord Huntly’s Cave,” in a rocky glen in the vicinity, George, marquess of Huntly, lay hid during Montrose’s campaign in 1644–45.
GRANULITE (Lat. granulum, a little grain), a name used by petrographers to designate two distinct classes of rocks. According to the terminology of the French school it signifies a granite in which both kinds of mica (muscovite and biotite) occur, and corresponds to the German Granit, or to the English “muscovite biotite granite.” This application has not been accepted generally. To the German petrologists “granulite” means a more or less banded fine-grained metamorphic rock, consisting mainly of quartz and felspar in very small irregular crystals, and containing usually also a fair number of minute rounded pale-red garnets. Among English and American geologists the term is generally employed in this sense. The granulites are very closely allied to the gneisses, as they consist of nearly the same minerals, but they are finer grained, have usually less perfect foliation, are more frequently garnetiferous, and have some special features of microscopic structure. In the rocks of this group the minerals, as seen in a microscopic slide, occur as small rounded grains forming a mosaic closely fitted together. The individual crystals have never perfect form, and indeed rarely any traces of it. In some granulites they interlock, with irregular borders; in others they have been drawn out and
