Coordinates: 53°4′N 0°11′W / 53.067°N 0.183°W / 53.067; -0.183

Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire Flag Flag
Motto of County Council: Land and God
Geography
Status	Ceremonial and (smaller) non-metropolitan county
Region	East Midlands Yorkshire and the Humber (North Lincolnshire & North East Lincolnshire)
Area - Total - Admin. council - Admin. area	Ranked 2nd 6,959 km2 (2,687 sq mi) Ranked 4th 5,921 km2 (2,286 sq mi)
Admin HQ	Lincoln
ISO 3166-2	GB-LIN
ONS code	32
NUTS 3	UKF30
Demography
Population - Total (2010 est.) - Density - Admin. council - Admin. pop.	Ranked 18th 1,021,600 147 /km2 (380 /sq mi) Ranked 14th 703,000
Ethnicity	98.5% White
Politics
Lincolnshire County Council http://www.lincolnshire.gov.uk/
Executive	Conservative
Members of Parliament	Nicholas Boles (Con) Nic Dakin (Lab) John Henry Hayes (Con) Edward Leigh (Con) Karl McCartney (Con) Austin Mitchell (Lab) Andrew Percy (Con) Stephen Phillips (Con) Mark Simmonds (Con) Peter Tapsell (Con) Martin Vickers (Con)
Districts
Lincoln North Kesteven South Kesteven South Holland Boston East Lindsey West Lindsey North Lincolnshire (Unitary) North East Lincolnshire (Unitary)

Lincolnshire ( /ˈlɪŋkənʃə/ or /ˈlɪŋkənʃɪə/; abbreviated Lincs) is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the northwest, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders Northamptonshire in the south for just 20 yards (18 m), England's shortest county boundary.^[1] The county town is Lincoln, where the county council has its headquarters.

The ceremonial county of Lincolnshire is composed of the non-metropolitan county of Lincolnshire and the area covered by the unitary authorities of North Lincolnshire and North-East Lincolnshire. Therefore, part of the ceremonial county is in the Yorkshire and the Humber region, and part is in the East Midlands region. The county is the second largest of the English counties and one that is predominantly agricultural in land use. The county can be broken down into a number of geographical sub-regions including: the Lincolnshire Fens (south Lincolnshire), the Carrs (similar to the Fens but in north Lincolnshire), the Lincolnshire Wolds, and the industrial Humber Estuary and North Sea coast around Grimsby and Scunthorpe.

Lincolnshire has produced one Prime Minister: Margaret Thatcher.

History[link]

Part of 'The Bailgate'.The centre of the uphill area of Lincoln.

Lincolnshire derived from the merging of the territory of the ancient Kingdom of Lindsey with that controlled by the Danelaw borough of Stamford. For some time the entire county was called "Lindsey", and it is recorded as such in the Domesday Book. Later, Lindsey was applied to the northern core, around Lincoln, and emerged as one of the three Parts of Lincolnshire, along with the Parts of Holland in the south-east and the Parts of Kesteven in the south-west, which each had separate Quarter Sessions as their county administrations.

In 1888 when county councils were set up, Lindsey, Holland and Kesteven each received their own separate one. These survived until 1974, when Holland, Kesteven, and most of Lindsey were unified into Lincolnshire, and the northern part, including Scunthorpe Municipal Borough and Grimsby County Borough, was incorporated into the newly formed non-metropolitan county of Humberside, along with most of the East Riding of Yorkshire.

A further local government reform in 1996 abolished Humberside, and the land south of the Humber was allocated to the unitary authorities of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire. These two areas became part of Lincolnshire for ceremonial purposes such as the Lord-Lieutenancy, but are not covered by the Lincolnshire police and are in the Yorkshire and the Humber region.

The remaining districts of Lincolnshire are Boston, East Lindsey, Lincoln, South Holland, North Kesteven, South Kesteven, and West Lindsey. They are part of the East Midlands region.

A more recent event was the 27 February 2008 Lincolnshire earthquake, reaching between 4.7 and 5.3 on the Richter scale; it was one of the largest earthquakes to affect Britain in recent years.

• 

  Belton House

• 

  Boston Stump

• 

  Gainsborough Old Hall

• 

  Harlaxton Manor

• 

  Normanby Hall

• 

  Tattershall Castle

• 

  Thornton Abbey

• 

  Burghley House

Economy[link]

This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of Lincolnshire at current basic prices published (pp. 240–253) by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.

^a Components may not sum to totals due to rounding

^b includes hunting and forestry

^c includes energy and construction

^d includes financial intermediation services indirectly measured

Agriculture[link]

Farmland in Lincolnshire.

Lincolnshire is an agricultural area, growing large amounts of wheat, barley, sugar beet, and oilseed rape. In South Lincolnshire, where the soil is particularly rich in nutrients, some of the most common crops include cabbages, cauliflowers, and onions.

Mechanisation around the turn of the 20th century greatly diminished the number of workers required to operate the county's relatively large farms, and the proportion of workers in the agricultural sector dropped substantially during this period. Several major engineering companies developed in Lincoln, Gainsborough and Grantham to support those changes, perhaps most famously Fosters of Lincoln, who built the first tank, and Richard Hornsby & Sons of Grantham. Most such companies are long gone, and Lincolnshire is no longer an engineering centre.

Today, immigrant workers mainly from new member states of the European Union in Central and Eastern Europe comprise a very large component of the seasonal agricultural workforce, particularly in the south of the county where more labour-intensive crops such as small vegetables and cut flowers are typically grown. This seasonal influx of migrant labour occasionally causes tension between the migrant workforce and local people, in a county which is still relatively unaccustomed to the large-scale immigration experienced by other parts of the United Kingdom. However as a result of the current economic climate some food production facilities have closed down, this has caused some reduction in the levels of migrant workers. The large number of people from Portugal is still very obvious in the town of Boston, and in Grantham the large number of Polish workers is still very apparent.^[2][3]

Services and retail[link]

According to an IGGI study in 2000,^[4] the town centres were ranked by area thus (including North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire areas):

• Lincoln
• Grantham
• Grimsby
• Boston and Scunthorpe (equal)
• Spalding
• Stamford
• Skegness
• Louth
• Sleaford
• Gainsborough
• Brigg
• Cleethorpes
• Bourne
• Horncastle and Mablethorpe (equal)

Public services[link]

Education[link]

Lincolnshire is one of the few counties within the UK that still uses the Eleven plus to decide who may attend grammar school. As a result, many towns in Lincolnshire have both a grammar school and a secondary modern school. Lincolnshire's rural character means that some larger villages also have primary schools and are served by buses to nearby high schools.

Lincoln itself, however, is primarily non-selective, as is the area within a radius of about seven miles. Within this area, almost all children attend comprehensive schools, though it is still possible to opt into the Eleven plus system. This gives rise to the unusual result that those who pass the Eleven plus can attend a Grammar School outside the Lincoln Comprehensive area, but those who do not pass still attend a non-selective Comprehensive school.

Transport[link]

The Humber Bridge connecting North Lincolnshire to the East Riding of Yorkshire

Being on the economic periphery of England, Lincolnshire's transport links are poorly developed compared with many other parts of the United Kingdom. The road network within the county is dominated by single carriageway A roads and local roads (B roads) as opposed to motorways and dual carriageways – the administrative county of Lincolnshire is one of the few UK counties without a motorway, and until several years ago, it was said that there was only about 35 km (22 mi) of dual carriageway in the whole of Lincolnshire. The M180 motorway passes through North Lincolnshire, splitting into two dual-carriageway trunk roads to the Humber Bridge and Grimsby, and the A46 is now dual carriageway between Newark and Lincoln.

The low population density of the county means that the number of railway stations and train services is very low in comparison to the county's large area. Many of the county's railway stations were permanently closed following the Beeching Report of 1963. The most notable re-opening has been the line and two stations between Lincoln and Sleaford which re-opened within months of the Beeching closure. Most other closed lines within the county were long ago lifted and much of the trackbed has returned to agricultural use.

A daily through train service operated between Cleethorpes and London King’s Cross via Grimsby, Market Rasen and Lincoln until the late 1980s. The Humberlincs Executive as the service was known was operated by a HST125 unit but was discontinued following the electrification of the East Coast Main Line. Passengers now have to change trains at Newark when travelling to and from London. However, the East Coast Main Line passes through the county and one can catch direct trains to London from Grantham.

A rural road in Lincolnshire

The rural B1397 in Gosberton Fen heading out towards the Bourne area

A proposed 2 hourly service promised by National Express East Coast (who lost the franchise on 13 November 2009) between Lincoln and Kings Cross has yet to start running, though was promised to start running by 2010.

Most rail services are currently provided by East Midlands Trains and Northern Rail. East Coast and Cross Country Trains have services which pass through the county, with East coast trains frequently passing and stopping at Grantham on the East Coast mainline and a daily return train to Lincoln which is at the end of the branch line, while Cross country trains stop at Stamford on their way between Birmingham and Stanstead Airport. Stations along the Humber are served by First Transpennine Express services between Manchester Airport and Cleethorpes. Lincolnshire boasts one of the most infrequent services in the UK. Services on the Sheffield-Gainsborough Central-Cleethorpes line sees trains only on a Saturday with three trains in both directions. This line is, however, used for freight. Calls have been made to re-introduce an hourly service on the line.

As of 22 May 2011 East Coast have started running a Lincoln-London service. One train travels both ways each day, and a north bound service is there on a Sunday. East Midlands Trains also run a daily (Mon-Sat) service each way between Lincoln and London St Pancras, though the service is more a stopping service and takes around 3 hours via Nottingham, compared to East Coast's service to London Kings Cross which takes around 1h 50 minutes.

The only airport in Lincolnshire is Humberside Airport, near Brigg. While small, it serves all of Lincolnshire. Robin Hood Airport near Doncaster is within travelling distance of much of Lincolnshire and provide a wider range of flights.

The county's biggest bus companies are Stagecoach Grimsby-Cleethorpes (formerly Grimsby-Cleethorpes Transport) and Stagecoach in Lincolnshire, (formerly Lincolnshire Road Car). Several other small companies also operate including Delaine of Bourne and Hornsby's of Scunthorpe.^[5]

A Sustrans cycle route runs from Lincoln to Boston in the South of the county.^[6]

Health care[link]

The United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust is one of the largest trusts in the country, employing almost 4,000 staff and with an annual budget of over £200 million. The north of the county is served by the Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

Lincolnshire shares the problems of elsewhere in the country when it comes to finding an NHS dentist, with waiting lists of eight months not uncommon.

Some of the larger hospitals in the county include:

• Diana Princess of Wales Hospital, Grimsby
• Scunthorpe General Hospital
• Boston Pilgrim Hospital
• Lincoln County Hospital

Since April 1994, Lincolnshire has had an Air Ambulance service.^[7] The air ambulance is stationed at RAF Waddington near Lincoln and can reach emergencies in Lincolnshire within 25 minutes. An A&E hospital is only 10 minutes away by helicopter from any accident in Lincolnshire.

Drainage[link]

Separately to the commercial water companies the low-lying parts of the county are drained by various internal drainage boards, such as the Black Sluice Internal Drainage Board,Witham 4th District IDB, Lindsey Marsh Drainage Board, or the Welland and Deepings Internal Drainage Board.^[8]

Politics[link]

Westminster Parliamentary[link]

Lincolnshire’s non-metropolitan county Parliamentary constituency results map from the 2010 UK General Election with all seven constituencies held by the Conservative Party

Humberside Parliamentary constituency results map from the 2010 UK General Election showing results from both North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire with the Conservatives holding two seats and Labour also holding two seats

The Conservative Party won 9 seats in the 2010 general election and clearly became the largest party in Lincolnshire, considerably increasing their vote share at the expense of Labour, the most high profile casualty being Gillian Merron who lost her long serving Lincoln constituency.

Lincolnshire County Council[link]

2009 Lincolnshire County Council Election Results Map showing the Conservatives as the dominating political party within the county.(North Lincolnshire & North East Lincolnshire are unitary authorities and do not form part of the non-metropolitan Lincolnshire)

The Conservative Party comfortably controls the County Council, following the 2009 local elections in which they increased their majority to 43 seats. The Labour Party lost a total of 15 seats including 7 in Lincoln, whilst the Liberal Democrats lost three. The Lincolnshire Independents Party gained a total of four seats, although one of their number moved to the Conservative group during 2010, increasing the number of Conservative seats to 61. The collective group of the Lincolnshire Independents, the Boston Bypass Party and other independent councillors form the opposition for the four year term.

2011 AV Referendum[link]

The AV referendum was the first to be held within Lincolnshire since the 1975 EC referendum and was only the second time ever that the people of Lincolnshire have been asked to vote in a referendum. The referendum asked voters whether to replace the present "first-past-the-post" (simple plurality) system with the "alternative vote" (AV) method for electing MPs to the House of Commons in future general elections. The proposal to introduce AV was overwhelmingly rejected by voters with all eight counting areas within Lincolnshire returning missive “no” votes.

The seven shire-districts, and two unitary authorities within Lincolnshire were used as the Counting Areas.

Towns and villages[link]

The Norman West Front of Lincoln Cathedral

Map of civil parishes within Lincolnshire

The non-metropolitan county of Lincolnshire is characterised by the absence of any major urban areas, apart from the areas in and around Lincoln and Boston. However, the Skegness, Ingoldmells and Chapel St Leonards areas (and to a lesser extent the Sutton-on-Sea and Mablethorpe areas) along the Lincolnshire Coast are becoming increasingly urbanised as people holiday at large caravan sites during the summer months. These holidaymakers are not reflected in census or local population figures, though it is estimated that during the height of the summer months there are over 100,000 such people residing in these areas along the Lincolnshire Coast. This has an appreciable impact on the local infrastructure and amenities.

The principal settlements and their populations are: Lincoln (85,595),^[9] Boston (55,750),^[10] Grantham (33,243),^[11] Spalding (30,000),^[11] Gainsborough (20,110), Skegness (18,910), Stamford (17,492),^[11] Louth (17,000), Bourne (11,933), Mablethorpe (11,700), North Hykeham (11,538), Sleaford (10,388),^[11] Holbeach (9,448), Deeping St. James (6,923), Market Deeping (6,200), Horncastle (6,090), Waddington (6,086), Long Sutton (5,037), Sutton Bridge (3,936), Ingoldmells (3,888), Saxilby (3,660), Woodhall Spa (3,657), Crowland (3,607), Coningsby (3,238), Market Rasen (3,230), Heckington (3,069), Alford (2,700), Caistor (2,601), and Spilsby (2,336). Other places of interest include Ancaster, Corby Glen, Belmont, Donington, Billingborough, Chapel St Leonards, Sutton-on-Sea, Wainfleet All Saints and Donna Nook. Many of the towns in the county continue to hold a weekly market, a centuries-old tradition reinvigorated recently by the growth of farmers' markets.

Most of the urbanised area of Lincolnshire is on the Humber estuary, where two unitary authorities are located:

• North East Lincolnshire, where the two towns of Great Grimsby (87,574)^[10] and Cleethorpes (34,907) have become one large conurbation, and between them have a population of over 120,000: the largest single settlement in the whole of the ceremonial county of Lincolnshire. The next largest town is Immingham (12,200) followed by Scartho (9,380), Waltham (6,425), Humberston (5,375) and New Waltham (4,557)
• North Lincolnshire has the larger area of the two unitary authority areas and it includes Scunthorpe (75,514) (including Bottesford).^[11] The next largest town is Barton-upon-Humber (9,334), followed by Brigg (5,076), Winterton (4,729), Crowle (4,090), Epworth (3,734), Kirton in Lindsey (2,964) and Barrow upon Humber (2,745).

For a full list of Lincolnshire towns and villages see the List of places in Lincolnshire page.

Coastal tourism[link]

The centre of Skegness, showing the clock tower and the “Jolly Fisherman“ sculpture/fountain.

Seafront and beach at Cleethorpes

Ingoldmells beach

Beach Huts and Padding Pool at Sutton-on-Sea

Chapel St Leonards

The majority of tourism in Lincolnshire relies on the coastal resorts and towns which lie to the east of the Lincolnshire Wolds. The county is home to some of the most well known seaside resorts within the United Kingdom and is a major attraction to visitors from across England, especially the East Midlands and parts of Yorkshire. There are three main coastal resorts within Lincolnshire along with a number of smaller village resorts.

The main county seaside resort of Skegness with its famous Jolly Fisherman mascot and famous slogan “Skegness is so bracing” with its neighbouring large village coastal resorts of Ingoldmells and Chapel St. Leonards provides the biggest concatenation of resorts along the Lincolnshire Coast due to their close proximity of each other and due to the number of large caravan and holiday sites. The resorts offers many amusements, leisure activities and beaches and retail shopping and is home to Butlins Skegness, Fantasy Island, Church Farm Museum, Natureland Seal Sanctuary, Skegness Stadium, Skegness Pier and several well known local golf courses as well as good road, bus and rail links to the rest of the county.

The second largest concatenation of resorts along the coast is the small seaside town of Mablethorpe, famous for its golden sands and its neighbouring village resorts of Trusthorpe and Sutton-on-Sea, these areas also offer leisure activities and is also home to large caravan and holiday sites although the area is less developed with fewer amusement arcades and nightclubs and poorer road links to the rest of the county although the area offers a more traditional seaside setting.

The third concatenation of resorts is the seaside town of Cleethorpes and the large village resort of Humberston within North East Lincolnshire and is home to Pleasure Island Family Theme Park, Cleethorpes Coast Light Railway and Cleethorpes Pier along with its local golf courses and caravan and holiday sites are a major attraction to visitors from the north of the county and across the north of England.

Nature is an attraction for many tourists: the south-east of the county is mainly fenland that attracts many species of birds, as do the nature reserves at Gibraltar Point, Saltfleetby and Theddlethorpe. The reserve at Donna Nook also has a native seal colony popular with nature lovers.

The market towns of the Lincolnshire Wolds, Louth, Alford, Horncastle, Caistor and Spilsby are also attractive, with several having historic links. The wolds are quite popular for cycling and walking, with regular events such as the Lincolnshire Wolds Walking Festival.

Culture[link]

A view up 'Steep Hill' towards the historic quarter of Bailgate in Lincoln

Lincolnshire is a rural area where the pace of life is generally much slower than in much of the United Kingdom. Sunday is still largely a day of rest, with only shops in Lincoln, larger market towns, and resorts and industrial towns of the North Sea coast generally remaining open. Some towns and villages in the county still observe half-day closing on Thursdays. Due to the large distances between the towns, many villages have remained very self-contained, with many still having shops, pubs, local halls and local chapels and churches, offering a variety of social activities for residents. Fishing (in the extensive river and drainage system in the fens) and shooting are popular activities.

Lincolnshire's unofficial county anthem is the Lincolnshire Poacher.

A Lincolnshire tradition is that front doors are used for only three things: a new baby, a bride, and a coffin.^[12]

People[link]

Lincolnshire is relatively unusual in the composition of its population, being one of the least ethnically diverse counties of the United Kingdom (98.5% of the population describe themselves as "white"). Over recent years inward migration by people from ethnic minority communities has increased (particularly to population centres such as Lincoln and Boston) but the absolute number of non-white Lincolnshire residents remains very low.

Recently, the county has also witnessed a growing trend towards immigration of retired people from other parts of the United Kingdom, particularly those from the southern counties of England attracted by the generally lower property prices and the slower and more relaxed pace of life. The relatively high proportion of elderly and retired people is reflected in many of the services, activities and events. Sleaford is considered one of the fastest growing towns in the East Midlands, with many professional people moving there to benefit from (relatively) low house prices, average crime rate and the selective education offered.

Those born in Lincolnshire are sometimes given the nickname of Yellowbellies (often spelt "Yeller Bellies", to reflect the pronunciation of the phrase by the typical Lincolnshire farmer). The origin of this term is debated, but is most commonly believed to derive from the uniforms of the 10th Regiment of Foot (later the Lincolnshire Regiment) who wore a very bright yellow waistcoat for identification on the battle field. For this reason, the coat of arms of Lincolnshire County Council is supported by two officers of the regiment.^[13]

Notable people[link]

Lincolnshire has many notable people associated with it, as

Margaret Thatcher

Sir Isaac Newton

John Wesley

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Captain John Smith

William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley

Jim Broadbent

Jennifer Saunders

Robert Webb

Michael Foale

Samantha Cameron

• Guthlac of Crowland
• Hereward the Wake
• Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln
• Bishops of Lincoln Hugh of Lincoln and Robert Grosseteste
• Eleanor of Castile
• Katherine Swynford
• King Henry IV of England
• Composer William Byrd
• Chief Advisor to Queen Elizabeth I William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley
• Scientist Sir Isaac Newton
• Havelok the Dane
• Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin
• Botanist and plant collector Joseph Banks
• Navigator and cartographer Matthew Flinders
• Geographer Halford Mackinder
• Explorer of Australia George Bass
• Mathematician George Boole
• One of the Founding Fathers of the United States, Thomas Paine, who was appointed as a Grantham-based excise officer in December 1762.
• Chronometer innovator John Harrison
• Antiquarian William Stukeley
• Artists Frank Bramley and Peter De Wint
• Journalist Herbert Ingram
• Poets Alfred Lord Tennyson, Jean Ingelow, Anne Bradstreet and Elizabeth Jennings
• Bishop and founder of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, Richard Foxe
• Protestant martyr Anne Askew
• Founder of the Baptist denomination John Smyth (Baptist minister)
• Archbishop of Canterbury John Whitgift
• Translator on the Committee for The King James Bible Robert Tighe
• Author of "Foxe's Book of Martyrs" John Foxe
• Puritan John Cotton
• Founders of the Methodist movement John Wesley and Charles Wesley.
• Preacher Samuel Eyles Pierce
• Theologian and Methodist writer Richard Watson
• Bible commentator and co-founder of Church Missionary Society Thomas Scott (commentator)
• Leader of the settlement Jamestown, Virginia, Captain John Smith
• Actor Neil McCarthy
• Actresses Madge Kendal and Sybil Thorndike
• A part of the Music Hall Act Old Mother Riley, Arthur Lucan
• Railway administrator Frank Pick
• "The Acid Bath Murderer" John George Haigh
• Businesswoman and Welsh language translator Lady Charlotte Guest
• Inventor of Crucible Steel Benjamin Huntsman
• Tenor Alfred Piccaver
• Field Marshal William Robertson
• Founder of "The Samaritans" Chad Varah
• Industrialists Joseph Ruston and William Tritton
• R.A.F personnel Douglas Bader, Leslie Manser, Frank Whittle, Guy Gibson
• Victoria Cross recipient Harold Jackson (VC)
• Founder of Royal College of Nursing Sarah Swift
• Historian Francis Hill
• Lincoln City F.C. Manager Keith Alexander

Present day figures include

• Actors Thomas Turgoose, Jim Broadbent, Jonathan Kerrigan and Neil McCarthy
• Actresses Patricia Hodge, Joan Plowright, Liz Smith, Kelly Adams and Sheridan Smith
• Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
• Actress and comedienne Jennifer Saunders
• Radio and TV presenter Nicholas Parsons
• Crime writer Colin Dexter
• Astronaut Michael Foale
• Songwriters Bernie Taupin and Rod Temperton
• Military historian and author Bruce Barrymore Halpenny
• Actor and comedian Robert Webb
• Actor and geologist Nick Schofield
• Musicians Jane Taylor and Neville Marriner
• Golfer Tony Jacklin
• Shotputter Geoff Capes
• Swimmers Paul Palmer and Kate Haywood
• Footballers Lee Chapman and Paul Mayo
• Cricketer Luke Wright
• Fashion designer Antonio Berardi
• Glamour model Abi Titmuss
• Motorcycle racer and television presenter Guy Martin
• Business executive and wife of British Prime Minister, Samantha Cameron
• Newsreader and journalist Helen Fospero

Language[link]

The accent and dialect words of Lincolnshire are little known outside the county, especially compared with more familiar accents, e.g. Geordie and Cockney. The effects of modern media, education, and immigration to the county have substantially diluted the traditional accent, and many dialect words have been lost over recent years. However, the accent exists, and a native "Yeller Belly" will still pick out a Lincolnshire speaker, possibly even being able to distinguish where in the county the speaker is from. The northern residents of Lindsey tend towards a Yorkshire-like dialect, as do people from Lincoln. People from Grimsby and Cleethorpes have an accent of their own, rather than similar to that of Hull, though both bear some resemblance in sound to Liverpool Scouse. The accent of the south-east of the county (Holland and the Fens) is more similar to that of East Anglia, notably north Cambridgeshire and north Norfolk (though not "deepest" Norfolk, which is different), yet Grantham and Stamford, though very close geographically, are famed for having a rather "posh" accent, at least among the middle-class, Stamford having in fact been determined to have the accent closest to the Queen's English. That leaves the East Lindsey area from the Wolds to the coast, in which the "truest" Lincolnshire accent is present. Elements of this remain widespread in that area among old and young alike, while certain individual speakers – especially of older generations – have full mastery of this quite specific tongue.

In common with most other Northern and Midlands dialects in England, "flat" a is preferred, i.e. /ˈbæθ/ over /ˈbɑːθ/, and also in words like water, pronounced /ˈwætər/ watter (though such a pronunciation is rarely heard nowadays). Similarly, /ʌ/ is usually replaced by /ʊ/. Features rather more confined to Lincolnshire include:

• Elaboration of standard English /eɪ/ or /iː/ into a complex triphthong approximating, and often transcribed -air- or -yair-. For example: "mate" [m(j)ɛːət]; "beast" [b(j)ɛːəst]; "tates" (potatoes) [t(j)ɛːəts].
• An equivalent elaboration of standard English /oʊ/ – commonly [oː] in Northern England – into -ooa-. For example "boat" [bʊːət].
• Insertion of an extra schwa into the standard English diphthong /aʊ/.
• Vocabulary: "duck" as a term of endearment or informal address, "mardy" meaning upset or angry, "mowt" (pronounced like mout) for might,"while" as a substitute for standard English "until", "frit" meaning frightened, "grufty" meaning dirty or disgusting, and the inimitable salutation "now then!?" (hello), sometimes written nairn to reflect pronunciation, but often drawn out into a sing-song nyEEEAaairn-myeeeaaairt!!! in the mouth of the more rural and traditional speaker.
• In the north east of the county, around Grimsby and Immingham, the nurse-square merger can be heard, as is also the case along the east coast of Yorkshire and coincidentally also in Liverpool. Words that take /ɜː/ in RP take /ɛː/ in these areas.

Lincolnshire has its own dialect "champion", a farmer from the village of Minting called Farmer Wink (real name Robert Carlton), who has produced videos about rural life, narrated in his broad Lincolnshire accent, and who has a regular slot on BBC Radio Lincolnshire. A resident of Woodhall Spa, ironically one of the Lincolnshire settlements least aligned to the county's architectural style, has published a dictionary of words once prevalent in parts of the county.^[14]

Music[link]

Lincolnshire was historically associated with the Lincolnshire bagpipe, an instrument derided as a coarse and unpleasant instrument in contemporary literature, but noted as very popular in the county. The last player, John Hunsley of Middle Manton,^[15] died in 1851,^[16] and since then the instrument has been extinct.

In 1937, Percy Grainger wrote his Lincolnshire Posy for wind band. The piece is a compilation of folksongs "musical wildflowers" collected by the composer in and around the county of Lincolnshire.

Food[link]

Lincolnshire has a number of local dishes:

• Stuffed chine – this is salted neck-chine of a pig taken from between the shoulder blades, salted for up to ten months and stuffed with parsley stuffing (other ingredients are normally kept secret), and served cold.
• haslet – a type of pork loaf, also flavoured with sage (pronounced HAYSS-let in Lincolnshire but HAZ-let in many other parts of the country).
• Lincolnshire pork sausages – most butchers in Lincolnshire have their own secret recipe for these and a competition is held each year to judge the best sausages in the county. Traditional Lincolnshire sausage's are made entirely from minced pork, stale bread crumb (rusk is used nowadays) pepper, sage and salt. The skins should be natural casings which are made from the intestines of either sheep or pig.
• Pork pies – the same pork butchers will take a pride in their unique recipe for pork pies.
• Plum bread – as with plum pudding, plum refers to dried fruit, namely currants, raisins and sultanas, sometimes soaked in tea.
• Grantham Gingerbread – a hard white ginger biscuit.
• Lincolnshire Poacher cheese – cheddar cheese produced in Alford. Lincolnshire Poacher has won numerous awards over the years including Supreme Champion at the 1996/7 British Cheese Awards and Best British Cheese at the World Cheese awards in 2001/2. There have also been several Gold Medals at the British Cheese Awards, including 2003/4 for both Lincolnshire Poacher and Smoked Lincolnshire Poacher. In October 2006, Lincolnshire Poacher was awarded Best Export Cheese at the British Cheese Awards, and most recently at the 2009/10 awards were awarded Best Modern British Cheese (for Lincolnshire Poacher) and Best Flavour Added Cheese (for Smoked Poacher).
• Batemans ales – a beer brewed in Wainfleet and served in many pubs, such as Willoughby Arms in Little Bytham, in the county and further afield.
• There are several small breweries, such as Newby Wyke Brewery.
• Grimsby is renowned for its fishing industry, and historically Grimsby Fish has carried a premium price. Since the decline of the fishing industry following entry to the European Economic Community in the 1970s this is no longer the case, with the majority of fish sold at the town's fish market being brought overland from other ports. However Grimsby Fish is still a recognised product, one associated with a particular area that specialises in and has expertise in a particular trade (cf Sheffield steel). In 2009 smoked fish from the town was granted Protected Geographical Indication by the European Union, reflecting the unique smoking methods used by certain local fish companies.^[17]

Events[link]

Every year the Lincolnshire Agricultural Society, founded in 1869, stages the Lincolnshire Agricultural Show.^[18] It is held on the Wednesday and Thursday of the last whole week of June at its showground at Grange de Lings, a few miles north of Lincoln on the A15. The show was first held here in 1958. First held around the year 1884, it is one of the largest agricultural shows in the country, and is attended by around 100,000 people over its two days. The showground is in regular use throughout the year for a wide range of other events and functions.

Smaller local agricultural shows, such as the Deeping Show^[19] or the Heckington Show^[20] can still be found. Corby Glen sheep fair^[21] has been held every year since 1238.

The Red Arrows, based at RAF Scampton near Lincoln^[22] are a popular attraction at the Waddington Air Show

Each year RAF Waddington is the home to the RAF Waddington Air Show. The two day event attracts around 40,000 people and usually takes place during the last weekend of June.

On the Monday before Easter, an unusual auction takes place in Bourne to let the grazing rights of the Whitebread Meadow.^[23] Bidding takes place while two boys race toward the Queen's Bridge in Eastgate, the end of which dash is equivalent to the falling of the gavel. The whole affair dates back to the 1742 will of William Clay.

The Haxey Hood village competition takes place every January, as it has for over 700 years.

Stamford Mid-Lent fair sees showmen converge on the town the week after Mothering Sunday, with rides and sideshows filling Broad Street, the Sheepmarket and the Meadows for a week. Stalls selling Grantham gingerbread and nougat are a traditional feature. The following week sees them in Grantham, on the way North for the Summer. Roger Tuby brings a small funfair to Bourne and then to Spalding in Spring and returns in Autumn at the end of the season.

The villages of Tetford and Salmonby hold an annual Scarecrow Festival in May every year.

The Belchford Downhill Challenge which is held every two years: soapbox racers race down the hill at up to 30 km/h. The turnout has been up to 1,000.

In recent years Lincoln Christmas Market, a street market throughout historic area of the city, has been held at the start of December. Around the same time Christmas lights are turned on in Bourne, Sleaford, Skegness, and other towns.

Throughout the summer the Stamford Shakespeare Company^[24] presents the Bard's plays in the open air theatre at Tolethorpe Hall, which is actually in Rutland.

The Spalding Flower Parade is held in late spring every year. Colourful floats decorated with tulip heads compete for a cup. The tradition was started in 1959, and draws coach tours from across Britain. There was talk of 2008 being the last parade, but a smaller event planned for 2009^[25] may set the pattern for future years.

Sport[link]

The main sports played in the county are football, cricket and rugby union. Lincolnshire does not have high sporting profile, mainly due to the lack of facilities. Probably the most well known sporting venue in Lincolnshire is Cadwell Park near Louth, where a round of the British Motorbike Championship is held on the last Monday of August every year.

• One team from Lincolnshire plays in the Football League: Scunthorpe United play in Football League One. In non-league football both Lincoln City and Grimsby Town play in the Conference National, whilst Boston United and Gainsborough Trinity play in the Conference North Division.
• In cricket Lincolnshire are a minor county and play in the Minor Counties Championship.^[26]
• There is no major rugby union team from Lincolnshire; however the sport is played in many schools throughout the county.
• Lincolnshire is home to one racecourse, at Market Rasen.
• Cadwell Park is the only motor racing course in Lincolnshire. There is a speedway track in Scunthorpe, home of the Scorpions, and stock-car racing at a stadium at Orby, near Skegness.
• Lincolnshire is home to the UK roller derby team the Lincolnshire Bombers Roller Girls, who are sponsored by Motorhead.^[27]

Symbols[link]

The unofficial anthem of the county is the traditional folk song, "The Lincolnshire Poacher", which dates from around 1776. A version of the song was the theme to BBC Radio Lincolnshire for many years.

According to a 2002 marketing campaign by the charity Plantlife, the county flower of Lincolnshire is the Common Dog-violet.

In August 2005, BBC Radio Lincolnshire and Lincolnshire Life magazine launched a vote for a flag to represent the county. Six competing designs were voted upon by locals. The winning submission was unveiled in October 2005.^[28][29] Lincoln has its own flag – St George's flag with a Fleur-de-Lys.

The Lincoln Imp has symbolised Cathedral, City, and county for many years. In 2006 it was replaced as the brand of Lincolnshire County Council by the stylised version seen on the header here [1] which has lost even the unique pose of the carving.

Press[link]

The county is home to two daily newspapers, and one weekly. The Lincolnshire Echo is published weekly from Lincoln and covers the majority of the county, reaching as far north as Louth.

The Grimsby Telegraph, as the name suggests, is published in the town and its circulation area ostensibly covers North East Lincolnshire, although it reaches as far south as Louth and Alford and as west as Brigg. Its sister title is the Scunthorpe Telegraph and covers North Lincolnshire. All three are ultimately owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust.

There are also a number of weekly papers serving individual towns published in the county by Johnston Press. One of these, the Stamford Mercury claims to be Britain's oldest newspaper, although it is now a typical local weekly and no longer covers stories from the whole East Midlands as the archived copies did.

Television[link]

With the exception of a small area to the south-west of the county,^[30] Lincolnshire is served from the Belmont transmitter,^[31] receiving programmes from ITV1 Yorkshire and BBC One Yorkshire and Lincolnshire regions.

The BBC has, since 2003, provided the area with its twelfth regional service: BBC Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, carrying a local "Look North" news programme from the main studio in Hull, with input from other studios in Lincoln and Grimsby.

ITV provides coverage through its evening news programme "Calendar". Until late 2008 the station provided a separate edition for the Belmont transmitter (although it was still broadcast from Leeds). From January 2009 the area is now covered by a programme that covers the entire ITV Yorkshire region.

From 1959 to July 1974 ITV programmes were provided by Anglia Television (although some coverage could be received from the Manchester-based Granada and ABC Weekend). Based in Norwich the company had news offices in Grimsby.^[32] Following a transmitter change ITV services were provided by Yorkshire Television. This company kept open the offices in Grimsby and opened further facilities in Lincoln, although both of these closed in the mid-1990s.

South-West Lincolnshire receives BBC East Midlands and ITV Central which are broadcast from the Waltham on The Wolds Transmitting Station. Although subject to co-channel interference from the Waltham transmitter, a small number of households in the southern tip of the county^[33] are able to receive regional programming from BBC East and ITV Anglia.

Radio[link]

The area is covered by several local radio stations including:

• BBC Lincolnshire Can be heard throughout historic Lincolnshire although its broadcast remit is the present county of Lincolnshire
• BBC Radio Humberside The counties of northern Lincolnshire that were formerly known as South Humberside
• Boundary Sound Newark
• Compass FM Grimsby, Cleethorpes and Immingham
• Heart Peterborough and South Lincolnshire
• Lincs FM Historic Lincolnshire
• Gravity FM Grantham
• Siren FM Lincoln
• Endeavour FM (formerly Stump Radio) Boston
• Endeavour Radio Boston
• Tulip Radio Spalding and South Holland
• Viking FM Northern Lincolnshire and the East Yorkshire, formerly the constituent areas of Humberside

Places of interest[link]

Alford Manor House Alford Windmill Alkborough Turf Maze Ayscoughfee Hall Baldocks Mill Belmont Mast (tallest construction in the European Union) Belton House File:NTE icon.png Bolingbroke Castle File:CL icon.PNG Boston Stump Bourne Abbey Boultham Park Branston Hall Burghley House Church Farm Museum, Skegness Crowland Abbey Cogglesford Mill Dambusters Inn and Heritage Centre Doddington Hall Dogdyke Engine Donna Nook Dunston Pillar East Lighthouse, Sutton Bridge Ellis Mill (Windmill) Fantasy Island, Ingoldmells Gainsborough Old Hall Gainsthorpe Deserted Medieval Village Gibraltar Point Gordon Boswell Romany Museum Grantham Museum Grimsby Dock Tower Grimsthorpe Castle File:CL icon.PNG Gunby Hall File:NTE icon.png Hartsholme Country Park Harlaxton Manor Heckington Windmill Hubbards Hills, Louth Kesteven Forest

Lincoln Castle File:CL icon.PNG Lincoln Cathedral Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre Lincolnshire Wolds Railway Maud Foster Windmill, Skirbeck, Boston Metheringham Windmill Mount Pleasant Mill, Kirton in Lindsey Mrs Smith's Cottage, Navenby National Fishing Heritage Centre Natureland Seal Sanctuary Normanby Hall Pelham's Pillar Pinchbeck Engine and museum of Land Drainage Pleasure Island, Cleethorpes River Ancholme Snipe Dales St. James Church, Louth St. Peter's Church, Barton upon Humber Sibsey Trader Mill Somerton Castle Stamford Meadows Stamford Museum Stow Minster Tattershall Castle File:CL icon.PNG File:NTE icon.png Tattershall College The Collection (The Usher Art Gallery) The Humber Bridge The Lincolnshire Wolds The Museum of Lincolnshire Life The South Common, Lincoln The Wash The West Common, Lincoln Thornton Abbey Waltham Windmill Whisby Nature Park Woolsthorpe Manor File:NTE icon.png

Key Abbey/Priory/Cathedral Accessible open space Amusement/Theme Park Castle Country Park English Heritage Forestry Commission Heritage railway Historic House Museum (free/not free) National Trust Theatre Zoo

See also[link]

	Geography portal
	Europe portal
	United Kingdom portal
	England portal
32x28px	Lincolnshire portal

• Outline of England
• Earl of Lincoln is a title that has been created eight times in the Peerage of England and is currently represented.
• Lord Lieutenants of Lincolnshire
• Custos Rotulorum of Lincolnshire - List of Keepers of the Rolls for Lincolnshire
• List of High Sheriffs of Lincolnshire
• Lincolnshire (UK Parliament constituency) List of MPs for the Lincolnshire constituency
• Lincs Wind Farm
• List of companies in Lincolnshire – Current and former companies
• List of monastic houses in Lincolnshire

• Stamford Senior Youth Theatre

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Lincolnshire

Wikisource has the text of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (9th ed.) article Lincoln.

• Lincolnshire County Council website
• Visitlincolnshire.com
• Lincolnshire Show official website
• Pathe newsreel of motor tractors at 1919 agricultural show, thought to be Lincoln show

Neighbouring counties

	South Yorkshire	East Riding of Yorkshire	North Sea
	Nottinghamshire		North Sea The Wash
		Lincolnshire    East
	Leicestershire	Rutland, Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire	Norfolk

Percy Grainger in 1922, at the height of his popularity as pianist and composer

George Percy Aldridge Grainger (8 July 1882 – 20 February 1961), known as Percy Grainger, was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist. In the course of a long and innovative career he played a prominent role in the revival of interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th century. He also made many adaptations of other composers' works. Although much of his work was experimental and unusual, the piece with which he is most generally associated is his piano arrangement of the folk-dance tune "Country Gardens".

Grainger left Australia at the age of 13 to attend the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt. Between 1901 and 1914 he was based in London, where he established himself first as a society pianist and later as a concert performer, composer and collector of original folk melodies. As his reputation grew he met many of the significant figures in European music, forming important friendships with Frederick Delius and Edvard Grieg. He became a champion of Nordic music and culture, his enthusiasm for which he often expressed in private letters in explicitly racist and anti-Semitic terms.

In 1914 Grainger moved to the United States, where he lived for the rest of his life, though he travelled widely in Europe and in Australasia. He served briefly as a bandsman in the US Army during 1917–18, and took US citizenship in 1918. After his mother's suicide in 1922 he became increasingly involved in educational work. He also experimented with music machines that he hoped would supersede human interpretation. In the 1930s he set up the Grainger Museum in Melbourne, his birthplace, as a monument to his life and works and as a future research archive. As he grew older he continued to give concerts and to revise and rearrange his own compositions, while writing little new music. After the Second World War, ill health reduced his levels of activity, and he considered his career a failure. He gave his last concert in 1960, less than a year before his death.

Early life[link]

Family background[link]

Princes Bridge, Melbourne, designed by John Grainger

Percy Grainger's father, John Grainger (1854–1917),^{[n 1]} was a British-born architect who emigrated to Australia in 1877. He won professional recognition for his design of the Princes Bridge across the Yarra River in Melbourne.^[2] In October 1880 he married Rose Annie Aldridge, daughter of an Adelaide hotel-keeper; the couple settled in New St, Brighton, a suburb of Melbourne, where their only son, christened George Percy Grainger, was born on 8 July 1882.^[3] The Grainger house at 305 New St, Brighton has recently been redeveloped, with the original structure intact.

John Grainger was an accomplished artist, with broad cultural interests and a wide circle of friends.^[4] These included David Mitchell, whose daughter Helen later gained worldwide fame as an operatic soprano under the name Nellie Melba. John's claims to have "discovered" her are unfounded, although he may have offered her encouragement.^[5] John was a heavy drinker and a womaniser who, Rose learned after the marriage, had fathered a child in England before coming to Australia. His promiscuous lifestyle placed heavy strains upon the relationship, particularly when Rose discovered shortly after Percy's birth that she had contracted a form of syphilis from her husband.^[3][4] Despite this, the Graingers stayed together until 1890, when John went to England for medical treatment. After his return to Australia they lived apart; the burden of raising Percy fell to Rose,^[6] while John pursued his career as chief architect to the Western Australian Department of Public Works. He also designed Nellie Melba's home, Coombe Cottage, at Coldstream.^[2]

Childhood[link]

An 1880 lithograph of the Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne, venue for Percy Grainger's early concerts, October 1894

Except for three months' formal schooling as a 12-year-old, during which he was bullied and ridiculed by his classmates, Percy was educated at home.^[4] Rose, an autodidact with a dominating presence, supervised his music and literature studies and engaged other tutors for languages, art and drama. From his earliest lessons Percy developed a lifelong fascination with Nordic culture; writing late in life he maintained that the Icelandic "Saga of Grettir the Strong" was "the strongest single artistic influence on my life".^[7][8][9] As well as showing precocious musical talents, he displayed considerable early gifts as an artist, to the extent that his tutors thought his future might lie in art rather than music.^[10] At the age of 10 he began studying piano under Louis Pabst, a German emigré then considered to be Melbourne's leading piano teacher. Grainger's first known composition, "A Birthday Gift to Mother", is dated 1893.^[2] Pabst arranged Grainger's first public concert appearances, at Melbourne's Masonic Hall in July and September 1894. The boy played works by Bach, Beethoven, Schumann and Scarlatti, and was warmly complimented in the Melbourne press.^[11]

After Pabst returned to Europe in the autumn of 1894, Grainger's new piano tutor, Adelaide Burkitt, arranged for his appearances at a series of concerts in October 1894, at Melbourne's Royal Exhibition Building. The size of this enormous venue horrified the young pianist; nevertheless, his performance delighted the Melbourne critics who dubbed him "the flaxen haired phenomenon who plays like a master".^[12] This public acclaim helped Rose to decide that her son should continue his studies at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt am Main, Germany – she had been recommended to this institution by William Laver, head of piano studies at Melbourne's Conservatorium of music. Financial assistance was secured through a fund-raising benefit concert in Melbourne and a final recital in Adelaide, after which mother and son left Australia for Europe on 29 May 1895.^[13] Although he never returned permanently to Australia, Grainger maintained considerable patriotic feelings for his native land,^[14] and was proud of his Australian heritage.^[2]

Frankfurt[link]

In Frankfurt, Rose established herself as a teacher of English; her earnings were supplemented by contributions from John Grainger, who had settled in Perth. The Hoch Conservatory's reputation for piano teaching had been enhanced by the tenure, until 1892, of Clara Schumann as head of piano studies. Grainger's piano tutor was James Kwast, who developed his young pupil's skills to the extent that, within a year, Grainger was being lauded as a prodigy.^[15] Grainger had difficult relations with his original composition teacher, Iwan Knorr;^[4] he withdrew from Knorr's classes to study composition privately with an amateur composer and folk-music enthusiast, Karl Klimsch, whom he would later honour as "my only composition teacher".^[2]

Together with a group of slightly older British students – Roger Quilter, Balfour Gardiner, Cyril Scott and Norman O'Neill, all of whom became his friends – Grainger helped form the "Frankfurt Group", whose long-term objective was to rescue British and Scandinavian music from what they considered the negative influences of central European music.^[4] Encouraged by Klimsch, Grainger turned away from composing classical pastiches reminiscent of Handel, Haydn and Mozart,^[16] and developed a personal compositional style the originality and maturity of which quickly impressed and astonished his friends.^[14] At this time Grainger discovered the poetry of Rudyard Kipling and began setting it to music; according to Scott, "No poet and composer have been so suitably wedded since Heine & Schumann".^[14]

After accompanying her son on an extended European tour in the summer of 1900 Rose, whose health had been poor for some time, suffered a nervous collapse and could no longer work.^[17] To replace lost income Grainger began giving piano lessons and public performances; his first solo recital was in Frankfurt on 6 December 1900.^[2] Meanwhile he continued his studies with Kwast, and increased his repertoire until he was confident he could maintain himself and his mother as a concert pianist. Having chosen London as his future base, in May 1901 Grainger abandoned his studies and, with Rose, left Frankfurt for England.^[17]

Before leaving Frankfurt, Grainger had fallen in love with Kwast's daughter Mimi;^[17] in an autobiographical essay dated 1947 he admits to being "already sex-crazy" at this time.^[18] (Mimi Kwast, who was the grand-daughter of Ferdinand Hiller, married another of her father's pupils, Hans Pfitzner.) John Bird, Grainger's biographer, also records that during his Frankfurt years Grainger began to develop sexual appetites that were "distinctly abnormal"; by the age of 16 he had started to experiment in flagellation and other sado-masochistic practices, which he continued to pursue through most of his adult life. Bird surmises that Grainger's fascination with themes of punishment and pain derived from the harsh discipline to which Rose had subjected him as a child.^[18]

London years[link]

Concert pianist[link]

In London, Grainger's charm, good looks and talent (with some assistance from the local Australian community) ensured that he was quickly taken up as a pianist by wealthy patrons, and was soon performing in concerts in private homes. The Times critic recorded after one such appearance that Grainger's playing "revealed rare intelligence and a good deal of artistic insight".^[19] In 1902 he was presented by the socialite Lillith Lowrey to Queen Alexandra, who thereafter frequently attended his London recitals.^[20] Lowrey, 20 years Grainger's senior, traded patronage and contacts for sexual favours – he termed the relationship a "love-serve job".^[8] She was the first woman with whom he had sex; he later wrote of this initial encounter that he had experienced "an overpowering landslide" of feeling, and that "I thought I was about to die. If I remember correctly, I only experienced fear of death. I don't think that any joy entered into it".^[21]

In February 1902 Grainger made his first appearance as a piano soloist with an orchestra, playing Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto with the Bath Pump Room Orchestra. In October of that year he toured Britain in a concert party with Adelina Patti, the Italian-born opera singer. Patti was greatly taken by the young pianist and prophesied a glorious career for him.^[22] The following year he met the German-Italian composer and pianist Ferruccio Busoni. Initially the two men were on cordial terms (Busoni offered to give Grainger lessons free of charge) and as a result, Grainger spent part of the 1903 summer in Berlin as Busoni's pupil.^[2] However, the visit was not a success; as Bird notes, Busoni had expected "a willing slave and adoring disciple", a role Grainger was not willing to fulfil.^[23] Grainger returned to London in July 1903; almost immediately he departed with Rose on a 10-month tour of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, as a member of a party organised by the Australian contralto Ada Crossley.^[24]

Emergent composer[link]

Before going to London Grainger had composed numerous Kipling settings, and his first mature orchestral pieces.^[25] In London, when he found time he continued to compose; a letter to Balfour Gardiner dated 21 July 1901 indicates that he was working on his Marching Song of Democracy (a Walt Whitman setting), and had made good progress with the experimental works Train Music and Charging Irishrey.^[26] In his early London years he also composed Hill Song Number 1 (1902), an instrumental piece much admired by Busoni.^[25][27]

In 1905, inspired by a lecture given by the pioneer folksong historian Lucy Broadwood, Grainger began to collect original folksongs. Starting at Brigg in Lincolnshire, over the next five years he gathered and transcribed more than 300 songs from all over the country, including much material that had never been written down before. From 1906 Grainger used a phonograph, one of the first collectors to do so, and by this means he assembled more than 200 Edison cylinder recordings of native folk singers.^[28][29] These activities coincided with what Bird calls "the halcyon days of the 'First English Folksong Revival'".^[30]

As his stature in the music world increased, Grainger became acquainted with many of its leading figures, including Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Richard Strauss and Debussy.^[28] In 1907 he met Frederick Delius, with whom he achieved an immediate rapport – the two musicians had similar ideas about composition and harmony, and shared a dislike for the classical German masters.^[31] Both were inspired by folk music;^[32] Grainger gave Delius his setting of the folksong Brigg Fair, which the older composer developed into his famous orchestral rhapsody, dedicated to Grainger.^[31] The two remained close friends until Delius's death in 1934.^[33]

Grainger first met Grieg at the home of the London financier Sir Edgar Speyer, in May 1906.^[34] As a student Grainger had learned to appreciate the Norwegian's harmonic originality, and by 1906 had several Grieg pieces in his concert repertoire, including the piano concerto.^[35] Grieg was greatly impressed with Grainger's playing, and wrote that the Australian was "a genius that we Scandinavians cannot do other than love."^[36] Through 1906–7 the two maintained a mutually complimentary correspondence, which culminated in Grainger's ten-day visit in July 1907 to the composer's Norwegian home, "Troldhaugen" near Bergen. Here the two spent much time revising and rehearsing the piano concerto in preparation for that year's Leeds Festival. Their plans for a long-term working relationship were thwarted by Grieg's sudden death in September 1907; this relatively brief acquaintance had a considerable impact on Grainger, and he championed Grieg's music for the rest of his life.^[35]

After fulfilling a hectic schedule of concert engagements in Britain and continental Europe, in August 1908 Grainger accompanied Ada Crossley on a second Australasian tour, during which he added several cylinders of Maori and Polynesian music to his collection of recordings.^[28] He had resolved to establish himself as a top-ranking pianist before promoting himself as a composer,^[9] though he continued to compose both original works and folksong settings. Some of his most successful and most characteristic pieces, such as "Mock Morris", "Handel in the Strand", "Shepherd's Hey" and "Molly on the Shore" date from this period. In 1908 he obtained the tune of "Country Gardens" from the folk music specialist Cecil Sharp, though he did not fashion it into a performable piece for another ten years.^[37][38] In 1911 Grainger finally felt confident enough of his standing as a pianist to begin large-scale publishing of his compositions, at the same time adopting the professional name of "Percy Aldridge Grainger".^[8][39]

In a series of concerts arranged by Balfour Gardiner at London's Queen's Hall in March 1912, five of Grainger's works were performed to great public acclaim; the band of thirty guitars and mandolins for the performance of "Fathers and Daughters" created a particular impression.^[40] On 21 May 1912 Grainger presented the first concert devoted entirely to his own compositions, at the Aeolian Hall, London;^[9] the concert was, he reported, "a sensational success".^[41] A similarly enthusiastic reception was given to Grainger's music at a second series of Gardiner concerts the following year.^[42]

In 1905 Grainger began a close friendship with Karen Holten, a Danish music student who had been recommended to him as a piano pupil. She became an important confidante; the relationship persisted for eight years, largely through correspondence.^{[43][n 2]} After her marriage in 1916 she and Grainger continued to correspond and occasionally meet until her death in 1953. Grainger was briefly engaged in 1913 to another pupil, Margot Harrison, but the relationship foundered through a mixture of Rose's over-possessiveness and Grainger's indecision.^[45][46]

Maturity[link]

Departure for America[link]

Grainger in the uniform of a US Army bandsman, 1917

In April 1914 Grainger gave his first performance of Delius's piano concerto, at a music festival in Torquay. Thomas Beecham, who was one of the festival's guest conductors, reported to Delius that "Percy was good in the forte passages, but made far too much noise in the quieter bits".^[47] Grainger was receiving increasing recognition as a composer; leading musicians and orchestras were adding his works to their repertoires.^[45] His decision to leave England for America in early September 1914, after the outbreak of the First World War, damaged his reputation among his patriotically minded British friends.^[2] Grainger wrote that the reason for this abrupt departure was "to give mother a change".^[48] However, according to Bird, Grainger often explained that his reason for leaving London was that "he wanted to emerge as Australia's first composer of worth, and to have laid himself open to the possibility of being killed would have rendered his goal unattainable".^[49] The Daily Telegraph music critic Robin Legge accused him of cowardice, and told him not to expect a welcome in England after the war,^[8] words that hurt Grainger deeply.^[50]

Grainger's first American tour began on 11 February 1915 with a recital at New York's Aeolian Hall. He played works by Bach, Brahms, Handel and Chopin alongside two of his own compositions: "Colonial Song" and "Mock Morris". In July 1915 Grainger had formally registered his intention to apply for US citizenship.^[51] Over the next two years his engagements included concerts with Nellie Melba in Boston and Pittsburgh and a command performance before President Woodrow Wilson. In addition to his concert performances, Grainger secured a contract with the Duo-Art Company for making pianola rolls, and signed a recording contract with Columbia.^[9]

In April 1917 Grainger received news of John Grainger's death in Perth.^[52] On 9 June 1917, after America's entry into the war, he enlisted as a bandsman in the Coast Artillery Corps of the US Army. He had joined as a saxophonist,^{[n 3]} though he records learning the oboe: "I long for the time when I can blow my oboe well enough to play in the band".^[55] In his 18 months' service, Grainger made frequent appearances as a pianist at Red Cross and Liberty bond concerts. As a regular encore he began to play a piano setting of the tune "Country Gardens". The piece became instantly popular; sheet music sales quickly broke many publishing records.^[56] The work was to become synonymous with Grainger's name through the rest of his life, though he came in time to detest it.^[57] On 3 June 1918 he became a naturalised American citizen.^[58]

Career zenith[link]

Rose and Percy Grainger, c. 1920

After leaving the army in January 1919, Grainger refused an offer to become conductor of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and resumed his career as a concert pianist.^[59] He was soon performing around 120 concerts a year,^[60] generally to great critical acclaim, and in April 1921 reached a wider audience by performing in a cinema, New York's Capitol Theatre. Grainger commented that the huge audiences at these cinema concerts often showed greater appreciation for his playing than those at established concert venues such as Carnegie Hall and the Aeolian.^[61] In the summer of 1919 he led a course in piano technique at Chicago Musical College, the first of many such educational duties he would undertake in later years.^[62][63]

Amid his concert and teaching duties, Grainger found time to rescore many of his works (a habit he continued throughout his life) and also to compose new pieces: his "Children's March: Over the Hills and Far Away", and the orchestral version of "The Power of Rome and the Christian Heart" both originated in this period.^[64] He also began to develop the technique of elastic scoring, a form of flexible orchestration which enabled works to be performed by different numbers of players and instrument types, from small chamber groups up to full orchestral strength.^[65]

In April 1921 Grainger moved with his mother to a large house in White Plains, New York. This was his home for the remainder of his life.^[8] From the beginning of 1922 Rose's health deteriorated sharply; she was suffering from delusions and nightmares, and became fearful that her illness would harm her son's career.^[66] Because of the closeness of the bond between the two, there had long been rumours that their relationship was incestuous;^[57] in April 1922 Rose was directly challenged over this issue by her friend Lotta Hough.^[67] From her last letter to Grainger, dated 29 April, it seems that this confrontation unbalanced Rose; on 30 April, while Grainger was touring on the West Coast, she jumped to her death from an office window on the 18th floor of the Aeolian Building in New York City.^[68] The letter, which began "I am out of my mind and cannot think properly", asked Grainger if he had ever spoken to Lotta of "improper love". She signed the letter: "Your poor insane mother".^[69]

Inter-war years[link]

Traveller[link]

After Rose's funeral, Grainger sought solace in a return to work. In autumn 1922 he left for a year-long trip to Europe, where he collected and recorded Danish folksongs before a concert tour that took him to Norway, Holland, Germany and England. In Norway he stayed with Delius at the latter's summer home. Delius was by now almost blind; Grainger helped fulfil his friend's wish to see a Norwegian sunset by carrying him (with some assistance) to the top of a nearby mountain peak.^[70] He returned to White Plains in August 1923.^[71]

Although now less committed to a year-round schedule of concerts, Grainger remained a very popular performer. His eccentricities, often exaggerated for publicity reasons, reportedly included running into auditoriums in gym kit and leaping over the grand piano to create a grand entrance.^[72] While he continued to revise and rescore his compositions, he increasingly worked on arrangements of music by other composers,^[73] in particular works by Bach, Brahms, Fauré and Delius.^[74] Away from music, Grainger's preoccupation with Nordic culture led him to develop a form of English which, he maintained, reflected the character of the language before the Norman conquest. Words of Norman or Latin origin were replaced by supposedly Nordic word-forms, such as "blend-band" (orchestra), "forthspeaker" (lecturer) and "writ-piece" (article). He called this "blue-eyed" English.^[75] His convictions of Nordic superiority eventually led Grainger, in letters to friends, to express his views in crudely racial and anti-Semitic terms; the music historian David Pear describes Grainger as, "at root, a racial bigot of no small order".^{[76][n 4]}

Grainger made further trips to Europe in 1925 and 1927, collecting more Danish folk music with the aid of the octogenarian ethnologist Evald Tang Kristensen; this work formed the basis of the Suite on Danish Folksongs of 1928–30.^[9] He also visited Australia and New Zealand, in 1924 and again in 1926. In November 1926, while returning to America, he met Ella Ström, a Swedish-born artist with whom he developed a close friendship. On arrival in America the pair separated, but were reunited in England the following autumn after Grainger's final folksong expedition to Denmark. In October 1927 the couple agreed to marry.^[80] Ella had a daughter, Elsie, who had been born out of wedlock in 1909. Grainger always acknowledged her as a family member, and developed a warm personal relationship with her.^[81]

Although Bird asserts that before her marriage, Ella knew nothing of Grainger's sado-masochistic interests,^[82] in a letter dated 23 April 1928 (four months before the wedding) Grainger writes to her: "As far as my taste goes, blows [with the whip] are most thrilling on breasts, bottom, inner thighs, sexparts". He later adds, "I shall thoroly thoroly [sic] understand if you cannot in any way see yr way to follow up this hot wish of mine".^[83] The couple were married on 9 August 1928 at the Hollywood Bowl, at the end of a concert which, in honour of the bride, had included the first performance of Grainger's bridal song "To a Nordic Princess".^[9]

Educator[link]

From the late 1920s and early 1930s Grainger became involved increasingly with educational work in schools and colleges,^[9] and in late 1931 accepted a year's appointment for 1932–33 as professor of music at New York University (NYU). In this role he delivered a series of lectures under the heading "A General Study of the Manifold Nature of Music", which introduced his students to a wide range of ancient and modern works.^[9] On 25 October 1932 his lecture was illustrated by Duke Ellington and his band, who appeared in person; Grainger admired Ellington's music, seeing harmonic similarities with Delius. On the whole, however, Grainger did not enjoy his tenure at NYU; he disliked the institutional formality, and found the university generally unreceptive to his ideas. Despite many offers he never accepted another formal academic appointment, and refused all offers of honorary degrees.^{[84][n 5]} His New York lectures became the basis for a series of radio talks which he gave for the Australian Broadcasting Commission in 1934–35; these were later summarised and published as Music: A Commonsense View of All Types.^[2] On 3 and 4 September 1934 Grainger adjudicated at the Sydney Eisteddfod on Sections 10 (Vocal Ensemble) and 45 (String Ensemble) for which he selected and provided the music. In 1937 Grainger began an association with the Interlochen International Music Camp, and taught regularly at its summer schools until 1944.^[86]

Innovator[link]

The Grainger Museum in Melbourne

The idea of establishing a Grainger Museum in Australia had first occurred to Grainger in 1932. He began collecting and recovering from friends letters and artefacts, even those demonstrating the most private aspects of his life,^[87] such as whips, bloodstained shirts and revealing photographs.^[88] In September 1933 he and Ella went to Australia to begin supervising the building work. To finance the project, Grainger embarked on a series of concerts and broadcasts,^[89] in which he subjected his audiences to a vast range of the world's music in accordance with his "universalist" view. Controversially, he argued for the superior achievements of Nordic composers over traditionally recognised masters such as Mozart and Beethoven.^[2]

Among various new ideas, Grainger introduced his so-called "free-music" theories. He believed that conformity with the traditional rules of set scales, rhythms and harmonic procedures amounted to "absurd goose-stepping", from which music should be set free.^[90] He demonstrated two experimental compositions of free music, performed initially by a string quartet and later by the use of electronic theremins.^[8] He believed that ideally, free music required non-human performance, and spent much of his later life developing machines to fulfil this vision.^[91]

While the building of the museum proceeded, the Graingers visited England for several months in 1936, during which Grainger made his first BBC broadcast. In this, he conducted "Love Verses from The Song of Solomon" in which the tenor soloist was the then unknown Peter Pears.^[92] After spending 1937 in America, Grainger returned to Melbourne in 1938 for the official opening of the Museum; among those present at the ceremony was his old piano teacher Adelaide Burkitt. The museum did not open to the general public during Grainger's lifetime, but was available to scholars for research.^[93][94]

In the late 1930s Grainger spent much time arranging his works in settings for wind bands. He wrote A Lincolnshire Posy for the March 1937 convention of the American Band Masters' Association in Milwaukee,^[95] and in 1939, on his last visit to England before the Second World War, he composed "The Duke of Marlborough's Fanfare", giving it the subtitle "British War Mood Grows".^[93]

Later career[link]

Second World War[link]

The outbreak of war in Europe in September 1939 curtailed Grainger's overseas travelling. In the autumn of 1940, alarmed that the war might precipitate an invasion of the United States eastern seaboard, he and Ella moved to Springfield, Missouri, in the centre of the continent.^[96] From 1940 Grainger played regularly in charity concerts, especially after the attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into the war in December 1941; the historian Robert Simon calculates that Grainger made a total of 274 charity appearances during the war years, many of them at Army and Air force camps.^[94] In 1942 a collection of his Kipling settings, the Jungle Book cycle, was performed in eight cities by the choir of the Gustavus Adolphus College from St. Peter, Minnesota.^[97]

Postwar decline[link]

Exhausted from his wartime concerts routine, Grainger spent much of 1946 on holiday in Europe. He was experiencing a sense of career failure; in 1947, when refusing the Chair of Music at Adelaide University, he wrote: "If I were 40 years younger, and not so crushed by defeat in every branch of music I have essayed, I am sure I would have welcomed such a chance".^[98] In January 1948 he conducted the premiere of his wind band setting of "The Power of Rome and the Christian Heart", written for the Goldman Band to celebrate the 70th birthday of its founder. Afterwards, Grainger denigrated his own music as "commonplace" while praising Darius Milhaud's Suite Française, with which it had shared the programme.^[99]

A Promenade concert at the Royal Albert Hall. The "promenade" section is the standing area immediately in front of the orchestra (2005 photograph).

On 10 August 1948, Grainger appeared at the London Proms, playing the piano part in his Suite on Danish Folksongs with the London Symphony Orchestra under Basil Cameron. On 18 September he attended the Last Night of the Proms, standing in the promenade section for Delius's Brigg Fair.^[100] Over the next few years several friends died: Gardiner in 1950, Quilter and Karen Holten in 1953. In October 1953 Grainger was operated on for abdominal cancer; his fight against this disease would last for the rest of his life.^[101] He continued to appear at concerts, often in church halls and educational establishments rather than major concert venues.^[9] In 1954, after his last Carnegie Hall appearance, Grainger's long promotion of Grieg's music was recognised when he was awarded the St. Olav Medal by King Haakon of Norway.^[102] However, a growing bitterness was becoming evident in his writings and correspondence; in a letter to his lifelong friend, the Danish composer Herman Sandby, he bemoaned the continuing ascendency in music of the "German form", and asserted that "all my compositional life I have been a leader without followers".^[102]

After 1950 Grainger virtually ceased to compose. His principal creative activity in the last decade of his life was his work with Burnett Cross, a young physics teacher, on free music machines. The first of these was a relatively simple device controlled by an adapted pianola.^[103] Next was the "Estey-reed tone-tool", a form of giant harmonica which, Grainger expectantly informed his stepdaughter Elsie in April 1951, would be ready to play free music "in a few weeks".^[104] A third machine, the "Cross-Grainger Kangaroo-pouch", was completed by 1952. Developments in transistor technology encouraged Grainger and Cross to begin work on a fourth, entirely electronic machine, which was incomplete when Grainger died.^[8][103]

In September 1955 Grainger made his final visit to Australia, where he spent nine months organising and arranging exhibits for the Grainger Museum. He refused to consider a "Grainger Festival", as suggested by the Australian Broadcasting Commission, because he felt that his homeland had rejected him and his music. Before leaving Melbourne, he deposited in a bank a parcel that contained an essay and photographs related to his sex life, not to be opened until 10 years after his death.^[105]

Last years[link]

Dartmouth College, venue for Grainger's last concert, April 1960

By 1957 Grainger's physical health had markedly declined, as had his powers of concentration.^[106] Nevertheless, he continued to visit Britain regularly; in May of that year he made his only television appearance, in a BBC "Concert Hour" programme when he played "Handel in the Strand" on the piano. Back home, after further surgery he recovered sufficiently to undertake a modest winter concerts season.^[107] On his 1958 visit to England he met Benjamin Britten, the two having previously maintained a mutually complimentary correspondence.^[108] He agreed to visit Britten's Aldeburgh Festival in 1959, but was prevented by illness. Sensing that death was drawing near, he made a new will, bequeathing his skeleton "for preservation and possible display in the Grainger Museum". This wish was not carried out.^[109]

Through the winter of 1959–60 Grainger continued to perform his own music, often covering long distances by bus or train; he would not travel by air. On 29 April 1960 he gave his last public concert, at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, although by now his illness was affecting his concentration. On this occasion his morning recital went well, but his conducting in the afternoon was, in his own words, "a fiasco".^[110][111] Subsequently confined to his home, he continued to revise his music and arrange that of others; in August he informed Elsie that he was working on an adaptation of one of Cyril Scott's early songs.^[112] His last letters, written from hospital in December 1960 and January 1961, record attempts to work, despite failing eyesight and hallucinations: "I have been trying to write score for several days. But I have not succeeded yet."^[113]

Grainger died in the White Plains hospital on 20 February 1961, at the age of 78. His body was flown to Adelaide where, on 2 March, he was buried in the Aldridge family vault in the West Terrace Cemetery, alongside Rose's ashes.^[8] Ella survived him by 18 years; in 1972, aged 83, she married a young archivist, Stewart Manville. She died at White Plains on 17 July 1979.^[2][114]

Music[link]

	"Seventeen Come Sunday" noicon A United States Navy Band Sea Chanters ensemble rendition of the 1912 Percy Grainger version of "Seventeen Come Sunday"
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

Grainger's own works fall into two categories: original compositions and folk music arrangements. Besides these, he wrote many settings of other composers' works.^[8][9] Despite his conservatory training he rebelled against the disciplines of the central European tradition, largely rejecting conventional forms such as symphony, sonata, concerto and opera. With few exceptions his original compositions are miniatures, lasting between two and eight minutes. Only a few of his works originated as piano pieces, though in due course almost all of them were, in his phrase, "dished up" in piano versions.^[9]

The conductor John Eliot Gardiner describes Grainger as "a true original in terms of orchestration and imaginative instrumentation", whose terseness of expression is reminiscent in style both of the 20th century Second Viennese School and the Italian madrigalists of the 16th and 17th centuries.^[115] Malcolm Gillies, a Grainger scholar, writes of Grainger's style that "you know it is 'Grainger' when you have heard about one second of a piece".^[116] The music's most individual characteristic, Gillies argues, is its texture – "the weft of the fabric", according to Grainger.^[117] Different textures are defined by Grainger as "smooth", "grained" and "prickly".^[9]

Grainger was a musical democrat; he believed that in a performance each player's role should be of equal importance. His elastic scoring technique was developed to enable groups of all sizes and combinations of instruments to give effective performances of his music. Experimentation is evident in Grainger's earliest works; irregular rhythms based on rapid changes of time signature were employed in Love Verses from "The Song of Solomon" (1899), and Train Music (1901), long before Stravinsky adopted this practice.^[4] In search of specific sounds Grainger employed unconventional instruments and techniques: solovoxes, theremins, marimbas, musical glasses, harmoniums, banjos, and ukuleles.^[109][118] In one early concert of folk music, Quilter and Scott were conscripted as performers, to whistle various parts.^[119] In "Random Round" (1912–14), inspired by the communal music-making he had heard in the Pacific Islands on his second Australasian tour, Grainger introduced an element of chance into performances; individual vocalists and instrumentalists could make random choices from a menu of variations.^[9] This experiment in "aleatory" composition presaged by many decades the use of similar procedures by avant-garde composers such as Berio and Stockhausen.^[120]

The brief "Sea Song" of 1907 was an early attempt by Grainger to write "beatless" music. This work, initially set over 14 irregular bars and occupying about 15 seconds of performing time,^[121] was a forerunner of Grainger's free music experiments of the 1930s. Grainger wrote: "It seems to me absurd to live in an age of flying, and yet not be able to execute tonal glides and curves". The idea of tonal freedom, he said, had been in his head since as a boy of eleven or twelve he had observed the wave-movements in the sea. "Out in nature we hear all kinds of lovely and touching "free" (non-harmonic) combinations of tones; yet we are unable to take up these beauties ... into the art of music because of our archaic notions of harmony".^[90] In a 1941 letter to Scott, Grainger acknowledged that he had failed to produce any large-scale works in the manner of a Bach oratorio, a Wagner opera or a Brahms symphony, but excused this failure on the grounds that all his works prior to the mid-1930s had been mere preparations for his free music.^[122]

As a student, Grainger had learned to appreciate the music of Grieg, and came to regard the Norwegian as a paragon of Nordic beauty and greatness. Grieg in turn described Grainger as a new way forward for English composition, "quite different from Elgar, very original". After a lifetime interpreting Grieg's works, in 1944 Grainger began adapting the Norwegian's E minor Piano Sonata, Op. 7 as a "Grieg-Grainger Symphony", but abandoned the project after writing 16 bars of music. By this time, Grainger acknowledged that he had not fulfilled Grieg's high expectations of him, either as a composer or as a pianist. He also reflected on whether it would have been better, from the point of view of his development as a composer, had he never met the Griegs, "sweet and dear though they were to me".^[123]

Grainger was known for his musical experimentation and did not hesitate to exploit the capabilities of the orchestra. Train Music was intended for 150 players and Country Gardens has some lush harmonic invention. Perhaps his most ambitious work was The Warriors, an 18 minute 'imaginary ballet' of frenzied 'danceable music', entrusted to a huge orchestral ensemble incorporating a large 'tuneful percussion' mixture alongside at least three pianos – in one performance, Grainger used nineteen pianos with thirty pianists – to be played by "exceptionally strong vigorous players".^[124]

Legacy[link]

Grainger considered himself an Australian composer who, he said, wrote music "in the hopes of bringing honor and fame to my native land".^[125] However, much of Grainger's working life was spent elsewhere, and the extent to which he influenced Australian music, within his lifetime and thereafter, is debatable.^[126] His efforts to educate the Australian musical public in the mid-1930s were indifferently received, and did not attract disciples;^[127] writing in 2010, the academic and critic Roger Covell identifies only one significant contemporary Australian musician – the English-born horn player, pianist and conductor David Stanhope – working in the Grainger idiom.^[126] In 1956, the suggestion by the composer Keith Humble that Grainger be invited to write music for the opening of the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne had been rejected by the organisers of the Games.^[105]

Grainger was a life long atheist and believed he would only endure in the body of work he left behind.^[128] He took an unusual course of action to ensure that survival by establishing a personal museum dedicated to his own life. The Grainger Museum was given little attention before the mid-1970s;^[9] it was initially regarded as evidence either of an over-large ego or of extreme eccentricity.^[129] Since then the University of Melbourne's commitment to the museum has, Covell asserts, "rescued [it] permanently from academic denigration and belittlement".^[129] Its vast quantities of materials have been used to investigate not only Grainger's life and works, but those of contemporaries whom Grainger had known: Grieg, Delius, Scott and others.^[130] The Grainger home at 7 Cromwell Place, White Plains, is now the Percy Grainger Library and is a further repository of memorabilia and historic performance material, open to researchers and visitors.^[9][131]

In Britain, Grainger's main legacy is the revival of interest in folk music. His pioneering work in the recording and setting of folksongs greatly influenced the following generation of English composers; Benjamin Britten acknowledged the Australian as his master in this respect.^[132] After hearing a broadcast of some Grainger settings, Britten reportedly declared that these "[knocked] all the Vaughan Williams and R. O. Morris arrangements into a cocked hat".^[133] In the United States, Grainger left a strong educational legacy through his involvement, over 40 years, with high school, summer school and college students. Likewise, his innovative approaches to instrumentation and scoring have left their mark on modern American band music;^[9] Timothy Reynish, a conductor and teacher of band music in Europe and America, has described him as "the only composer of stature to consider military bands the equal, if not the superior, in expressive potential to symphony orchestras."^[134] Grainger's attempts to produce "free music" by mechanical and later electronic means, which he considered his most important work, produced no follow-up; they were quickly overtaken and nullified by new technological advances. Covell nevertheless remarks that in this endeavour, Grainger's dogged resourcefulness and ingenious use of available materials demonstrate a particularly Australian aspect of the composer's character – one of which Grainger would have been proud.^[135]

Assessment[link]

In 1945 Grainger devised an informal ratings system for composers and musical styles, based on criteria that included originality, complexity and beauty. Of forty composers and styles, he ranked himself equal ninth—behind Wagner and Delius, but well ahead of Grieg and Tchaikovsky.^[123] Nevertheless, in his later years he frequently denigrated his career, for example writing to Scott: "I have never been a true musician or true artist".^[136] His failure to be recognised as a composer for anything beyond his popular folk-song arrangements was a source of frustration and disappointment;^[137] for years after his death the bulk of his output remained largely unperformed.^[138] From the 1990s an increase in the number of Grainger recordings has brought a revival of interest in his works, and has enhanced his reputation as a composer.^[2] An unsigned tribute published on the Gramophone website in February 2011 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Grainger's death opined that "though he would never be put on a pedestal to join the pantheon of immortals, he is unorthodox, original and deserves better than to be dismissed by the more snooty arbiters of musical taste".^[109]

Of Grainger the pianist, The New York Times critic Harold Schonberg wrote that his unique style was expressed with "amazing skill, personality and vigor".^[139] The early enthusiasm which had greeted his concert appearances became muted in later years, and reviews of his performances during the final ten years of his life were often harsh.^[140] However, Britten regarded Grainger's late recording of the Grieg concerto, from a live performance at Aarhus in 1957, as "one of the noblest ever committed to record" – despite the suppression of the disc for many years, because of the proliferation of wrong notes and other faults.^[141] Brian Allison from the Grainger Museum, referring to Grainger's early displays of artistic skills, has speculated that had John Grainger's influence not been removed, "Percy Aldridge Grainger may today be remembered as one of Australia's leading painters and designers, who just happened to have a latent talent as a pianist and composer".^[142] The ethnomusicologist John Blacking, while acknowledging Grainger's contribution to social and cultural aspects of music, nevertheless writes that if the continental foundation of Grainger's musical education had not been "undermined by dilettantism and the disastrous influence of his mother, I am sure that his ultimate contribution to the world of music would have been much greater".^[143]

Recordings[link]

Between 1908 and 1957 Grainger made numerous recordings, usually as pianist or conductor, of his own and other composers' music. His first recordings, for The Gramophone Company Ltd (later HMV), included the cadenza to Grieg's piano concerto; he did not record a complete version of this work on disc until 1945. Much of his recording work was done between 1917 and 1931, under contract with Columbia. At other times he recorded for Decca (1944–45 and 1957), and Vanguard (1957). Of his own compositions and arrangements, "Country Gardens", "Shepherd's Hey" and "Molly on the Shore" were recorded most frequently; in recordings of other composers, piano works by Bach, Brahms, Chopin, Grieg, Liszt and Schumann figure most often.^[144] Grainger's complete 78 rpm solo piano recordings are now available on compact disc as a CD box set on APR records in transfers made by Ward Marston.^[145] During his association with the Duo-Art company between 1915 and 1932, Grainger made around 80 piano rolls of his own and others' music, many of which have subsequently been transferred to CD, using a wooden robot designed to play a concert grand piano via an array of precision mechanical fingers and feet.^{[146][147][148]} This reproduction system allowed Grainger to make a posthumous appearance in the Albert Hall, London, during the 1988 last night of the Proms as soloist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Grieg's Piano Concerto.^[149]

Since Grainger's death, recordings of his works have been undertaken by many artists and issued under many different labels. In 1995 Chandos Records began to compile a complete recorded edition of Grainger's original compositions and folk settings.^[150] Of 25 anticipated volumes, 19 had been completed as of 2010;^[151] these were issued as a CD boxed set in 2011, to mark the 50th anniversary of the composer's death.^[152]

Media portrayals[link]

Percy Grainger has been portrayed on screen more than once. In Song of Summer, a 1968 Ken Russell film mainly about Frederick Delius and Eric Fenby, he was played by David Collings. Passion (also known as Passion: The Story of Percy Grainger) was a 1999 Australian biopic about some episodes in Grainger's life during the early part of his career. It starred Richard Roxburgh as the composer and Barbara Hershey as Rose Grainger.

Notes and references[link]

Notes

References