Arch-Tory home of Thatcher salutes one of England's greatest revolutionaries - by mistake?

It seems vastly counter-intuitive that the arch-Tory town of Grantham, forever blighted in the pages of history for sending forth into the world one Margaret Hilda Thatcher, should commemorate one of England’s finest rebels; but on the 17th August 2011 that’s exactly what it did.

Yesterday a blue plaque was unveiled in the George Centre to commemorate Grantham’s connection with Tom Paine, arguably the finest Englishman who ever drew breath. The connection is fairly tenuous. Tom Paine was an excise officer here from 1762 to 1764 – so not his finest moments. He lodged at the George Inn in the High Street, which became the George Hotel until its current sad transformation into the George Shopping Centre was effected almost twenty years ago.

Paine was a strident, outspoken opponent of state power. He narrowly escaped the hangman’s noose in England where his writing was considered seditious, libellous and traitorous; was an active supporter of the American War of Independence, and then popped over to France where he actively supported the French Revolution, and only narrowly escaped the guillotine.

His best-known book is “Rights of Man”, which has never been out of print. His last book, “Age of Reason”, is arguably even more important, annihilating, as it brilliantly does, the bible. Both are very readable and should be compulsory in every school in the country.

Here are a couple of the great man’s quotes, which are every bit as fresh and true today as they were when he wrote them:

“Of more worth is one honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.”  (Common Sense p. 19)

“Change of Ministers amounts to nothing. One goes out, another comes in and still the same measures, vices and extravagances are pursued. It signifies not who is minister. The defect lies in the system.”  (Rights of Man p. 315)

“All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind and monopolise power and profit.”  (Age of Reason p.7)

About thirty people attended yesterday’s unveiling of the blue plaque. The two main VIPs were the head honcho of the Rotary Club (which apparently commissioned the plaque) and some young woman from the American embassy. The plaque was hidden until the unveiling by a US flag – which, if Paine knew what that country was to become would not have pleased him. The presence of the American official yesterday probably explained the large contingent of chain-wearing dignitaries from the local council who also turned out.

As I stood and watched them all I smiled as I wondered how many of them knew the first thing about the man they were commemorating. I suspect not many.