Museum in Margaret Thatcher's home town rejects calls to be renamed after her - despite having one of her handbags and her Spitting Image puppet among its exhibits

A museum in Margaret Thatcher's hometown has rejected calls to be renamed after the late former Conservative prime minister.

Cllr Ashley Baxter, the independent leader of South Kesteven District Council, called for the renaming of the Grantham Museum which holds one of her handbags and Spitting Image puppet among its exhibits.

But the museum said it existed to promote 'all of Grantham' and not just Britain's first female prime minister.

A statue of Mrs Thatcher has stood outside the museum, which is devoted to the history of the town and the surrounding area, since 2022.

But Cllr Baxter said the town had to go 'a step further' in 'honouring its most famous daughter.'

Speaking at a recent council meeting, he said: 'Far more people will be looking up the name Margaret Thatcher compared to searching for Grantham Museum. Some people are fond of her legacy, and some despise it.'

He added: 'If we tell the story with different perspectives, far more people will be likely to come to Grantham to see the statue and visit the museum.'

Cllr Baxter went on to say the renaming could help Lincolnshire attract as many visitors as tourist hotspots like Devon and Cornwall.

He continued: 'We're better than Devon and Cornwall and we should be drawing some of those visitors away.' 

However, a spokesperson for the museum said of any potential renaming: 'It is not something we would support or consider.

'We remain committed to promoting all of Grantham, its rich history and its heritage.'

Cllr Graham Jeal, a Conservative who sits on the museum's board, said the renaming would be 'wrong'.

He added: 'In spite of what Cllr Baxter said, many thousands of tourists do find their way to the Grantham Museum.

'I think it would be wrong to focus our town's rich history around one figure – important though she was in putting Grantham on the map.'

He pointed to other figures such as scientist Sir Isaac Newton, who was born in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet near Grantham.

Mrs Thatcher was born on October 13 1925 and spent her childhood in the Lincolnshire market town before heading off to Somerville College, Oxford, at the age of 18 to study chemistry. 

It comes as a pensioner was captured on CCTV seemingly etching a slur in bright red paint on the Thatcher statue.

The £300,000 monument of the Iron Lady was defaced with the word 'b******' in what has become the latest offence in a string of vandal attacks against the statue.

Police are now investigating this latest attack which is believed to have taken place overnight on March 5 and 6, at around midnight.

The latest attack in the week of the 40th anniversary of the miners' strike, which began in 1984 and lasted until the following year.

The late Conservative Prime Minister led the country from 1979 to 1990.

The argument about how or even whether Mrs Thatcher, who died aged 87 in April 2013 after suffering a stroke, should be recognised in Grantham has rumbled on for nearly two decades.