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Gainsborough is a town in the West Lindsey District of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated 18 miles (29 km) northwest from the city and county town of Lincoln, and on the River Trent. At one time it served as an important port with trade downstream to Hull, and was the most inland port in England, being more than 55 miles (90 km) from the North Sea. The town was, between 1895 and 1974, the major part if not the whole of the Gainsborough Urban District Council located in the Part of Lindsey division of Lincolnshire, England. In the Local Government Act of 1894 it was originally assigned to Gainsborough Rural District, but this arrangement only lasted for a year. West Lindsey District Council was formed in 1974 from five former councils including Gainsborough Urban and Gainsborough Rural. Gainsborough Town Council was established in 1992, and in the same year Gainsborough's first Mayor was appointed. Wikipedia gives a population of 20,842, but does not state whether this relates to 2001 or 2011. [edit] HistoryFor more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Gainsborough. [edit] Research TipsLincolnshire is very low-lying and land had to be drained for agriculture to be successful. The larger drainage channels, many of which are parallel to each other, became boundaries between parishes. Many parishes are long and thin for this reason. There is much fenland in Lincolnshire, particularly in the Boston and Horncastle areas. Fenlands tended to be extraparochial before the mid 1850s, and although many sections were identified with names and given the title "civil parish", little information has been found about them. Many appear to be abolished in 1906, but the parish which adopts them is not given in A Vision of Britain through Time. Note the WR category Lincolnshire Fenland Settlements which is an attempt to organize them into one list. From 1889 until 1974 Lincolnshire was divided into three administrative counties: Parts of Holland, Parts of Kesteven and Parts of Lindsey. These formal names do not fit with modern grammatical usage, but that is what they were, nonetheless. In 1974 the northern section of Lindsey, along with the East Riding of Yorkshire, became the short-lived county of Humberside. In 1996 Humberside was abolished and the area previously in Lincolnshire was made into the two "unitary authorities" of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire. The remainder of Lincolnshire was divided into "non-metropolitan districts" or "district municipalities" in 1974. Towns, villages and parishes are all listed under Lincolnshire, but the present-day districts are also given so that places in this large county can more easily be located and linked to their wider neighbourhoods. See the WR placepage Lincolnshire, England and the smaller divisions for further explanation.
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