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Grimsby, also Great Grimsby, is a port town and the administrative centre of North East Lincolnshire, England, on the south bank of the Humber Estuary close to the North Sea. It was the home port for the world's largest fishing fleet by the mid-20th century, but fishing then fell sharply. The Cod Wars denied UK access to Icelandic fishing grounds and the European Union used its Common Fisheries Policy to parcel out fishing quotas to other European countries in waters within of the UK coast. Grimsby has since suffered post-industrial decline, but food production has risen since the 1990s. The Grimsby–Cleethorpes conurbation acts as a cultural and economic centre for much of north and east Lincolnshire. Grimsby people are called Grimbarians; the term is also used jokingly, often for football supporters. Great Grimsby Day is 22 January.[1] Grimsby is also the second largest settlement by population in Lincolnshire after Lincoln, with Scunthorpe being the third largest.
[edit] History
There is archaeological evidence of a small town of Roman workers in the area in the 2nd century CE of Roman occupation. Located on the River Haven, which flowed into the Humber, the site long provided a location for ships to shelter from approaching storms. It was well placed to exploit the rich fishing grounds in the North Sea. [edit] VikingsSometime in the 9th century CE, Grimsby was settled by Danes. Legend has it that the name Grimsby derives from Grim, a Danish fisherman. The suffix -by is derived from the Old Norse word for village (compare with ). The legendary founding of Grimsby features in a medieval romance, the Lay of Havelock the Dane, but historians see this account as myth. In Norse mythology, Grim (Mask) and Grimnir (Masked One) are names adopted by the deity Odin (Anglo-Saxon Woden) when travelling incognito amongst mortals, as in the short poem known as "Grimnir's Sayings" (Grimnismal) in the Poetic Edda. The intended audience of the Havelock tale (recorded much later as the Lay of Havelock the Dane) may have taken the fisherman Grim to be Odin in disguise. The Odinic name "Grimr/Grim" occurs in many English place names in the historical Danelaw and elsewhere in Britain. Examples are numerous earthworks named Grimsdyke. Other British place names with the element Grim are explained as referring to Woden/Odin (e.g. Grimsbury, Grimspound, Grime's Graves, Grimsditch, Grimsworne), and Grimsby is likely to have the same derivation. Grimsby is listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 as having a population of around 200, a priest, a mill, and a ferry. [edit] Medieval timesGrimsby grew in the 12th century into a fishing and trading port, at one time ranking twelfth in importance to the Crown for tax revenue. The town gained its charter from King John in 1201; the first mayor was installed in 1202. Grimsby is noted in the in this stanza by Kali Kolsson:
Grimsby had no town walls. It was too small and felt to be protected by the marshland around it. However, the town dug a defensive ditch. Grimsby in medieval times had two parish churches, St Mary's and St James. Only St James, now Grimsby Minster, remains. It is associated with a folk tale of an imp who played tricks in the church and was turned into stone by an angel. (A similar tale is told of Lincoln Cathedral – see Lincoln Imp). In the mid-14th century, the town benefited from the generosity of Edmund de Grimsby, a local man who became a senior Crown official and judge in Ireland. In the 15th century, The Haven began to silt up, preventing ships in the Humber from docking. As a result, Grimsby entered a long period of decline until the late 18th century. By 1801, the population of Grimsby numbered 1,524, around the size it had been in the Middle Ages. By 1810 Joseph Smedley was hiring a purpose built theatre for seven Guineas. [edit] Rise of fishing and maritime industryThe Grimsby Haven Company was formed by Act of Parliament in May 1796 (the Grimsby Haven Act) for the purpose of "widening, deepening, enlarging, altering and improving the Haven of the Town and Port of Great Grimsby". After dredging of The Haven and related improvement in the early 19th century, the town grew rapidly as the port boomed, importing iron, timber, wheat, hemp and flax. New docks were needed to cope with the expansion. The necessary works were allowed under the Grimsby Docks Act of 1845.
The Dock Tower was completed in 1851, followed by the Royal Dock in 1852. No.1 Fish Dock was completed in 1856, followed by No.2 Fish Dock in 1877. Alexandra Dock and Union Dock were completed in 1879. During this period, the fishing fleet was much expanded. In a rare reversal of usual trends, large numbers of fishermen from the South-East and Devon travelled North to join the Grimsby fleet. Over 40 per cent of the newcomers came from Barking in East London and other Thames-side towns. In 1857 there were 22 vessels in Grimsby. Six years later there were 112. The first two legitimate steam trawlers built in Britain were based in Grimsby. By 1900, a tenth of the fish consumed in the United Kingdom was landed there, although there were also many smaller coastal fishing ports and villages involved.[2] The demand for fish in Grimsby meant that at its peak in the 1950s it claimed to be the largest fishing port in the world. The population grew from 75,000 in 1901 to 92,000 by 1931.
[edit] Second World WarThe Royal Dock became the UK's largest base for minesweepers patrolling the North Sea. The Admiralty requisitioned numerous trawlers to serve the purpose for the Royal Naval Patrol Service. Often the crew were ex-trawlermen, alongside Royal Naval Reserve and Royal Navy volunteers. Trawlers used the winches and warps from fishing operations to tow a paravane with a cutting jaw through the water in what was known as a "sweep" to bring mines to the surface and allow for their removal. This hazardous work lost the Patrol Service more vessels than any other Royal Navy branch in the Second World War; 2,385 men died. Grimsby's Royal Naval Patrol Service veterans financed a memorial beside the Dock Tower to ensure that the bravery and sacrifice of their comrades were not forgotten.[3] On 14 June 1943, an early-morning air raid by the Luftwaffe dropped several 1,000-kg bombs, 6,000 incendiary bombs and over 3,000 Butterfly Bombs in the Grimsby area, killing 99 people. In total, Second World War bombing raids in Grimsby and Cleethorpes killed 196, while another 184 were seriously injured.[4] The Butterfly Bombs that littered the area hampered fire-fighting crews trying to reach locations damaged by incendiary bombs. The search for bodies continued for a month after the raid.[4] is a Sandown class minehunter (commissioned in 1999) currently in service in the Royal Navy. [edit] Post-Second World WarAfter the pressures placed on the industry during the Cod Wars and the European Union's Common Fisheries Policy, which redistributed fishing quotas to other EU nations, many Grimsby firms decided to cease trawling operations there. The sudden demise of the industry brought an end to a way of life and community that had lasted for generations. The loss of the fishing industry brought severe economic and social problems for the town. Huge numbers became redundant, highly skilled in jobs that no longer existed, and struggled to find work ashore. As with the Ross Group, some firms concentrated on expanding industries within the town, such as food processing.
Grimsby was struck by an F1/T3 tornado on 23 November 1981, as part of a record-breaking nationwide tornado outbreak that day. From the mid-1980s, the former Humber ferry PS Lincoln Castle has been moored in Alexandra Dock. She was used during this time as a pub\restaurant, but despite her design and status as Britain's last coal-fired paddle steamer, the catering no longer yielded a profit. The ship was broken up in 2010. Berthed in Alexandra Dock is the Ross Tiger, the last survivor of what was once the world's largest fleet of sidewinder trawlers. The town was described in The Daily Telegraph in 2001 as one "subjected to... many crude developments over the past 30-odd years" and a town which "seemingly shuns the notion of heritage." Redevelopment was planned as part of Yorkshire Forward's Renaissance Towns Programme, but the scheme was abandoned in 2012. In the early 21st century, the town faced the challenges of a post-industrial economy on top of the decline in its fishing industry. The East Marsh ward of the town is the second most deprived in the country, according to government statistics.[5] [edit] Governance
Since the December 2019 general election, Lia Nici (Conservative) has been the Member of Parliament for the Great Grimsby constituency, having won the seat from the former MP, Melanie Onn (Labour), who had served since 2015. This lost the seat to the Labour Party for the first time in 74 years, not least under Austin Mitchell (Labour), who held it from 1977 to 2015
In 1974, the County Borough was abolished[6] and Great Grimsby was reconstituted with the same boundaries as Grimsby non-metropolitan district in the new county of Humberside, under the Local Government Act 1972. The district was renamed Great Grimsby in 1979. In the early 1990s, area local government came under review from the Local Government Commission for England; Humberside was abolished in 1996. The former Great Grimsby district merged with that of Cleethorpes to form the unitary authority of North East Lincolnshire. The town does not have its own town council, instead just a board of Charter Trustees. During 2007, in the struggle for identity, it was suggested that the district be renamed Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, but this did not meet with favour among local residents, and the Council Leader dropped the idea a year later. [edit] Council wardsNorth East Lincolnshire Council has eight Council wards within the area of Grimsby:
[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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