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Grimsby

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Grimsby
Population87,574 
OS grid referenceTA279087
Unitary authority
Ceremonial county
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townGRIMSBY
Postcode districtDN31 to DN34,
Postcode districtpart of DN35, DN37
Dialling code01472
UK Parliament
List of places
UK
England

Grimsby (also known as Great Grimsby, after its Parliamentary constituency title[1]) is a seaport on the Humber Estuary in Lincolnshire, England. It has been the administrative centre of the unitary authority of North East Lincolnshire since 1996. According to legend, Grimsby was first founded by Grim, a Danish fisherman. 'By' means 'village' in Old Norse and 'city' or 'town' in the modern Danish language.

The town itself has a population of around 87,589. It is physically linked to the adjoining town of Cleethorpes, and 11,000 of its inhabitants live in the village of Scartho which was absorbed into Grimsby before laws on the Green Belt were put in place. All three areas come under the jurisdiction of the same council, North East Lincolnshire. This combined conurbation has a population of 138,842 making it the largest in Lincolnshire as a whole. It is close to the terminus of the A180, which ends in Cleethorpes.

Grimsby is known as being a 'small nation standing alone', this is mainly due to the fact that Grimsby along with Cleethorpes is surrounded by vast amounts of country-side at one side, and the north sea on the other. Also the fact that Grimsby has its own accent, known as 'Grimbarian'. Grimsby is also known by many as a 'village on a big scale', and this is again due to the fact that Grimsby and Cleethorpes is isolated from the rest of Britain, and research shows that if someone has lived in Grimsby from being born to the age of 21, the average person would have communicated with around 50% of the population of the town[citation needed].

Historically administered with the rest of Lincolnshire, Grimsby was given county borough status in 1891 . Grimsby borough expanded to absorb the adjacent hamlet of Wellow (1889), also the neighbouring parishes of Clee-with-Weelsby (1889), Little Coates (1928), Scartho (1928), Weelsby (1928) and Great Coates (1968). Grimsby had its own police force until 1967 when it merged with the Lincolnshire force [1].

County borough status lasted until 1974 , when it became the borough of Great Grimsby in the new non-metropolitan county of Humberside, with the same boundaries. Since the abolition of Humberside in 1996 Grimsby has been administered as part of the unitary authority of North East Lincolnshire. Grimsby does not have its own town council within North East Lincolnshire, however it does have a board of Charter Trustees.


In September 2007 it was suggested that the name North East Lincolnshire Council might be changed to Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes Council.

The town was previously titled "Great Grimsby" to distinguish it from Little Grimsby, a village about 14 miles (22 km) to the south, near Louth.

Since 1977 Austin Mitchell (Labour) has been the Member of Parliament for Great Grimsby.

History

Vikings

Grimsby was founded by the Danes in the 9th century AD, although there is some evidence of a small town of Roman workers sited in the area some seven centuries earlier. Located on The Haven, which flowed into the Humber, Grimsby would have provided an ideal location for ships to shelter from approaching storms. It was also well situated for the rich fishing grounds in the North Sea.

The name Grimsby probably originated from the Grim's by, or "Grim's Village". This is based on Grim the Danish Viking, supposedly the founder of the town, with the suffix -by being the Old Norse word for village. For more on the legendary founding of Grimsby see the Lay of Havelock the Dane.

Grimsby is listed in the Domesday Book, having a population of around 200, a priest, a mill and a ferry. It also appears in the Orkneyinga Saga in the phrase í grims bæ mithivm ‘in the middle of Grimsby’. During the 12th century it developed into a fishing and trading port, at one point ranking twelfth in importance to the Crown in terms of tax revenue. The town was granted its charter by King John in 1201 . The first mayor was installed in 1218.

File:Grimsbycoat.jpg
Coat of Arms of the former Great Grimsby Borough Council and present town of Great Grimsby

Grimsby does not have town walls. It was too small and was protected by the marshy land around it. However, the town did have a ditch. In medieval times, Grimsby had two parish churches, St Mary's and St James'. Only St James' now remains.

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 which lasted until the late 18th century. In 1801 , the population of Grimsby numbered 1,524, around the same size that it had been in the Middle Ages.

Fishing industry

In the early 19th century the town grew rapidly. The Great 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". Grimsby's port boomed, importing iron, timber, wheat, hemp and flax. New docks were necessary to cope with the expansion. The Grimsby Docks Act of 1845 allowed the necessary building works.

Alexandra Docks and National Fishing Heritage Museum

The Dock Tower was completed in 1851 , followed by the 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 followed in 1879 . During this period the fishing fleet was greatly expanded.

The arrival of the railway in 1848 made it far easier to transport goods to and from the port. Coal mined in the South Yorkshire coal fields was brought by rail and exported through Grimsby. The population of Grimsby grew from 75,000 in 1901 to 92,000 by 1931 but then remained fairly static for the rest of the 20th century [2].

World War Two

During World War II, Grimsby's status as a major port made it a focus of the German Luftwaffe. They used the Dock Tower as a landmark and refused to bomb it. It was later revealed that had the German invasion been successful Grimsby would have been one of the first landing points in the north of England due to the combination of its location and its infrastructure.[citation needed] This was probably one reason why the town suffered significantly less bombing raids than neighbouring fishing port Hull whose geographical location would have made it harder to reach. However Grimsby was still hit by numerous air raids during the war and 197 people were killed. Grimsby was also the first place in Great Britain to have the Butterfly Bomb used against it by the Luftwaffe in 1943, devastating many areas[citation needed].

Economy and manufacturing

Grimsby is indelibly linked with the sea fishing industry - it was what gave the town its wealth. At its peak in the 1950s, it was the largest and busiest fishing port in the world. However as a result of the Cod Wars with Iceland this industry has been in decline for many years. It is still home to the largest fish market in the UK although most of what is sold is now brought overland from other ports or even overseas via containerisation.

In recent years the frozen food industry has become a large part of Grimsby's economy and new industries such as light engineering, chemicals and plastics have grown. Grimsby held the record at one time for the largest 'Cold Store' in the UK and it was in Grimsby that the UK's first 'fish finger' food was produced in 1955. Birds Eye closed their fish finger factory in 2005 , ending a link with the town that stretched back 50 years. The said factory has since been demolished, following a fire which gutted the building and almost totally destroyed it itself. Arson is suspected. 70% of the fish sold at the town's market is now imported from outside the United Kingdom, particularly Iceland.[2]

Grimsby is colloquially known as UK Food Town,[3] previously known as Europe's Food Town. It is said that more pizzas are produced in Grimsby than anywhere else.[4]

The food production and seafood heritage links are perpetuated in a UK 2006 Young's Bluecrest Seafood television advertising campaign emphasising Grimsby as the source of its seafood products. In the campaign, Grimsby Docks are briefly shown, at dusk, lit and shot somewhat romantically.

Some of the largest employers in the area are pharmaceutical giant Novartis (since 1951 making and employs about 400 people) on Pyewipe close to the A180, chemical producer Tioxide Europe (making Titanium dioxide white pigments) on Moody Lane and food processor Young's Bluecrest Seafood next to the docks on Wickham Road.

The port partnership of Grimsby & Immingham is the largest port in the UK in terms of tonnage, with a total traffic of 57 million tonnes, 10% of the total, in 2006.

Flood Sirens

The Environment Agency has awarded Sheffield-based telemetry company CSE Seprol a contract to supply flood warning devices for risk areas in East Anglia.

CSE Seprol provids outstations that control the risk area's flood warning sirens to alert local people of impending severe flooding.

The 18 sirens, at various locations around the flood risk area of Grimsby and Cleethorpes, should reach 25,500 households to warn them of portending floods. The sirens make a variety of sounds, from the traditional wailing sound to a voice message. The alarms are said to sound like World War II air raid sirens, with an 'all clear' system in place.

The control and monitoring of the sirens is linked by a Seprol S250 telemetry outstation to the Environment Agency's Regional telemetry system.

In the event of flood siren activation, which can give up to six hours notice of pending floods, residents are advised to go indoors and listen to local radio and television announcements.

Places of interest and landmarks

Education

Up to the age of 16, the results for Grimsby are not particularly good, being one of the worst areas in England. However two schools nearby, outside of Grimsby, in New Waltham(Toll Bar Business & Enterprise College) and Healing do quite well, performing notably better than other schools in the borough[citation needed]. Past the age of 16, for A-level education, Grimsby's Franklin College gets excellent results (as does the Toll Bar College to a lesser extent). There is also the Grimsby Institute of Further & Higher Education next door.

Shopping facilities

The award-winning Freshney Place Shopping Centre[5] in the heart of the town boasts over 70 stores including Marks and Spencer, BINNS (House of Fraser) and Bhs. It was originally constructed between 1967 and 1971 in a joint venture between the old Grimsby Borough Council and developers Hammerson's and was known as the Riverhead Centre (so named as the development was adjacent to where the two local rivers, the Freshney and the Haven, meet).

The Riverhead Centre development caused some controversy at the time as it followed the 1960s trend of replacing old architecture with new: In this case it involved the wholesale demolition of much of the old town centre including the historic Bull Ring (which is now where Wilkinson's, the Halifax Bank and the St James Hotel are based) and streets going back many centuries including Flottergate, Brewery Street and East St Mary's Gate.

In 1990 the council agreed to sell the area used for surface car parking to Hammerson's UK Ltd. The development owner and Humberside County Council, the Highway Authority at that time, agreed to the sale of the area of Baxtergate, the road which ran to the rear of the shopping centre. Baxtergate was relocated alongside the River Freshney and became Phase 1 of the Peaks Parkway. Hammerson's UK Ltd. began a £100 million redevelopment of the site which saw it double in size. The centre was also covered in a glass roof and (where the new extension was built) two multi-storey car parks were constructed at either end of the centre, effectively privatising, roofing and enclosing the old Top Town area of Grimsby. In recognition of the design of the new facilities, the Royal Town Planning Institute awarded the scheme a commendation in 1992.

Other developments in the town centre include a new Tesco Extra (the second in the area), the Victoria Mills Retail Park which is home to several chain stores including Next and a B&Q Depot off the Peaks Parkway A180~A16 link road (former East Lincolnshire railway).

Unlike many other towns who have shopping facilities on their outskirts, these (and other similar developments) can be found in and around Grimsby's town centre, making shopping far easier for pedestrians and public transport users, reflecting Grimsby's relatively cheap central commercial land. Other major retailers include the supermarket chains Tesco, Marks & Spencers, Sainsbury's, ASDA and Morrison's. The last store is located just outside the town boundary, in the parish of Laceby, and is peculiarly known as Morrison's Cleethorpes. This is an anomaly arising from when the area was part of the now defunct Cleethorpes borough. Most major supermarkets in the town have expanded somewhat in the last few years, including a massive extension built at ASDA, and more recently another level was put on Tesco at Hewitts Circus, to name but a couple. Trade is going from strength to strength.

There are also a number of local, independent specialist stores and the Abbeygate Centre (off Bethlehem Street) is where many are located. Abbeygate Centre has been dubbed "Little Town" by locals. Once the head office of local brewers Hewitt Brothers it was renovated in the mid-1980s and is home to a number of restaurants and designer clothing stores. The town also has two markets, one next to Freshney Place and the other in Freeman Street, itself once the dominant shopping area in the town but one that has sadly struggled since the late 1970s.

In March 2007, Henry Boot properties announced a new £30m shopping development adjacent to the existing Freshney Place site. The project will create 150,000 square feet of retail space and 290 car parking places on land between the River Freshney and Sainsbury's, presently occupied by the former Travis Perkins builders' merchants. Included in the plans are 25 residential apartments.

A new retail and leisure complex is also to be built on the West Marsh by landowners P&O Estates. Covering 85 acres and costing £35 million it is planned to be open by 2009;[citation needed] a smaller retail development is planned alongside the proposed new stadium for Grimsby Town FC at Great Coates, scheduled for completion in mid-2008.

Such is the quality of shopping in the area that bus services are run to bring in shoppers from across the county of Lincolnshire, especially from smaller towns such as Louth, Brigg, Market Rasen and Scunthorpe.[citation needed]

Entertainment

The area has a very developed, if somewhat corporate, nightlife. Aside from the nightclubs in nearby Cleethorpes, the town centre has undergone a renaissance in the last decade. A number of national pub chains have redeveloped or opened new outlets, including a specially-built complex at the Riverhead which is home to four such operations. Prior to the late 1960's many public houses in the area were owned by the local brewer Hewitt Brothers and gave a distinctive local touch but following a takeover in 1969 by the brewer Bass Charrington these have been re-badged (many times), closed or sold off.

Musical entertainment is found at the Grimsby Auditorium, built in 1995, on Cromwell Road in Yarborough near Grimsby Leisure Centre. The smaller Caxton Theatre is on Cleethorpe Road (A180) in East Marsh near the docks.

Transport

Grimsby's bus service is provided by Stagecoach which took over the original Grimsby-Cleethorpes Transport in 1993 . Grimsby-Cleethorpes Transport had been formed in 1957 , with the merger of the previously separate Grimsby and Cleethorpes transport (GCT) undertakings. Stagecoach had all the buses resprayed to their standard livery to replace the buses previous colour-scheme of orange and white. Prior to this, the buses were painted blue and white until 1981 , when the colours were changed to caramel and cream. The orange and white livery was introduced in 1987 . Until 1982 GCT ran a mixture of crewed and one-person operated services. However, in that year the job of conductor was abolished and the company changed entirely to driver-only services.

In 2005 Stagecoach bought out Lincolnshire Road Car, who provided buses to Killingholme, Louth, Barton-upon-Humber and the Willows Estate. The company is now known as Stagecoach in Lincolnshire. Joint ticketing was allowed with Stagecoach Grimsby-Cleethorpes from May 2006.

From September 2006 a new fleet of low-floor single-decker was introduced, making the fleet an unprecedented 85% low-floor.

Grimsby also has rail links via Grimsby Town railway station and Grimsby Docks railway station. TransPennine Express provide direct trains to Manchester Airport via Doncaster and Sheffield whilst Northern Rail operate services to Barton-upon-Humber (for buses to Hull) and Lincoln and Central Trains services to Nottingham.

Grimsby was home to two tramway networks: the Grimsby District Light Railway and the Grimsby & Immingham Electric Railway. The Grimsby Electric was a normal gauge tramway opened in 1912 between Corporation Bridge at Grimsby and Immingham. There was no physical connection with the railway system. The tramway served the town with a passenger service between Grimsby and Immingham until closure in 1961 . It is claimed that once this was controlled by the Corporation, they were more interested in supporting the motorbus service, now number 45.

The Grimsby Light Railway opened in 1881 using horse drawn trams. In 1901, these were replaced with electric tramways. In 1925 the Grimsby Transport Company bought the tramway company and in 1927 moved the depot to the Victoria Street Depot, an old sea plane hangar. This system closed in 1937 . The depot continues to be used by Stagecoach, though the old Grimsby Tramways livery is still visible on the front of the building.

Operating in the area until the 1950s was a network of electrically operated trolley buses which received their power from overhead power lines.

In the early years of the new millennium it was suggested that a Tramway system much like the Sheffield Supertram should be built in Grimsby. Various news reports and details of which areas the trams might go through were published, though the project was abandoned due to lack of funding. Currently there are no active plans to bring back this proposed system.

14 miles west of Grimsby is Humberside Airport, which mainly caters for charter holidays, and is popular for general aviation, with five flying clubs based there. There are also scheduled flights to Aberdeen and Amsterdam, provided by Eastern Airways and KLM respectively.

Redevelopment and regeneration

Grimsby is soon to be vastly redeveloped as over £13 million is being used to improve the town.[citation needed] It is currently being planned out by a small team of officials,[who?] however no details have been released as to which areas of the town will specifically change.
Recently it has been suggested that some of the areas that will be redeveloped include Freeman Street and the Yarborough Estate.[citation needed]

Media

The Grimsby Telegraph, with an audited circulation of 40,533 copies (January-June 2004), has the highest circulation of a local newspaper in Grimsby and the surrounding area since it is the only local newspaper. The local radio stations are BBC Radio Humberside, Lincs FM, Viking FM and the exclusively North East Lincolnshire-based Compass FM. The local television channel is Channel 7 Television, which has studios in Immingham and the Grimsby Institute. It is said that 59% of Grimsby citizens regulary watch the channel.

Grimsby in the media

Bernie Taupin, who lived in Humberston and Tealby, near Market Rasen, when in his teens, wrote a song called Grimsby that was featured on Elton John's 1974 album "Caribou".

Corporation Bridge was featured in the video for the Erasure song "The Circus". It also featured clips showing Cleethorpes' Big Wheel.

Grimsby was the location for the 1937 film The Last Adventurers.

The town's Scartho Hospital - now Diana, Princess of Wales Hospital, as well as the Scartho Cemetery entrance featured in the 1985 film Clockwise, starring John Cleese.

The old ice factory on Grimsby Docks was used as one of the locations for the film Atonement, to be released in 2007 . Adapted from a novel by Ian McEwan the film stars Keira Knightley.

Local actor Thomas Turgoose, was studying at the towns Wintringham School when he starred in the Shane Meadows film, This Is England (2006). Most of the movie was also filmed in the town.

A rash of lottery winners in the late 1990s saw the town being officially designated "Winsby" by the Grimsby Evening Telegraph but despite popular support this new name never really caught on.

The town went 'Pop Idol mad' in 2003 when Grimsby girl Kim Gee made it into the final 12 of the live TV talent show and in 2006 youngster Georgia Taylor emerged from the smoke and dazzled the nation as the winner of Stars in Their Eyes Kids but later lost out in the live final. Kim Gee now presents a daily radio show called Compass FM, which is broadcast locally.

Grimsby also went 'X Factor crazy' when in the first series, G4, a pop quartet with a member from Grimsby, and Verity Keays, a singer from Grimsby, all made final three. Verity nor G4 didn't win the contest, but G4 went on to become a big success.

The Grimsby Telegraph also encouraged the town to support Big Brother 6 contestant Derek Laud because in the early 1980s he was once a researcher for Michael Brown, who was then MP for Brigg and Cleethorpes.

Grimsby features in the PlayStation 3 videogame Resistance: Fall of Man, where the player has to escape a Chimeran Conversion Centre on the Docks.[6]

The "Grimsby Telegraph" is currently offering a huge amount of support to local filmmaker Tony lane who is currently in pre-production on his first feature length movie "Invasion of the Not Quite Dead" which will be produced by legendary filmmaker Ken Russell.

Accent

One of the more notible things is the fact that Grimsby and the surrounding area has its own, often quite strong, dialect recognisable as being Grimbarian by other people from nearby counties. Most Grimbarians appear curiously unaware of the strength of the accent [citation needed]. Although showing influences from both Yorkshire and the East Midlands, the Grimsby accent has other aspects to both its grammar and vocabulary.

One of the most instantly recognisable characteristic of the Grimsby accent is the unusual pronunciation of the 'ur' sound in words like "purse" and "work" turn into "werk" and "perse" when pronounced in Grimberian. Native Grimbarians tend to pronounce it in a similar fashion to the 'ai' sound in "hair". The result of this is that the words "her", "here", "hair" and "ear" all sound exactly the same. As is the same in many Northern accents, the consonant 'h' is seldom pronounced.

Another recognisable feature is the replacing of the voiceless dental fricative (e.g. thick or thumb) with the voiceless labiodental fricative (e.g. fat or feel), an example of which can be heard in this interview with actor and Grimbarian Thomas Turgoose at 3:19 [3]. Just as frequent is the replacing of the voiced dental fricative (e.g. the of these) with the voiced labiodental fricative (e.g. valve or voiced) and sometimes with the alveolar lateral approximant (e.g. laugh or lean).

Another notable characteristic is the occasional pronunciation of a short 'o' vowel sound (open back rounded, ɒ) in place of the long diphthong sound, so that words such as 'over' and 'open' become 'ovver' and 'oppen'.

Salutation is often in the form of a long, drawn-out "hiya". There is also frequent use of the term "mate", and referencing strangers using this word is not uncommon. "Bye" may be replaced by "ta-da", an interesting local variant on the standard northern English "ta-ra". Some Grimbarians often replace "self" with "sen", speaking of "mesen" instead of "myself" and "yoursen" instead of "yourself", though this is considered quite old fashioned.

Anomalies are also present in Grimbarian grammar. For instance, the present tense is frequently used in place of the past in informal conversation, for example, "I see him last night" instead of "I saw him last night" and "she come downstairs" instead of "she came downstairs". Similarly, the first-person conjugation of the past tense of the verb "to be" is frequently used instead of the second and third person, that is, the word "was" tends to replace "were", e.g "we was" and "was you" in place of "we were" and "were you". Also, phrases such as "no I didn't" can sometimes be replaced with "no-a-dint" for more informal conversation.

There are a considerable number of vocabular anomalies in the Grimsby-area accent, a comprehensive list of which can be found on here[4].

Notable connections

The lack of green belt land and close proximity between Cleethorpes and Grimsby meant that many Grimbarians (natives of Grimsby) were born at the now defunct Croft Baker Maternity Hospital in Cleethorpes. Those born and/or brought up in the area include:

Shirley Brasher (Bloomer) (1934) - won the French Open Singles and Doubles titles in 1957, and the French Open Mixed title in 1958. She played tennis in her early years at Grimsby Tennis Club. She was married to athlete Chris Brasher. Shirley was part of the successful 1958 team that beat the USA in the Wightman Cup, the first time it had been done for 30 years. At the veterans level, Shirley has won many British national tiles and continues to represent Great Britain internationally at the sport.

Quentin Cooper, the presenter of Radio 4's Material World, and film correspondent for BBC Radio 2 grew up in the town, attending Wintringham School.

Peter "Mars" Cowling - Bass player in the Pat Travers Band for many years.

Michele Dotrice (1948) - actress famed for playing the role of Betty Spencer in the 1970s comedy Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em

Brenda Fisher - the daughter of a Grimsby trawler skipper, she was one of the first women to swim the English Channel

Helen Fospero - newsreader for Sky News and Five News

Freddie Frinton (1909-1968) - a comedian famous for playing a drunk (although in real life he was teetotal). He is more famous in Germany and Scandinavia than he is in his native United Kingdom due to a recording of a sketch of his entitled Dinner for One. Based on a music hall act he used to perform this is shown in Europe each year as part of the New Year's Eve celebrations. In his own country he is generally more remembered for his role in the 1960s BBC comedy Meet The Wife which also starred Thora Hird.

Vivean Gray (1924) - actress most noted for the role of Nell Mangel in the Australian soap opera Neighbours; her father was once a fish merchant on Grimsby Docks

Dan Haigh (1981) - bass guitarist in rock group Fightstar, was also born and brought up in the town.

Patricia Hodge (1946) - television actress whose numerous roles include the series Rumpole of the Bailey and Jemima Shore Investigates. Her parents used to manage the now defunct Royal Hotel in the town. She attended Wintringham School in Grimsby.

Ian Huntley (1974) - Convicted for the murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. Huntly lived in Grimsby before moving to Soham. He was well known in local pubs such as 'The Hainton' and 'The Longship'.[7]

Dame Madge Kendal (1848-1935) - a famous theatrical actress at the turn of the 20th century. Dame Kendal Grove is named after her.

Tony Lane (1978) filmmaker/Indywood Founder

Duncan McKenzie (1950) - 1970s footballer. Played for Nottingham Forest, Leeds United and Everton. Famous for feats such as jumping over a Mini from a standing start and throwing a cricket ball out of the ground at Leeds. He attended Wintringham School.

Duncan Newmarch - BBC continuity announcer and former commercial radio presenter

Julie Peasgood (1956) - another actress who has had many television appearances including a major role as Fran in the former soap opera Brookside. She grew up in Grimsby and attended Wintringham School.

Matthew Stiff (1979) - vocalist with troupe G4 was born in the town and brought up in the nearby village of Waltham.

John Whitgift (1530-1604) - rose to become Archbishop of Canterbury under Queen Elizabeth I.

Patrick Wymark (1926-1970) - actor noted for his roles in the popular 1960s ITV drama The Power Game and in the 1970 film Cromwell, alongside Richard Harris. The film was completed shortly before his premature death at the age of 44. Wymark View was named after him. (His daughter Jane Wymark is an accomplished actress in her own right, presently seen playing Mrs Barnaby in the drama Midsomer Murders

Numerous well known snooker players come from the town, the best-known being Sid Hood, Ray Edmonds (1936), Dean Reynolds (1963), Mike Hallett (1959), Sean Storey (1971) and Stuart Carrington (c1990).

Those with connections to the town include:

Jeffrey Archer (1940) - when he was Member of Parliament for the former Louth constituency from 1970 to 1974, his constituency house was in Tetney.

Richard A Collins (1966)- scientist and author, best known for his 2005 techno-thriller Under A Blood Red Sky (novel), lived with his parents in Holton-le-Clay and Scartho for most of his youth.

John Hurt (1940) - although born in Derbyshire, the actor spent his formative years in the town while his father was a minister at St Aidan, Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire.

Norman Lamont (1942) - Conservative MP and former Chancellor of the Exchequer was brought up in the town. His father was a GP in the area.

David Ross - businessman, co-founder and large shareholder in Carphone Warehouse was brought up in the town. His grandfather J Carl Ross was the founder of the Ross Trawler Company and who moved into frozen food. It is still a popular frozen food brand albeit no longer with any family connection.


Those who live in the local area include:

Roy 'Chubby' Brown (1945) - adult comedian, lives in the nearby village of Tetney.[citation needed]

Barbara Dickson (b. 1947) - singer, lives near Louth.

Patrick Mower (b. 1940) - actor lives near Louth.

Sport

The football team is Grimsby Town F.C., nicknamed 'The Mariners', who play in League Two. Their ground is Blundell Park in Cleethorpes. It is the oldest professional football team in the county of Lincolnshire (indeed one of the oldest in the country being formed in 1878 as Grimsby Pelham with a home ground on land off Ainslie Street, Grimsby).

During the 1930s they played in the English First Division, the then highest level of the domestic game in England. They also appeared in two FA Cup semi-finals in this decade, in 1936 (against Arsenal) and 1939 (against Wolverhampton Wanderers. The latter semi-final was held at Old Trafford, Manchester, and the attendance (76,962) is still a record for that stadium.

They also reached an FA Cup quarter-final 1987 and in 1998 won the Auto Windscreens Shield and the second division play-off final. Notable former managers include Bill Shankly and Lawrie McMenemy.

Blundell Park has the oldest stand in English professional football, the Main Stand. It was first opened in 1899 although only the present-day foundations date from this time. The club plan to move to a proposed new stadium, sponsored by ConocoPhillips, at nearby Great Coates in the summer of 2009. This will cost £14m[citation needed] and accommodate 20,000 spectators. There has been no commitment from ConocoPhillips on funds to date, however.

Grimsby Borough F.C. is a football club established in 2003 and based in Grimsby. They are members of the Central Midlands League Supreme Division.

The area also boasts an amateur rugby union side, the Grimsby RUFC, and an amateur cricket side, the Grimsby Town Cricket Club, both of which attract reasonable levels of support. Tennis teams from local clubs have been successful in various inter-County competitions with the Men's Team from Grimsby Tennis Centre winning the Lincolnshire Doubles League again in 2005. Tennis players from the town represent the County on a regular basis at all age levels.

Grimsby Tennis Centre underwent a major redevelopment of facilities in 2005 and is now entirely accessible to the disabled.

The town had one of the largest table tennis leagues in the country (Grimsby & District Table Tennis League)with over 120 teams competing during the 1970s, but sadly, like the game of squash, the sport has declined in the town during recent years.

Cleethorpes Cricket Club (Chichester Road, Cleethorpes) has three squash courts, Millfields Hotel (in Bargate) two courts and there is one court at Grimsby Tennis Centre (Weelsby Avenue, Grimsby).

Trivia

Grimsby was featured in the Open University documentary Coast, which despite the food heritage of historic significance, chose to show only a 'fish-finger' production line.

The MP for Grimsby before Austin Mitchell was Highgate School-educated Anthony Crosland, who served in the Government of Harold Wilson as Education Minister and Foreign Secretary. He was a champion of comprehensive education, and Whitgift School is situated in the town's Crosland Road.

Grimsby is the site of a Blue Cross Animal Hospital, one of only four in the country, the other three being situated in London. The Grimsby hospital was previously in Cleethorpe Road, but in 2005 it moved to a new building in Nelson Street.

The game Resistance Fall Of Man featured a Grimsby docks level.

Twin cities

Grimsby's twin cities include:

See also

Notes and references

  • "A Brief History of Grimsby". Retrieved April 12. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  • "Historical Grimsby". A thousand years of history and famous figures from Grimsby in Lincolnshire. Retrieved April 12. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  • "Leslie Aitchison, Lincolnshire Acts of Parliament". Retrieved April 12. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  • "Grimsby Guide". Introduction. Retrieved April 12. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  • "Grimsby Guide". Retrieved April 12. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  • "The Legend of Grim & Havelock". Retrieved April 12. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  • "Newspaper Reports". Retrieved April 13. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  • "Department for Transport Maritime Statistics 2003" (PDF). Retrieved August 28. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  • "Resistance: Fall of Man". Retrieved August 20. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  • "The 2007 Grimsby Floods". Retrieved April 12. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)

Notes

  1. ^ http://www.parliament.uk/directories/hciolists/alcm.cfm
  2. ^ Grimsby nets a 'pizza' the action - BBC News Online
  3. ^ UK Food Town
  4. ^ Grimsby nets a 'pizza' the action - BBC News Online
  5. ^ http://www.rospa.co.uk/awards/winners2006/silver.htm RoSPA Silver Award]
  6. ^ Resistance: Fall of Man
  7. ^ Sky News - Profile of Ian Huntley
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