Grimsby ( ) or Great Grimsby is a port town in Lincolnshire, England with a population of 86,138 (as of 2021). It is located near the mouth on the south bank of the Humber that flows to the North Sea. Grimsby adjoins the town of Cleethorpes directly to the south-east, forming a conurbation. It is the administrative centre of the borough of North East Lincolnshire, which alongside North Lincolnshire is officially part of the Yorkshire and the Humber region. Grimsby is north-east of Lincoln, (via the Humber Bridge) south-east of Hull, and east of Doncaster.
Landmarks include Grimsby Minster, Port of Grimsby and Grimsby Fishing Heritage Centre. Grimsby was once the home port for the world's largest fishing fleet around 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 suffered post-industrial decline like most other industrial towns and cities in the UK.
Food production has been on the rise in Grimsby 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. The town celebrates Great Grimsby Day on 11 March, the day its town charter was granted in 1201. Grimsby is the second largest settlement by population in Lincolnshire after Lincoln.
Geography
The town was named "Great Grimsby" to distinguish it from Little Grimsby, a village about to the south, near Louth. It had a population of 88,243 in the 2011 census and an estimated population of 88,323 in 2019. It forms a conurbation with Cleethorpes and the villages of Humberston, Scartho, Brigsley and Waltham. The 2011 population of the conurbation was 134,160, making it the largest built-up area in Lincolnshire.
History There is archaeological evidence of a small town of Roman workers in the area in the 2nd century AD during Roman occupation. Located on The 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.
Vikings Sometime in the 9th century AD, Grimsby was settled by Danes. Local folklore claims that the name Grimsby derives from Grim, a Danish (as an old term closer to "Viking") fisherman. The common toponymic suffix -by is derived from the Old Norse word for village (compare with , and ). The legendary founding of Grimsby features in a medieval romance, the Lay of Havelock the Dane, but historians see this account as a myth.
In Norse mythology, Grim (Mask) and Grimnir (Masked One) are names adopted by the deity Oðin (Anglo-Saxon Woðen) when travelling incognito amongst mortals, as in the short poem known as "Grimnir's Sayings" (Grimnismal) in the Poetic Edda.Grimnir's Sayings (verses 46 and 49), 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 Oðinic name "Grimr/Grim" occurs in many English place names in the historical Danelaw and elsewhere in Britain. Examples are numerous earthworks named Grimsdyke.Mysterious Britain, Janet and Colin Bord, (1972) Garnstone Press Ltd., p. 88 Other British place names with the element Grim are explained as referring to Woðen/Oðin (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.
Medieval times In the 12th century, Grimsby grew 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. 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, Grimsby 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. In 1801, the population of Grimsby was 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.
Rise of fishing and maritime industry In May 1796, the Grimsby Haven Company was formed by the Great Grimsby (Lincoln) Harbour Act 1796 (36 Geo. 3. c. 98), also known as the Grimsby Haven Act 1796, for the purpose of "widening, deepening, enlarging, altering and improving the Haven of the Town and Port of Great Grimsby". After the dredging of The Haven and related improvement in the early 19th century, Grimsby 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 1845 (8 & 9 Vict. c. ccii).
In 1848, the arrival of the railway eased the transport of goods to and from the port to markets and farms. Coal mined in the South Yorkshire coalfields was brought by rail and exported through Grimsby. Rail links direct to London and the Billingsgate Fish Market allowed fresh "Grimsby fish" to gain nationwide renown. The first true fish dock opened in Grimsby in 1856, and the town became central to the development of the commercial fishing industry.
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.Leslie Herman, Grimsby Fish Docks Centenary, 1956 The first two legitimate steam trawlers built in Britain were based in Grimsby. A gale in February 1889 resulted in the loss of fifteen smacks and 70 to 80 lives. At that time it was thought to be one of the most serious losses to a single port.
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. 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. The Great Depression and restructured fishing caused a sharp decline in employment. After that the population was fairly stable for the rest of the 20th century.
Second World War
The Royal Dock became the UK's largest base for minesweepers patrolling the North Sea. The Admiralty requisitioned numerous trawlers to serve the purpose of the Royal Naval Patrol Service. Often the crew was 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.Jimmy Brown, Harry Tate's Navy – One Man's Story of the Royal Naval Patrol Service, 1994 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.
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. 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.
Post-Second World War After 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's trawling days are remembered through artefacts and permanent exhibits at the town's Fishing Heritage Centre. A preserved 1950s trawler, Ross Tiger, is located here. Few fishing vessels still operate from Grimsby's docks, but the town maintains a substantial fish market important in Europe.
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.
Demographics A little under half of the population of Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes reported a religious affiliation in the 2021 Census, mainly Christian, with Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Jewish and other minorities making up around 3% of the population. In 2024, 95.7% of the population of Grimsby town identified with a white ethnic group.
Governance Council wards North East Lincolnshire Council has eight electoral wards within Grimsby namely:
East Marsh Freshney Heneage Park Scartho South West Marsh Yarborough
Parliamentary constituency Since the 2024 general election, Melanie Onn (Labour) has been the Member of Parliament for the Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes constituency. Onn served as the MP for the former seat of Great Grimsby from 2015 to 2019. She lost the seat to Lia Nici (Conservative) in the 2019 General Election; the first time in 74 years the Labour Party lost the seat. Austin Mitchell (Labour) held it from 1977 to 2015.
History