Everything about Great Grimsby Borough totally explained
Grimsby (or
archaically Great Grimsby) is a
seaport on the
Humber Estuary in
Lincolnshire,
England. It has been the administrative centre of the
unitary authority area 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 was previously titled "Great Grimsby" to distinguish it from
Little Grimsby, a village about fourteen miles (22 km) to the south, near
Louth. People from Grimsby are called Grimbarians.
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.It is close to the main
terminus
of the
A180, which ends in Cleethorpes.
January 22 is Great Grimsby Day
(External Link).
History
Vikings
Grimsby was founded by the
Danes in the 9th century AD, although there's 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. This is only one explanation of the founding of Grimsby, and is completely unsupported, being a legend.
Grimsby is listed in the
Domesday Book, having a population of around 200, a priest, a mill and a ferry (probably to take people across the
Humber, to
Hull. 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.
Grimsby doesn't 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 and maritime 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.
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 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.
(External Link)
The former Humber
ferry,
PS Lincoln Castle, is
moored in Alexandra Dock. Also in the dock is the
Ross Tiger, a
trawler which can be toured in the summer as part of the Fishing Heritage
centre.
World War II
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 (the British Government discussed its' demolition to prevent its use as a navigational aid). 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. 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.
The Royal Dock was used as the UK's largest base for
minesweepers, to patrol the
North Sea. Minesweepers are military vessels using deep-sea trawling methods. There is a
memorial next to the dock.
In reference to modern-day minesweeping,
HMS Grimsby is a
Sandown class minehunter (commissioned in 1999) currently in service in the
Royal Navy.
Local government
Great Grimsby formed an ancient Borough in the
North Riding of
Lincolnshire, Parts of Lindsey. It was reformed by the
Municipal Corporations Act 1835 and became a Municipal Borough in that year. In 1889 a County Council was created for Lindsey, but Great Grimsby was outside its area of control and formed an independent
County Borough in 1891.
In 1974, the County Borough was abolished The town doesn't have its own town council, instead there's a board of
Charter Trustees. During 2007, in the struggle for identity, it was suggested that the district could be renamed to something like
Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes to give a stronger indication of the towns the district consists of. This didn't meet with favourable comment among local residents, and the Council Leader dropped the idea a year later
Economy and manufacturing
Frozen food
Grimsby is indelibly linked with the sea fishing industry, which once gave the town much of 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
Iceland 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.
Grimsby is colloquially known as
UK Food Town, previously known as
Europe's Food Town. It is said that more pizzas are produced in Grimsby than anywhere else.
The food production and seafood heritage links are perpetuated in a UK 2006
Young's 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. In 2008 this was followed up by further commercials paying reference to the town and its main industry as the company launched a range of
Great Grimsby fish-based frozen meals.
Main employers
Some of the largest employers in the area are the pharmaceutical giant
Novartis (since 1951 making pharmaceuticals at its
factory and employs about 400 people) at
Pyewipe close to the A180, chemical
producer Tioxide Europe (making
Titanium dioxide white
pigments) on
Moody Lane with its landmark
chimney, and food processor Young's Bluecrest Seafood next to the docks on
Wickham Road. A significant number of locals are employed at the refineries located at nearby
Immingham and in associated industries.
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. Alexandra Dock is used to
import cars. The
Royal Dock imports food, such as
fish.
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 provides 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 will only be sounded in the event of the
Environment Agency issuing a severe flood warning for tidal flooding or if there's a likelihood of the sea defences being breached.
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 stations
BBC Radio Humberside or
Viking FM.
Testing of the sirens takes place annually on
26 October, and residents are not required to take any action.
Places of interest and landmarks
Education
Up to the age of 16, the results in recent years for Grimsby have not been 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 all other schools in the Borough. Past the age of 16, for A-level education, Grimsby's
Franklin College gets excellent results (as does the Toll Bar College). The
Grimsby Institute of Further & Higher Education, which is located near to Franklin College, operates mainly to educate vocational students and achieves respectable examination results at all levels of adult education. The Institute has attracted a large number of foreign students from China to business studies courses in recent years following on from a tradition which saw many students from overseas taking courses connected with the fishing industry. It has also experimented with local television - Channel 7 Television.
Shopping facilities
The award-winning
Freshney Place Shopping Centre 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 UK Ltd. 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).
Victoria Street is the main shopping street.
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 around the shopping centre, 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, between the shopping centre and the surface car park.
Baxtergate was relocated alongside the River Freshney and became phase one 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 each end of the centre, effectively privatising, roofing and enclosing the old
Top Town area of Grimsby. Servicing to the stores was made available from a first floor service area, accessible by even large vehicles, using a ramp at the western end. The ramp also provided access to the car park on the roof of the indoor market which is operated by the local council. In recognition of the design of the new facilities, the Royal Town Planning Institute awarded the scheme a commendation in 1992.
Other developments near 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 A16.
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 on
Holles Street and
Morrison's. The
Morrison's 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
supermarket's in the town have expanded somewhat in the last few years, including a massive extension built at
ASDA, and more recently another floor was built at
Tesco at Hewitts Circus. 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 (B1213), itself once a dominant shopping area in the town with close connections to the docks but one that has sadly struggled since the late 1970s when the fishing industry declined.
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 with the possibility of riverside Nightclubs and amusement Arcades.
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's planned to be open by 2009, although there's little evidence of construction work as of March 2008; a smaller retail development is planned alongside the proposed new stadium for
Grimsby Town FC at
Great Coates adjacent to the A180, scheduled for completion in mid-2010. A road access to the area has been built from a new roundabout on
Cromwell Road, near to the town's Leisure Centre, with a bridge, over the main railway line to the town, leading to the former refuse land fill site. There is a
retail park next to Alexandra Dock.
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.
Entertainment
The area has a 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 three (originally five) such operations. Prior to the late 1960s 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; examples are the
Yarborough Hotel.
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. The
Caxton Theatre provides entertainment by adults and youths in theatre. A notable theatre company in the area is the Class Act Theatre Company run by local playwright David Wrightam. The company produces strong factual drama and premiere award-winning productions.
North East Lincolnshire Council have installed a Wi-Fi network covering
Victoria Street in central Grimsby. The service provides access to the Internet for the general public on a yearly subscription.
Politics
Since 1977
Austin Mitchell (
Labour) has been the
Member of Parliament for the
Great Grimsby constituency. Mitchell, a journalist by trade, succeeded in a
by-election following the death of the
Highgate School-educated incumbent
Anthony Crosland, who was elected in 1959 and after several ministerial posts, reached the rank of
Foreign Secretary in 1976. Crossland 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.
Other Members of Parliament for Grimsby include the
Conservative Party politician
William Younger, a member of the Youngers brewing dynasty, elected in 1945. The constituency of
Great Grimsby is considered a Labour
stronghold although Austin Mitchell held the seat in the
1983 General Election with a majority of less than 1,000.
Transport
Buses
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.
Railways
Grimsby also has rail links via
Grimsby Town railway station and
Grimsby Docks railway station. There is a
level crossing in the centre of the town
across Wellowgate.
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
East Midlands Trains services to
Nottingham. The service to Cleethorpes runs at least hourly during the day, along a
single track, passing stations at
Grimsby Docks and
New Clee.
Former trams
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.
Airport
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. It is currently being planned out by a small team of officials, 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.
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's the only daily newspaper. Its
headquarters are on
Cleethorpe Road next to the A180. A "Cleethorpes Chronicle" was launched as a weekly in April 2008 www.cleethorpeschronicle.co.uk. The only locally owned newspaper in the area. The local radio stations are
BBC Radio Humberside (which has a
studio on
Victoria Street manned by
Lara King),
Lincs FM,
Viking FM and the exclusively
North East Lincolnshire-based
Compass FM. The transmitter for Compass FM and
EMAP Humberside (Lincs FM DAB) is on top of a
block of flats in East Marsh. 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 regularly watch the channel.
Grimsby in the media
The old ice factory on Grimsby Docks was used as one of the locations for the film Atonement (2007). Adapted from a novel by Ian McEwan the film stars Keira Knightley.
Local actor Thomas Turgoose, was studying at the town's Wintringham School when he starred in the Shane Meadows film, This Is England (2006). Most of the movie was also filmed in the town.
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.
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.
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. Neither Verity nor G4 won 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, where the player has to escape a Chimeran Conversion Centre on the Docks.
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.
In January 2001, Nicholas Griffin, the owner of the Little Amsterdam sex shop on Freeman Road was fined £5,800 at York Magistrates Court for four offences under the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 because angry customers had complained to Trading Standards officers in York that some of the films he sold were not pornographic enough.
Sport
The football team is Grimsby Town F.C., nicknamed 'The Mariners', who play in League Two. Their ground is Blundell Park in Cleethorpes. Due to the club's football grounds being in the neighbouring town it's often joked by locals, that it's the only British club that plays away every game. 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 and accommodate 20,000 spectators.
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's one court at Grimsby Tennis Centre (Weelsby Avenue, Grimsby).
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's 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's generally more remembered for his role in the 1960s BBC comedy Meet The Wife which also starred Thora Hird.
Freddie Frith (1909) - former Grand Prix motorcycle road racing World Champion.
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 and Scunthorpe before moving to Soham. He was well known in local pubs such as 'The Hainton' and 'The Longship'.
Dame Madge Kendal (1848-1935) - a famous theatrical actress at the turn of the 20th century. Dame Kendal Grove, in Nunsthorpe, 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 (c.1990).
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 Fulstow, near Tetney.
Barbara Dickson (b. 1947) - singer, lives near Louth.
Patrick Mower (b. 1940) - actor lives near Louth.
Graham Fellows (b.1959) - comedy writer/performer and musician, most famous for his character John Shuttleworth and 1970's punk-parody artist Jilted John, lives near Louth.
Twin cities
Grimsby's twin cities include:
Further Information
Get more info on 'Great Grimsby Borough'.
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