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3 score & 10; How big was Grimsby Town?

05 May 03 - 05:08 PM (#946448)
Subject: 3 score & 10; How big was Grimsby Town?
From: Uncle_DaveO

The subject line more or less says it.

In the great song "Three Score and Ten" is told the story of the loss, in the 1890s, I think, of seventy seamen in a great October sea storm, just counting the ones from the Grimbsy area, while there were great losses from other towns up and down the coast.

Now, that's got to be a terrible blow to any city, but what was the size of Grimsby at that time? Just to have an idea of the relative impact.

Dave Oesterreich

05 May 03 - 06:50 PM (#946525)
Subject: RE: 3 score & 10; How big was Grimsby Town?
From: Gareth

Uncle DaveO - Not that big, and not that small, but remember in the East Coast Fishing Towns and Villages, the Seafolk were a small close knit community, all interelated.

70 dead was massive loss to that community.

Folk memory, and I no longer live in Whitstable, suggest that about something like 30 souls were lost from there in the Great Storm. Whitstable then had a population of about 5/6000.

Best guess, and it is only a guess would have been about 7/8000 for Grimsby. I will research.

BTW
On similar lines ---
"Oh youv'e heard of the Gresford Disaster,
Of the terrible price that was paid,
245 Colliers were lost,
And three men of the Rescue Brigade."

And after the second Senghenydd Explosion 1913 (400 +/-) dead acording to the "Western Mail" "There was not a house in that village that did not have grieving parents, widows or orphens"

Gareth

05 May 03 - 07:12 PM (#946540)
Subject: RE: 3 score & 10; How big was Grimsby Town?
From: Gareth

Mmmm ! I think I underguessed on size, but my comments on communities stand - unless some catter can refute them !

Click 'Ere

Gareth

05 May 03 - 08:17 PM (#946583)
Subject: RE: 3 score & 10; How big was Grimsby Town?
From: John Routledge

As the song continues ".......many hundreds more were drowned"

06 May 03 - 04:03 AM (#946781)
Subject: RE: 3 score & 10; How big was Grimsby Town?
From: fiddler

Hundreds at sea as always plying their trade with the pots and nets thing - noty all form Grimsby town.

I don't think many land lubbers realise how many folk put to sea each day to (these days as ever) scrape a living from the sea!

A

06 May 03 - 04:27 AM (#946790)
Subject: RE: 3 score & 10; How big was Grimsby Town?
From: GUEST,Jon

In our thread on the song (here), Dave/dmcg gives the following information regarding missing/drowned people:
It was reported like this:


As day after day passes and no tidings arrive of the missing Grimsby smacks, it is beginning to be realised that the gale of the 9th ult. will prove one of the most disastrous to the Grimsby fishing trade on record. Altogether nearly a dozen fishing vessels, carrying between 60 and 70 hands, are missing. Most of these vessels were only provisioned for eight or nine days, and many of them have been out over a month. Of the safety of seven of them all hope has now been abandoned. The vessels are:
Sea Searcher, trawl smack, owner Mr Joseph Ward; five hands.
John Wintringham, cod smack, master and owner Mr John Guitesen; eleven hands.
Eton, iron steam trawl smack, owner Mr H. Smethurst, Jun.; eight hands.
British Workman, cod smack, owner Mr Thomas Campbell; seven hands.
Sir Frederick Roberts, trawl smack, master and owner Mr W. Walker; five hands.
Kitten, trawl smack, owner James Meadows; five hands.
Harold, trawl smack, master and owner Mr Blakeney; five hands.

Portions of wreckage from the Kitten have been picked up at sea and brought into port, and the British Workman was seen to be reduced to a mere wreck by a heavy sea on the morning of the gale. Many of the men who have been lost leave wives and families, and an immense amount of distress will be caused amongst the fishing population. The total number of vessels lost will, it is feared, be near 15, and of lives between 70 and 80.


Hull Times, 2 March 1889.

06 May 03 - 05:05 AM (#946797)
Subject: RE: 3 score & 10; How big was Grimsby Town?
From: Dead Horse

Seeing this has prompted me to ask if any lives were lost when the Russian Fleet opened fire on the Dogger Bank fishermen?
This was during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904, and they were acting in "self defence" believing that the fishing fleet were Japanese torpedo boats
The Russian navy was en-route to Vladivostok, and met their complete destruction at Tsushima.

06 May 03 - 07:14 AM (#946847)
Subject: RE: 3 score & 10; How big was Grimsby Town?
From: Wolfgang

Two lives lost (Dogger Bank incident) according to this BBC page

Wolfgang

06 May 03 - 10:46 AM (#946990)
Subject: RE: 3 score & 10; How big was Grimsby Town?
From: Les from Hull

There's a statue commemorating the incident at the corner of Boulevard in Hull (in the heart of the fishing community) depicting Skipper Smith of the Crane. There's also a piece of companionway with a Russian shell hole in it in our excellent Maritime Museum.

There were possibly more lives lost aboard Russian vessels, as in the confusion they not only shelled our trawlers, but each other.

Les

06 May 03 - 02:36 PM (#947109)
Subject: RE: 3 score & 10; How big was Grimsby Town?
From: Willa

My grandfather was one of the skippers involved in what was locally called 'The Russian Outrage'. He gave evidence at the subsequent inquiry. I've never heard of any Russian lives being lost, though that could have happened.

06 May 03 - 02:54 PM (#947124)
Subject: RE: 3 score & 10; How big was Grimsby Town?
From: Wolfgang

One Russian dead according to this site

Wolfgang

03 Nov 04 - 02:09 PM (#1315494)
Subject: RE: 3 score & 10; How big was Grimsby Town?
From: Rozza

56,000 in 1891 according to Gillett's History of Grimsby.