Stricken Grimsby trawler remembered in Icelandic museum

THE bell from a stricken Grimsby trawler – which was wrecked with the loss of three lives – is one of the star exhibits at a remote Icelandic museum.

The trawler Grimsby Town survived the Second World War but was stranded off the coast of Iceland just a few months after the end of hostilities.

Three deckhands drowned in the disaster, in April 1946.

They were James J Whelton, of Stirling Street, Grimsby, Kenneth Meadows, of Hilda Street, Grimsby and Charles J H Lond, of Upper Spring Street, Grimsby.

It was reported 16 of the crew of 20 were saved.

But the ship's bell is today proudly displayed as part of the exhibits at a fascinating folk museum in Skogar, near the southern coast village of Vik, in Iceland.

A brief history of the tragedy surrounding the Grimsby Town and a framed photograph of the ship's mast, submerged in sand, is also included in the display.

The Grimsby Telegraph's archives reveal the Grimsby Town was built by Smiths Dock Company at Middlesbrough in 1934, as part of a promise made by Sir John Marsden.

He promised his firm, Consolidated Fisheries Ltd, would build a trawler and name it Grimsby Town when Grimsby Town FC gained promotion to the First Division of the Football League.

The club were the Second Division champions in the 1933/4 season and the trawler was ordered immediately.

When the new fish dock was opened on October 4, 1934, the Grimsby Town was the first trawler to enter the dock through the new lock pit.

During the war, the trawler was requisitioned by the Admiralty and it had only just been released and reconverted for a return to fishing when it became stranded on April 23, 1946.

The disaster was one of the most tragic chapters of Grimsby's maritime history but it is touching that the memory of the trawler, and those who died, lives on in that tiny museum.

Trawler bygones

Issue three of Trawler Years, a Telegraph special publication packed full of hundreds of amazing pictures of the vessels which were once the pride of Grimsby's fishing fleet, is out now priced 75p.