366 EXAMINATION OF THE PRESENT STATE 
The real importance of the port, however, dates from the time at 
which it began to attract the attention of the Manchester, Sheffield, 
and Lincolnshire Railway Company. The Company acquired 
possession of the existing dock, now known as the Old Dock, and 
proceeded to construct new ones, the first of which was opened in 
1852. Additions have subsequently been made, and the dock 
accommodation at the present day exceeds 100 acres ; the population, 
3688 in 1841, is now something over 60,000. 
The bulk of the dock accommodation is, and has been, devoted to 
ordinary trading vessels, but the Company seem early to have cast 
covetous eyes upon the fish trade at Hull, and to have offered every 
inducement in their power to obtain a share of it for Grimsby. The 
latter port possesses natural advantages over its older rival, bemg 
nearer the mouth of the Humber, and in more direct railway 
communication with the principal markets,—facts which the fisher- 
men and smack-owners were not slow to appreciate. Special 
accommodation was provided for fishing vessels, which now have two 
docks, covering an aggregate of twenty-three acres, and two graving 
docks, devoted to their sole use. ‘he progress of the trade can in 
some way be judged from the Railway Company’s returns: previous 
to 1854 there was little or no inland fish traffic ; in 1854 the Com- 
pany despatched 453 tons, in 1860 4537 tons, in 1870 26,234 tons, 
in 1880 43,415 tons, and in 1393 80,134 tons. An export traffic was 
also established, and reached about 3000 tons in 1877, but has not 
materially increased since that year. 
It can well be understood that the development of the new 
fishing port was not viewed with any particular favour by its 
neighbour on the opposite bank of the Humber, and for many years 
the rivalry between Hull and Grimsby is said to have been keen 
and bitter, though nowadays it has no more than a merely formal 
existence. Hull has been gradually outclassed as a fishing station, 
not by any intrinsic decay, but simply by the extraordinary deve- 
lopment of the Grimsby trade ; it has merely had to take the second 
place in the deep-sea trawl and line-fishery of the nation, and shows 
no signs of relinquishing it for a lower one. 
The Boston trawling industry is the most modern of all, since it 
was originated within quite recent years under the most modern 
auspices. There never has been a first-class smack trawl-fishery at 
Boston, doubtless owing to the intricate navigation of the Wash. 
This presents but little difficulty to steam-vessels, and the steam- 
trawlers, devoted to the deep-sea trade, in no way interfere with the 
pre-existing inshore fisheries. 
The later developments of the North Sea trawl fishery can only 
be very briefly summarised. Boats found their way along the 
