Homes Development Honours Lost Trawlermen Thanks To Tollbar Academy Student

Tollbar Academy Year 7 student Ruby Gallacher with the new sign for Barratt Homes' new development, Wigmore Park, which has been named after her suggestion in honour of a Grimsby trawler which was sunk during WW2.

A Grimsby trawler sunk during WW2 will be forever remembered thanks to a collaboration between housebuilders Barratt Homes and young students at Tollbar Academy.

Barratt Homes Yorkshire East challenged Year 7 students to come up with a suitable name for the new development, which is being built on Station Road, New Waltham, opposite the Academy. They wanted something that celebrated the town’s history and fishing heritage. 

The students undertook the task as part of their Careers and Personal Development curriculum. There were a whole host of suggestions, but it was 12-year-old Ruby Gallacher who did some research and settled on the story of The Wigmore. The Wigmore was a British steam trawler, which was on route from Grimsby for fishing grounds on November 18 1939 when she was torpedoed by U-22 and sunk. Sixteen crew members lost their lives.

Ruby said: “Many trawlers were shot and sunk during the war and a large amount of them from Britain were from Grimsby. The Wigmore was a huge loss and it was blown into a million pieces. The whole crew died and I want to call the development Wigmore to honour all the fishermen whose lives were lost during the World Wars.”

Barratt Homes agreed and settled on the name Wigmore Park. As a reward for the students’ research, the company has bought the Academy a Davis Vantage Vue Weather Station, which will be used as part of the Key Stage 3 Geography curriculum for seeing weather forecasts, moon phases, sunrise and sunset times and more. 

Aside from the chosen name, other worthy suggestions were Tiger Fields, which is based on The Ross Tiger; the first of a fleet of 12 middle-water boats for Ross Trawlers Ltd which is now homed at the Grimsby Heritage Centre; and Paddock 1856, which stems from the first dock in Grimsby opening in 1856.

Linda Willougby, Curriculum Leader for Careers and Personal Development at Tollbar Academy, said the school was very proud of the students. 

“We’re extremely grateful to Barratt Homes Yorkshire East for wanting to team up with our pupils and get their creative minds working to come up with a name for the new development. The children loved the activity, and we’re really thankful for the weather station. We’re really excited to start using it.”

Linzi Bentley, Sales Manager at Barratt Homes’ Wigmore Park Development, added: “We always look to support the communities in which we build and develop a strong relationship with them, which is why we wanted to team up with the pupils at Tollbar Academy when naming this development.

“We received some excellent entries, which all reflected the New Waltham and Grimsby community, history and nature, and we’d like to congratulate Ruby and her peers at the school for their efforts, as it was hard to choose a winner from the fantastic entries we received. We’re really excited for Wigmore Park to come to life, and to start to build a community here.”