Gainsborough, a town of Lincolnshire, England, on the right bank of the Trent, which is crossed here by an arched stone bridge, 16 m. N. N. W. of Lincoln; pop. in 1871, 7,564. It contains a fine parish and a new district church, a grammar school, and a literary institute. The quaint old Elizabethan hall or manor house, supposed to have been partly built by John of Gaunt, and recently restored, contains the mechanics1 institute and assembly rooms and the theatre. Gainsborough shares with Hull in the Baltic trade; the river Trent is navigable for ships of 200 tons, and various canals afford communication with almost all important commercial centres; the outward and inward vessels number annually about 500, with an aggregate tonnage of upward of 25,000. The principal manufacture is that of linseed oil, and ship building, matting, rope making, and other industries are actively carried on.