Chapter XVII
., the family became possessed of the manor of Barmston; and in 1614 Matthew Boynton married Frances, daughter of Sir Henry Griffith of Burton Agnes. Four years later he was created a baronet by James I., and forty years later his son, Sir Francis Boynton, succeeded to the Burton Agnes estates. Sir Griffith Henry Boynton of Barmston, and Mrs. T. L. Wickham-Boynton of Burton Agnes Hall, are his descendants.
Burton Agnes Hall is famed as being ‘one of the most beautiful Tudor houses in Yorkshire.’ Parts of a building to the west of the Hall go back to about the year 1170, and some of its woodwork dates from the middle of the fifteenth century. But the Hall itself was built in the early years of the seventeenth century, and the date 1601 and the initials of Sir Henry Griffith and his wife are carved in the stonework over the main doorway.
* * * * *
Taking part in the Wars of the Roses was a Robert Hildyard of Winestead, famed widely as ‘Robin of Redesdale.’ Winestead came into possession of the HILDYARDS by the marriage of this Robert with the heiress of the HILTONS, three of whose altar tombs remain to-day in the Hilton chapel of the church at Swine.
Another Robert Hildyard had command of a King’s regiment of horse in the Great Civil War, and for his services in this was knighted and afterwards created a baronet. There are in Winestead Church fragments of large brasses, an altar tomb, and a wall monument, to different members of this family; to a younger branch of which belong the Hildyards who have for many generations been rectors of Rowley.
* * * * *
[Illustration:
EFFIGY OF A KNIGHT IN CHAIN ARMOUR IN THE SALTMARSHE CHAPEL AT HOWDEN CHURCH. ABOUT A.D. 1280. ]
How early the SALTMARSHES of Saltmarshe, near Howden, took their name is not definitely known. Sir Edward de Salso Marisco was Member of Parliament for Beverley in 1299, and a Geoffrey de Saltmersc held lands at Swinefleet about 1170. Their ancestor is said to be Lionel Saltmarshe, who was knighted by William the Conqueror in 1067. Colonel Philip Saltmarshe is the representative of the family to-day.
* * * * *
Last to be mentioned here are the STRICKLANDS of Boynton. The family had its origin at Marske, in the North Riding, and a Sir Thomas de Strickland bore the banner of St. George at the battle of Agincourt.
William Strickland, who purchased the manor of Boynton in 1549, sailed when a youth to the New World with Sebastian Cabot, and helped to discover Labrador and Newfoundland. He is said to have introduced the turkey into our country—a deed commemorated in the family crest. His descendant was created a baronet by King Charles I., and the present Sir Walter William Strickland, of Boynton Hall, is the ninth holder of the title.
[Illustration: COAT-OF-ARMS OF THE STRICKLANDS.]
Readers of _Tom Brown’s School-Days_ will all remember the hero’s friend Martin, his second in the historic fight with Slogger Williams. ‘The Madman’ was his name among his fellow school-boys, but it was as Sir Charles Strickland that he was known in the neighbourhood of Boynton.
XXIV. STAGE COACH AND RAILWAY.
Travelling for pleasure is something that we all understand. But our forefathers a few centuries ago would have thought a person mad if he had said he was going to take a journey for pleasure. Merchants had to travel, and so had messengers; but ordinary folk stayed at home, unless the burden of their sins moved them to undertake a pilgrimage to some far-off shrine. Such journeys were performed on horseback or afoot, but invalid women and infirm old men might use a horse-litter.
[Illustration:
ON THE ROAD IN 1812. AN EAST RIDING STAGE WAGGON. ]
Until the reign of Queen Mary I. there was in England no such thing as a coach. The lumbering _stage waggon_ with wheels ten or twelve inches wide, and drawn by eight or ten horses attended by a driver who rode on the back of a pony, came into use during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Its successor, the _stage coach_, was not invented till the time when King Charles paid his first visit to Hull.
Two years before the accession of Charles II., a regular coach service from London to York was announced, the coaches to make the journey three times a week in the advertised time of four days. But this time was largely exceeded as a rule, and at nearly the close of the century we find the coach taking six days to reach London from York.
The development of road travel may be said to date from the year 1662, when an Act of Parliament was passed for improving the condition of the main roads, permission being granted to those local authorities that desired it, to erect toll bars and charge travellers for the privilege of using the roads when put into repair. Yorkshire roads in particular were notoriously bad, as the letter written to Thomas Cromwell in 1538 shows.[60]
Footnote 60:
See pages 199–200.
But few local authorities stirred themselves in the matter of road improvement, and an old coach bill still preserved at the _Black Swan_ in Coney Street, York, has a very significant reminder of the dangers attending the journey to London in 1706:—
All that are desirous to pass from London to York, or from York to London ... may be received in a Stage Coach every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, which performs the whole Journey in Four Days (_if God permits_).
As an example of the TURNPIKE ACTS which became numerous as the eighteenth century slipped away, may be taken the ‘Act for Repairing the Road between the Town of Kingston upon Hull, and the Town of Beverley in the East Riding of the County of York.’ This came into force on May 1st, 1744. By it Trustees were appointed
for the surveying, ordering, amending, and keeping in Repair, the said Road ... and they ... shall and may erect, or cause to be erected, a Gate or Gates, Turnpike or Turnpikes, in or cross any Part or Parts of the said Road, and also a Toll-house or Toll-houses in or upon the same; and shall receive and take the Tolls and Duties following, before any Horse, Mare, Gelding, Mule, Ass, Cattle, Coach, Chariot, Landau, Berlin, Chaise, Calash, Chair, Hearse, Litter, Waggon, Wain, or Cart, or other Carriage whatsoever, shall be permitted to pass through the same.
The tolls payable varied from one-and-sixpence for a six-horsed coach, or a waggon drawn by five or more oxen, to three half-pence for an ‘Ass, not drawing.’ A drove of oxen was charged tenpence, and one of swine or sheep fivepence, per score.
Thus the users of a road paid for its upkeep, the very necessary reservation being made that no tolls were to be demanded in the case of men and vehicles engaged in farming operations; nor for waggons carrying hay or straw to be laid in the houses of the people in the neighbouring parishes and townships;[61] nor from persons attending the funeral of a parishioner, or attending ‘Church, Chapel, or other Place of Religious Worship on Sundays’; nor from voters going to and returning from the poll.
Footnote 61:
The floor of the Council Chamber at the Hull Trinity House is still strewn with rushes, these being changed about every six weeks.
As the result of such Turnpike Acts’ being enforced, stage coaching increased considerably; and the year 1760 saw the birth of _Flying Machines on Steel Springs_, that got through the journey from Leeds to London in the short space of three days. But the journey was still accomplished at some considerable amount of personal discomfort; for the ‘outside’ passengers had to stand all the time in a kind of huge basket slung behind the body of the coach.
From 1785, in which year the Royal Mails began to be conveyed by stage coach, travel increased by leaps and bounds; and stage coaching may be said to have reached the height of its prosperity about 1835.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: Royal Mail Schedule]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The old coaching roads of the East Riding are shown on the map given on the opposite page. Most frequented of all was that from Hull to York—in part the Roman road over Barmby Moor. From Beverley to Bridlington there were alternative routes used by rival coach proprietors. The announcement of one of these reads as follows:—
The BRITISH QUEEN leaves the Stirling Castle, Bridlington Quay, at Seven every morning (Sundays excepted), by way of Brandsburton and Beverley, and arrives at the Kingston and Vittoria Hotels, the George and Bull and Sun Inns, Hull, at Eleven in the Forenoon. The Coach returns in the afternoon, at four, by the same route, after the arrival of the Barton Packet with the Express Passengers from London, and arrives at the Stirling Castle, Bridlington Quay, at Eight o’clock in the evening.
The BRITISH QUEEN will be found a delightful conveyance to Bridlington Quay, on account of the Road for the last Six Miles being close to the Sea Side, and passing through a most beautiful part of the country.
So say the proprietors of the _British Queen_. But what have those of the rival coach to tell us?
The Public are respectfully informed that the WELLINGTON leaves the Cross Keys General Coach Office, Hull, every morning, at Six, to Beverley, Driffield, Bridlington and Quay, Hunmanby, and Filey, and arrives at the Bell Inn and Blacksmith’s Arms, Scarbro’, at Twelve; proceeds at Four to Whitby, Guisbro, Stockton, Sunderland, Shields, Durham, Newcastle, and Edinbro’. Seats secured at any time.
* * * * *
[Illustration: COACHING ROADS AND EARLY RAILWAYS]
The Road by Driffield is so well known as to be universally recommended. The Sea having made such dreadful havoc of the Brandsburton Road during the last few years as to render it dangerous travelling that way, being, for five or six miles, quite at the edge of the cliff.
Both these advertisements appeared in the columns of the _Hull Packet_ in 1833; and timorous old ladies who wished to journey from Hull to Bridlington in that year were no doubt very thankful to the proprietors of the _Wellington_ for making so clear the dangers of the road traversed by that ‘delightful conveyance,’ the _British Queen_.
Still standing by the side of what is now Cardigan Road at Bridlington, there is a mile stone informing all who desire the information that Beverley is distant 22 miles. It is on the old coaching road once traversed daily by the _British Queen_. But a few hundred yards past this relic of the old coaching days the road now reaches the sea-shore, and the remaining portion as far as Barmston has long since disappeared under the waves of the North Sea.
* * * * *
Very pleasant it must have been in the ‘Thirties’ to travel by a well-appointed stage coach—say the _Rockingham_, _Rodney_, _Trafalgar_, _Wellington_, _True Briton_, _Express_, _Telegraph_, _King William_, or _Queen Adelaide_, all of which coaches were running from Hull in 1832.
But this would be, of course, provided the weather were fine, and one could afford to travel ‘first class.’ It would not be pleasant to have to get out and walk uphill as the ‘second class’ passengers were expected to do in the case of a coach running from North Cave to Hull through Brantingham and Hessle; and it would be decidedly unpleasant to have to get out and push behind, as was demanded of the ‘third class’ passengers by this coach.
But there was always the danger of highwaymen to be faced, and the Royal Mail travelled ‘with a guard well armed,’ as the coaching bill reproduced on page 241 shows.
And what of winter travelling, with the thermometer down below freezing-point and the risk every minute of the coach’s being stuck fast in a snow-drift on a part of the road ‘five miles from anywhere’? Here are two local records which testify to the existence of such discomforts:—
[Illustration:
_Photo by_] [_C.W. Mason_
Pistols and Holsters formerly used on the Hull and Patrington Stage Coach. (Now in the possession of Dr. J. Wright Mason, Hull)
]
1839. Jan. 7. A dreadful storm visited the country.... For an hour and a half the Scarbro’ mail coach horses could not contend against the wind. The inside passengers of the Beverley coach had to get out and support the vehicle from being overturned.
1846. Dec. 15. Turnpike roads impassable with snow. Scarborough mail coach unable to proceed beyond Bridlington. Narrow escape of several persons from being frozen to death on the highways.
Ten years before stage coaches reached the height of their prosperity, a new era had begun—the era of the RAILWAY. The first railway to be used for passenger traffic was one between Stockton and Darlington, and in the year of its opening another from Leeds to Selby was being planned by the great engineer, George Stephenson.
This, as originally planned, was to be of a length of 20 miles. Near Leeds there were to be three inclines, up each of which the train was to be hauled by a fixed engine stationed at the summit. The rest of the line was to be worked either by a travelling engine or by a horse.
The latter could, it was calculated, be very profitably employed. For his work would only be needed on the flat and up the slight inclines; and for six or seven miles on the journey from Leeds to Selby he could be ‘thrown off’ and could ride ‘in his own carriage behind the train of waggons,’ until his services were again required. Such was Railway Engineering in its infancy.
The Leeds and Selby Railway Company having been formed, work was proceeded with on plans drawn up by another engineer, Mr. James Walker, and the line was declared open for traffic in 1834.
In the following year a new Company, known as the Hull and Selby Railway Company, was formed, with Mr. Henry Broadley as Chairman. An Act of Parliament ‘for making a Railway from Kingston-upon-Hull to Selby’ was then obtained, and the work of constructing the new railway was pushed forward rapidly.
This, the first terminal railway to be constructed in the Riding, was expected to bring with it great advantages. By it Hull would be linked to Manchester, and Manchester was already linked to Liverpool. Thus there would be direct railway communication across England from the North Sea to the Irish Sea.
But, for all this, the scheme met with great opposition. Hull and Selby were already served by steam packets travelling along the Humber and the Ouse, and this service was deemed so satisfactory that there was little chance of the new railway’s proving a commercial success.
Objections were also raised by some of the large landowners, who feared that the introduction of the railway would very largely decrease the value of their properties along its route. Such objectors had, of course, to be conciliated—as was Mr. Raikes of Welton, by a gift of £10,000 and an undertaking to build a station at Brough instead of at Welton.
* * * * *
July 2nd, 1840, saw the opening of the first terminal railway in our Riding, amid scenes of wild enthusiasm at both Selby and Hull, as well as at the various stations along the line. The first train from Hull to Selby—as reported in the _Hull Packet_—‘started about a quarter past twelve, and was nearly two hours in going to Selby. In returning, however, the Prince performed the trip, 31 miles, in one hour and five minutes.’[62]
Footnote 62:
The _Prince_ was one of the five engines employed on the new line. The fastest non-stop run in the British Isles to-day is that made on the N.E.R. from Darlington to York, when 44-1/4 miles are covered in 43 minutes—an average speed of 61.7 miles per hour.
The first East Riding time-table was a very modest affair, as will be seen from the reproduction overleaf. The order of arrangement of the train is seen to be:—Engine and tender, goods waggon, second-class carriage, first-class carriage, and third-class carriage; but the last-named is on this occasion occupied by four-legged passengers. It is recorded that when the passengers in this were two-legged cattle, ‘a great number of hats were lost’ and many ‘colds and inconveniences’ were caught—facts at which we shall probably not be surprised.
Several of the regulations of the Hull and Selby Railway seem very quaint. It was the duty of a _station-keeper_ ‘to conduct himself civilly,’ and ‘to enter on a waybill the number, class, and destination of the passengers sent by each train.’
[Illustration: THE FIRST TIME-TABLE OF THE HULL AND SELBY RAILWAY.]
The _guard’s_ duties were very numerous. Among them—
He shall not allow any of the passengers to smoke in the trains, nor in any manner to endanger themselves by imprudent exposure. No passenger shall be allowed to ride on the outside of a carriage without leave from the general superintendent. In the event of any passenger being intoxicated, or disorderly, so as to annoy other passengers, the guard shall use all gentle means to stop the annoyance, and if he does not succeed, he shall set him down at the next or most convenient station, and report the circumstance.
The new method of travelling proved very popular. In 1841 the number of passengers carried by the Hull and Selby Railway amounted to 212,000, ‘without the slightest accident to any of them.’ This was the beginning of the days of the ‘cheap tripper,’ and it is recorded that on August 22nd, 1844—
A pleasure train from Hebden Bridge and Luddington Foot brought 3,200 persons [to Hull] in 82 carriages; being the longest train that ever visited the town.
In many cases the railway train, steam packet, and stage coach ran in conjunction. Thus the journey from Hull to Knaresborough was completed in the following three stages:—
Hull to Selby by steam packet, Selby to Micklefield by railway, Micklefield to Knaresborough by stage coach.
The fares for this journey were ‘6s. 6d. outside and fore-cabin,’ and ‘10s. 6d. inside and best cabin.’ Certainly the traveller could not complain that he did not get plenty of variety for his money.
As an instance of the success of the new Railway in transporting ‘live stock’ may be given another extract from the _Hull Directory_:—
1842. December 9. A cow, which arrived here by the same steamer as the Post Office bags, outstripped those bags, 14 hours in her arrival at Manchester.
It is to be presumed that the cow travelled from Hull to Manchester by train, while the Post Office bags went by mail coach. But this is left to the imagination of the readers of the Directory.
In 1845 the Hull and Selby Railway was leased to the York and North Midland Company, a powerful company under the control of Mr. George Hudson, the ‘Railway King.’
* * * * *
This year and the next saw what was called the ‘Railway Mania,’ when promoters vied with one another in preparing schemes for new railways which people with money to invest were only too anxious to support. Two hundred and seventy-two Acts of Parliament authorizing new railways were obtained during the ‘boom;’ and when the ‘crash’ came, many lost the whole of the money they had so rashly invested.
The Hull and Bridlington Branch Railway was opened in 1846, and continued to Scarborough the following year. In 1847, also, the York and Market Weighton Branch Railway was opened; and the following year saw the opening of the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Railway ferry from Hull to New Holland. Hull and Withernsea were joined by the Hull and Holderness Railway in 1854.
[Illustration: THE HULL AND BEVERLEY STAGE COACH—WILSON’S ‘SAFETY.’]
Among the projected railways not carried out were the Hull and Market Weighton Railway, via Brough, and the Hull, South and West Junction Railway. One of the objectors to the former was the Vicar of South Cave, whose objection was that if there were a station at South Cave, ‘the scum of Hull would make it one place for their Sunday revels.’ His summary of the results of the introduction of railways was that—
The country youths go to some neighbouring town for a ‘lark,’ and the tag-rag-and-bob-tail of towns come into the country, not for sober enjoyment, but for Sunday dissipation.
Although this line of railway was not built, an alternative route from Hull to Market Weighton has long been provided. But the Hull, South and West Junction Railway, which was to cross the Humber by a tunnel at Hessle nearly forty years ago, remains as a project which will some day be successfully carried out.
[Illustration:
ON THE ROAD IN 1912. THE BEVERLEY AND BEEFORD MOTOR OMNIBUS. ]
XXV. ENGLAND’S THIRD PORT.
THE MODERN GROWTH OF HULL.
We have seen in some of the foregoing chapters how the small town of Wyke, or Hull, was born early in the twelfth century, how it received a charter of privileges from King Edward I., and how it was afterwards fortified with walls and ditches that withstood successfully a couple of sieges during the Great Civil War. It remains to see how the small, insignificant ‘King’s Town upon Hull’ has grown into a city so important as to take rank after London and Liverpool as ‘England’s Third Port.’
Six hundred years ago Hull was much smaller than, and nothing like so important as, its neighbours, Beverley and Hedon. Yet to-day its inhabitants number twenty-one times those of Beverley, and two hundred and thirty-nine times those of Hedon. Why should this be?
The answer is that in the first place Hull owes its greatness to its position on the northern shore of the mighty Humber. When ships were small, they could pass up the river Hull to Beverley, and could reach Hedon by its Haven. But as ships grew in size this became no longer possible, and Beverley and Hedon were left behind in the race, while Hull, because of its deep water, went ahead. For it is situate at the only spot on the north bank of the Humber where there is water sufficiently deep to allow large ships to approach the shore.
But there is one remarkable thing about the growth of Hull. This has taken place almost entirely within the last two hundred years. For 450 years after its walls were built, its inhabitants lived within them. Not till nearly the close of the eighteenth century did their houses begin to stretch out beyond its walls. In 1812 the area of the town was about three times that within these walls. But in 1912 the city has extended its arms so far beyond them that there are along its main roads six tram routes, each measuring from one and three-quarters to two and a half miles, while the houses of its inhabitants extend still farther.
The rapid growth of Hull within the last hundred years may be seen also by comparing the numbers of its inhabitants in different years:—
In 1811 its inhabitants numbered 37,000 ” 1841 ” ” ” 67,000 ” 1871 ” ” ” 122,000 ” 1901 ” ” ” 241,000 ” 1911 ” ” ” 278,000
These figures show that during each period of thirty years from 1811 to 1901 the population almost doubled itself, and that the greatest actual increase was between the years 1871 and 1901.
And why this sudden growth? Because of the introduction and perfection of the railway and the steamship, which together have enabled merchants to reap full benefit from the great advantages that nature herself bestowed upon their city.
* * * * *
If you turn to the fourteenth-century plan given on page 165, you will see that trading ships are moored in the river Hull—the ‘Old Harbour,’ as we call it to-day—on the right bank of which are the cranes for removing their cargoes. For another four centuries the river continued to be the only place for the mooring of ships.
[Illustration: WHITEFRIARGATE BRIDGE AND THE VICTORIA SQUARE, HULL.]
But when, by the revival of the whale-fishing industry in 1765, the amount of shipping greatly increased, need was felt for more accommodation. An Act of Parliament was therefore obtained in 1774 giving permission to ‘the Dock Company, of Kingston-upon-Hull,’ to make a dock extending from the river Hull to the Beverley Gate along the line of the town moat.[63]
Footnote 63:
The Hull Dock Company became extinct in 1893, when its property was purchased by the North Eastern Railway Company.
The first stone of this dock was laid in the following year, amid scenes of great enthusiasm. Saluted with the firing of nine cannon and accompanied by ‘a large band of music, constables and flags,’ the Mayor and Corporation walked in procession to the _Cross Keys_, where they had, we read, ‘an excellent dinner.’ Nor did they forget their humbler townsfolk, for the workmen were given ‘fifteen guineas to drink.’
In 1778 the work of building the dock was finished, and Hull had the honour of possessing the first enclosed trading dock in Great Britain. It proved a great success, paying to its 120 shareholders good dividends out of the dues which were collected from the owners of vessels using it.
These varied from two pence per ton for a coasting vessel trading as far north as Holy Island or as far south as Yarmouth, to one shilling and ninepence per ton for vessels trading with Greenland, Africa and America—foreign vessels paying in all cases double dues.
THE DOCK measured nine acres in water area. In 1809 another dock was built, with an entrance direct from the Humber. This became known as the NEW DOCK, the corresponding adjective ‘Old’ being then applied to the earlier one. In 1829 a JUNCTION DOCK was built between the two. The line of the town moat was now entirely replaced with a line of docks.
In 1840 the railway came to Hull. The station was at that time in Kingston Street—on the site of the present Goods Station—and to give greater access to it for ships, the RAILWAY DOCK was built off the New Dock.
But the four docks that Hull then possessed proved quite incapable of dealing with the volume of trade to which they gave rise. So new ground was tapped, and in 1850 the VICTORIA DOCK, with a water area of 20 acres, was built. At the same time the names of the three old docks were changed, and became thenceforth the QUEEN’S DOCK, HUMBER DOCK, and PRINCE’S DOCK.
For nineteen years this provision was sufficient. Then there was opened the ALBERT DOCK, four acres larger than the Victoria Dock, and in 1880 and 1883 this was followed by the WILLIAM WRIGHT DOCK[64] and the ST. ANDREW’S DOCK.
Footnote 64:
The Albert Dock and the William Wright Dock are now combined into one, known as the ALBERT AND WILLIAM WRIGHT DOCK.
All this building of new docks was intended to provide greater facilities for shipping, and as these were provided the volume of trade went on increasing. Meanwhile new shipping companies were formed to cope with the increase of trade.
* * * * *
Most famous of all the shipping companies is that known to us as ‘Thos. Wilson, Sons & Co., Limited,’ which was started by Mr. Thomas Wilson about the time of the opening of Junction Dock. ‘Beckinton, Wilson & Co.’—as the firm was then called—possessed one or two sailing ships and traded with Sweden in iron ore. ‘Thos. Wilson Sons & Co.’ possess a fleet of nearly one hundred steamships, and trade with all the chief ports of the world.
[Illustration: PLAN OF DOCKS WEST OF THE RIVER HULL.]
[Illustration: PLAN OF DOCKS EAST OF THE RIVER HULL.]
The history of the Wilson Line has been called a romance of the shipping world. Trade with Sweden was followed by the opening out of trade with Russia. When the building of the Suez Canal gave added importance to the Mediterranean, the Wilson Line began to trade with the ports of the Adriatic Sea, and later with Odessa and Constantinople. Next came trade with India, the _Orlando_, built at Hull in 1870, being the first steamship to arrive at Hull from India direct.
After this was laid the foundation of trade with New York. The success of the new venture seemed very doubtful at first, but the Wilson Line now carry more cargo to and from England and New York than the vessels of any other line of steamships. Together with all these new enterprises has gone the organisation of weekly services to the Belgian ports, and of fortnightly services to the ports of the Mediterranean Sea.
[Illustration: THE WILSON LINER ‘ESKIMO’ GETTING UP STEAM.]
* * * * *
Early in this chapter it was stated that in the first place Hull owes its greatness to its geographical position. It is this position which has made it a great distributing centre for imported goods, and a great collecting centre for exported goods. The Port of Hull has thus become ‘the gateway for the world to the great manufacturing centres of Yorkshire, Lancashire, and the Midlands.’
[Illustration: GRAIN SHIPS DISCHARGING THEIR CARGOES INTO LIGHTERS.]
Much of the transfer and despatch of goods is carried on over the side of the ocean-going steamships into or from the river-going lighters and keels, which are able to make use of two systems of inland waterways. One of these, the _Aire and Calder Navigation_, dates from the year 1698, and is the oldest as well as the most up-to-date waterway in Great Britain. The other system is known as the _Trent Navigation_.
The relative cheapness of transit by water makes these inland waterways of very great importance for all heavy traffic in which speed is not required. For fast traffic Hull is served by three railway systems, the North Eastern Railway, the Hull and Barnsley Railway, and the Great Central Railway; and other Companies have running powers over the lines of the North Eastern.
The coming of the first railway to Hull in 1840 was described in the preceding chapter. Five years after this event the merchants of Hull sought to establish a Hull and Barnsley Junction Railway; but the project fell through, and it was not till 1885 that the line now known as the Hull and Barnsley Railway was constructed.
With this new line was also constructed a new dock. This, the ALEXANDRA DOCK, is the deepest dock on the east coast of Great Britain, and has a water area of 53½ acres.
The opening of this huge dock gave a great impetus to the export trade in coal. In 1884 not more than 600,000 tons were exported, but in 1910 the quantity exported reached the enormous total of 5,000,000 tons.[65] Most of this went to North Russia, Germany, Holland, Sweden and South America.
Footnote 65:
It is expected that this amount will be greatly increased within the next few years by the opening of new collieries around Doncaster, and the tapping of a new ‘Eastern Coalfield,’ which is believed to extend deep down under the Humber and the Wash, right out into the North Sea.
* * * * *
Let us take a walk round some of the Hull docks, and try to realise what the import and export trade really means.
Here, in the Alexandra Dock, is a huge iron steamship into which coal is being shipped by means of electric coal hoists or by transporter belts. Its cargo of 5,000 tons is being taken on board at the rate of ten tons a minute. From the hold of another equally large ship grain is pouring into lighters ranged alongside. It will require five working-days of ten hours each to discharge its cargo of 6,000 tons. Then the ship will take its place under the coal hoists, and its empty hold will be filled with an outgoing cargo of ‘black diamonds.’
The Victoria Dock is mainly given up to vessels unloading timber from the White Sea and the Baltic, a large proportion of it being ‘pit props’ for the coal mines of Yorkshire and Lancashire.
In the Albert and William Wright Dock, as well as in the Alexandra Dock, are vessels discharging hundreds of cases of bacon and hams from the United States, or of frozen carcasses of sheep from South America. From the hold of another vessel are being brought up crate after crate of eggs from North Russia, from another bale after bale of wool from Australia. Lined up alongside another big steamship are dozens of agricultural engines and machines made by workmen in Gainsborough and Lincoln. In a few weeks’ time they will be at work in the corn-fields of Russia.
[Illustration: AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY ON THE WAY TO RUSSIA.]
Every day of the week we shall find ships giving up their cargoes of linseed and cottonseed from India, Egypt, or South Russia. But if we want to see the ‘butter boats’ emptied, we must be on the spot in the very early hours of a Monday morning. For these boats arrive from Denmark during the Sunday, and the work of transporting their cargoes to the lines of railway waggons that await their arrival begins with the last stroke of midnight. By four or five o’clock on the Monday morning the butter is on its way to all parts of the north of England. The cargo of one ship alone is sometimes consigned to as many as 300 separate stations.
[Illustration: A STEAM TRAWLER.]
Come for a walk along the Humber Dock or on the Riverside Quay and, according to the season of the year, we shall see unshipped cargoes of plums from Germany; new potatoes and other vegetables from Jersey, France, and Holland; cranberries from Russia; bananas from the Canary Isles; apples from Australia, Canada, and the United States; oranges, lemons, grapes, nuts, tomatoes and onions from Spain, Portugal and Italy.
Last of all we will pay a visit to the St. Andrew’s Dock, and watch the entrance and unloading of the steam trawlers and steam carriers of the Hull fishing fleets. From the fishing-grounds of the North Sea, the White Sea, and the stormy seas around Iceland each brings its ‘catch.’ As quickly as it can be brought up from the hold—tubs of plaice, turbot, halibut, codfish, ling, hake or herring—it is sold at auction to the fish buyers who attend from all the large towns of the north of England; and as quickly it is packed on board the waiting ‘Fish Trains,’ which will distribute it among the fifteen million people who live within reach of the port of Hull.
* * * * *
We shall now be able, perhaps, to understand what is meant when we call Hull ‘England’s Third Port.’ The following table shows the position of Hull in comparison with the other large ports of Great Britain:—
Annual Value of Imports Name of Port. and Exports in 1910.
London 360 million pounds.
Liverpool 341 " "
Hull 73 " "
Manchester 47 " "
Southampton 46 " "
Glasgow 44 " "
Grimsby 32 " "
The growth of Hull’s shipping industry has meant a corresponding growth of its manufacturing industries. Most of these find their home on the banks of the river Hull, along whose winding course we can find oil and cake mills, flour mills, saw mills, paint, colour and varnish works, starch, blue and black-lead works, coal tar works, and cement works—all one after another.
Among these mills and works are some that rank as the largest in the British Isles. Thus the ‘British Oil and Cake Mills, Ltd.’ have the largest oil refinery, the ‘Hull Oil Manufacturing Co.’ are the largest producers of castor-oil, and the firm of ‘Blundell, Spence & Co.’ own the largest paint works. There are forty different firms engaged in the saw-milling industry, and an equal number in the manufacture of paints, colours and varnishes.
[Illustration: THE N.E.R. RIVERSIDE QUAY.]
That ‘England’s Third Port’ is still going ahead may be seen in recent shipping and industrial developments. One of these has been the building of a new RIVERSIDE QUAY, available for large ships at any state of the tide, and the inauguration of a daily service of steamers to and from the Belgian ports. Another is the construction of a new JOINT DOCK by the North Eastern and the Hull and Barnsley Railways. This is planned to have eventually a water area of 83 acres, and to be thus an imposing rival of the Great Central Railway’s new dock at Immingham on the Lincolnshire shore of the Humber.
The year 1910 saw the beginning of a new direct steamship service between Australia and Hull, a service which is expected to open out a large trade in the import of Australian wool for the looms of the West Riding. March, 1909, saw the arrival in Hull of the first large cargo of soya beans sent out from China, and the beginning in Europe of a new industry—the crushing of soya beans and the manufacture of soya oil and feeding cake.
Another new industry was started in 1907, when the ‘National Radiator Co.’ opened a branch of their American works. They have extended their buildings each year since the opening, and now employ nearly 1000 hands.
[Illustration:
_Photo by_] The Garden Village, Hull. [_C. Bennett_
]
Most noticeable of all recent developments in Hull, however, have been the destruction of slum districts and the opening out of wide thoroughfares in the heart of the city—a work that was carried out during the five years’ mayoralty of Sir Alfred Gelder—the securing of an unfailing supply of pure drinking-water; the construction of a tramway system that is one of the cheapest, if not the cheapest, in Great Britain; and the planning of Garden Villages and Public Parks on the outskirts of the city.
XXVI. FAMOUS SONS OF THE EAST RIDING.
First in the list of those who may justly be called ‘Famous Sons of the East Riding’ stand the names of ROGER OF HOWDEN, WILLIAM OF NEWBURGH, and PETER OF LANGTOFT. All these were men of learning in an age when knowledge was difficult to obtain, and each devoted himself to the work of spreading the knowledge of which he became possessed. The work that each of them bequeathed to us is a history of our country, the histories of the first and second being written in Latin, and that of the third in Norman-French rimed verse.
Roger of Howden and Peter of Langtoft took their surnames—_i.e._, additional names—from the places at which they were born. But William of Newburgh was born at Bridlington in 1136, and gained his surname from the fact that he became an inmate of the monastery at Newburgh in the North Riding. Peter of Langtoft was a Canon of the Priory at Bridlington.
Peter of Langtoft’s _History of English Affairs_ takes rank as the ‘finest historical work left us by an Englishman of the twelfth century.’ It is interesting because there are introduced several of the songs sung by the peasantry and the townsfolk of Yorkshire in the thirteenth century.
But most interesting to us is the _Annals_ of Roger of Howden. Roger was a clerk, or secretary, to King Henry II., and later became one of the King’s Justices in Yorkshire. He records several facts about his birthplace—among them that King John spent Christmas, 1191, as a guest of Hugh Pudsey, Bishop of Durham, at the latter’s palace or manor-house at Howden, and that in 1200 the King granted Bishop Hugh the right to hold there an annual fair.
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Next in our list come the names of two famous churchmen, JOHN ALCOCK and JOHN FISHER, who were both destined to become Bishops of Rochester.
[Illustration: JOHN ALCOCK, BISHOP OF ELY.]
John Alcock was born at Hull about 1428, and became Bishop of Rochester in 1472. Four years later he was promoted to the see of Worcester, and after another ten years received further promotion to the see of Ely. In his time it was customary for churchmen to be at the head of all affairs of the State, and twice was Bishop Alcock appointed by the King to be Lord Chancellor of England. On the second occasion he had the duty of opening the first Parliament of Henry VII.
Hull folk have reason to be proud of the memory of their great townsman, John Alcock. For not only did he reach the highest position in the country next to the King himself, but he was also famed as a great architect and a great patron of learning. As ‘Comptroller of the Royal Works’ he designed the wonderful ‘Henry VII.’s Chapel’ in Westminster Abbey, and as a patron of learning he founded Jesus College, Cambridge, and the Hull Grammar School.
Bishop Alcock died in 1500 at Wisbech Castle, the palace of the Bishops of Ely, and was buried in the chapel of Ely Cathedral which he caused to be built, and which is to this day known as ‘Bishop Alcock’s Chapel.’
John Fisher was twenty-nine years younger than the Bishop of Rochester whose life has just been described. He is said to have been the son of a Beverley mercer, and to have owed his high office in the Church to the favour of Margaret, Countess of Richmond.
So eager was he for the advancement of learning that he started to study Greek when quite advanced in years; and so upright and sincere was he that when confessor to Queen Catherine of Aragon he was ‘the only adviser on whose sincerity and honesty she could rely.’
Fisher was the only bishop who opposed the divorce of Henry VIII. and Catherine of Aragon, and hence he incurred the enmity of the King. This was increased fourfold when, further, he refused to recognise Henry as the ‘Supreme Head of the Church of England.’ And when, as a result of this refusal, the Pope sent Fisher a Cardinal’s hat, Henry’s wrath became ungovernable fury.
‘Yf the Cardinal’s hat were layed at his feete, he wolde not stoupe to take it up, he did set so little by it,’ were Fisher’s words when he heard of the Pope’s present to himself. But for all that he was declared to be guilty of treason, and was sentenced by the King to be hanged at Tyburn as a common felon.
[Illustration: JOHN FISHER, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER.]
Nothing would move Fisher from the position he had taken up. Come what might, the King was not in his eyes the ‘Supreme Head of the Church.’ So at the age of 76 he suffered the fate of most of those who ventured to oppose the will of Henry VIII. The indignity of a death at the hangman’s hands was spared him, and he was beheaded on Tower Hill, his head being afterwards spiked on London Bridge, and his body buried in St. Peter’s Chapel, by the side of that of his friend, the great statesman Sir Thomas More.
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‘A pure-minded patriot in the most corrupt times.’ Such has been the description of ANDREW MARVELL—son of a rector of Winestead and master of the Hull Grammar School—who was assistant to John Milton, the Latin Secretary to the Council of State in the time of the Commonwealth, and Member of Parliament for Hull during nineteen years.
[Illustration: Andr. Marvell]
Andrew Marvell was born in 1621 at his father’s rectory, and, as an ‘old boy’ of the Hull Grammar School, passed on to Cambridge at the age of fifteen. When he was nineteen years old, his father was drowned in crossing the Humber by the ferry-boat, and as a result he was adopted by a Mrs. Skinner of Thornton, in North Lincolnshire.
In 1657 Marvell entered the service of the Commonwealth, and two years later he was elected a Member of Parliament for Hull, which post he continued to hold until his death. It was then the custom for Members of Parliament to be paid for their services by their constituents, and Marvell thus received from the townsfolk of Hull the sum of six shillings and eightpence per day ‘for knight’s pence.’ It is curious to notice that he was the last member for Hull to be paid for his services in Parliament until the year 1911.
Notwithstanding this payment Marvell’s means were always very limited, and for some years he lived in a state bordering upon actual poverty. But the scantiness of his means did not cause him to swerve from what he considered to be the path of honesty, and the tale is told of how Danby, the Lord Treasurer, tried unsuccessfully to bribe him with the offer of £1,000. ‘Up two pair of stairs in a little court in the Strand’ Marvell was found by the Lord Treasurer’s messenger. And there he was also left, incorruptible in his honesty.
Marvell earned considerable fame as a writer of political satires, and also as a poet. The poems by which he is best remembered are probably those entitled _Thoughts in a Garden_ and _An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland_.
In the latter poem occur the famous lines in which the author, himself a strong Parliamentarian, honours the way in which King Charles I. met his death:—
He nothing common did or mean Upon that memorable scene, But with his keener eye The axe’s edge did try;
Nor called the gods, with vulgar spite, To vindicate his helpless right; But bowed his comely head Down, as upon a bed.
Marvell died in 1678, so poor that his funeral expenses were paid by the Corporation of Hull. How great his worth was may be judged from the words of the great statesman William Pitt:—‘Every man has his own price; I know of but one exception, and that is Marvell, in the past.’
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[Illustration:
WILBERFORCE HOUSE, HIGH STREET, HULL. The Birthplace of William Wilberforce. ]
The house in which Sir John Lister entertained King Charles on his visit to Hull in 1639 was also that in which was born Hull’s greatest son, WILLIAM WILBERFORCE. Tradition states, further, that he was born in the room in which the King had slept.
William Wilberforce was born on August 24th, 1759, the grandson of another William Wilberforce, who had been a Baltic merchant and an alderman of the town. Delicate as a child, and reared in luxury, he yet grew up filled with an understanding of the earnestness of life; and after leaving Cambridge he entered Parliament at the age of twenty-one, as a member for Hull. Four years later he was chosen a member for both the county of York and the town of Hull. The former of these distinctions was the one that he selected, and thenceforth for twenty-eight years he remained one of the two members of Parliament for the ‘Shire of Broad Acres.’
Just at that time the minds of thoughtful Englishmen were beginning to be stirred by feelings of horror at the evils of the slave-trade. It had been an English seaman of Queen Elizabeth’s time who had started the traffic in human beings. And, curious as it may seem to us, that traffic had been blessed by the Church; since the negroes who were taken across the Atlantic to the West Indies were being given a chance to learn the truths of Christianity.
It had been, also, an English crew of seamen who had on one occasion thrown overboard a hundred and forty ‘niggers’ to lighten their vessel. But it was also Englishmen who first set to work to put an end to the unholy traffic.
In 1787 a small band of thinkers—Thomas Clarkson, Granville Sharp, William Wilberforce, and a few others—started to labour with this end in view. The great statesmen of the time, Pitt, Burke, and Fox, all supported their efforts, and piles of information were obtained.
[Illustration: WILLIAM WILBERFORCE.]
They got together details of the bartering of prisoners by African chiefs for supplies of rum; details of voyages across the Atlantic during which the slaves lay chained on decks which had only a couple of feet of space between them, and were so closely packed together that they had hardly room to move their limbs; details of the cruel treatment meted out to them when they were eventually sold to work in the sugar plantations of the West Indies.
But the slave-trade was a very profitable one. Merchants did not feel anxious to give up profits of one hundred and twenty per cent.; so the opposition met by Clarkson, Sharp, and Wilberforce was great. Eleven times during the years 1791–1805 was a Bill introduced in Parliament for the abolition of the slave trade, only to be either rejected by the House of Commons, or thrown out by the House of Lords.
However, in 1806, the Bill was passed by the Lords, and afterwards carried in the House of Commons by two hundred and eighty-three votes to sixteen. Royal assent to the Bill followed on March 25th, 1807.
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Almost immediately after this the Ministry resigned, and a General Election took place. This was the occasion of the historic contest between William Wilberforce, the Hon. Henry Lascelles (son of the Earl of Harewood), and Viscount Milton (son of Earl Fitzwilliam). Wilberforce and Lascelles stood as Tories, Viscount Milton as a Whig.
For fifteen days the polling went on in the Castle Yard at York, to which the voters from the whole county had to travel by stage coach or post chaise, on horseback, or afoot. From the East Riding there were 3,556 voters, and at the close of the poll the figures stood:—
Wilberforce 11,806 Milton 11,177 Lascelles 10,989
Thus William Wilberforce and Viscount Milton became the two members for Yorkshire. The defeated candidate owed his position at the bottom of the poll largely to the fact that his father owned slaves on his West Indian estates, and one of the election cries against him was ‘No Yorkshire votes purchased with African blood!’ The election cost Wilberforce £28,000, and each of the other two candidates about £100,000—a striking example of the difference that has come over our political life during the last century.
In 1812 Wilberforce retired from his old constituency, and thenceforth sat for a small borough in Sussex until 1825, when he withdrew from Parliament. But the good work which he had helped to start was continued by others, and two weeks after his burial in Westminster Abbey—August 5th, 1833—an Act of Parliament was passed for the Abolition of Slavery in the British Colonies, the sum of money paid as compensation to slave-owners being £20,000,000.
The memory of our great philanthropist has been perpetuated at York by the building of the Wilberforce School for the Blind, and at Hull by the erection of the Wilberforce Monument near Whitefriargate Bridge, and the opening of his birthplace in High Street as a Public Museum of Local Antiquities. The Wilberforce Monument, which towers up 102 feet above the roadway, bears on one of its sides the simple yet effective inscription:—
NEGRO SLAVERY ABOLISHED I. AUGUST MDCCCXXXIV.
From William Wilberforce we turn to SIR TATTON SYKES—‘t’owd Squyer’ of Sledmere. Sir Tatton was born in 1772, the second son of Sir Christopher Sykes, and succeeded to the title and the family estates on the death of his brother, Sir Mark Masterman Sykes, in 1823.
Before this he had become widely known as a breeder of sheep and racehorses, and as a fearless sportsman. At the age of twenty-three he rode his first race at Malton, at the age of sixty he rode his last; and on both occasions he came in the winner.
Under Sir Christopher Sykes the cultivation of the bleak, desolate Wold country was successfully begun, and under Sir Tatton Sykes great improvements were wrought by the introduction of bone manure. Sir Tatton was for forty years a master of fox-hounds, and the discovery of the usefulness of bone manure was due to his observing that on the places near his kennels at Eddlethorpe where the hounds were fed, the grass grew more luxuriantly than it did elsewhere.
Throughout his long life of ninety-one years Sir Tatton Sykes continued to dress in the fashions of his early days—‘a long frock coat, drab breeches, top-boots, and a frilled shirt.’ And such was his reputation that sixty years ago the three things best worth seeing in the county were said by Yorkshiremen to be ‘York Minster, Fountains Abbey, and t’owd Squyer.’
Absolutely ‘straight’ in all that he did, he takes rank as a true specimen of ‘The Fine Old English Gentleman’—the Sir Roger de Coverley of the nineteenth century.
[Illustration:
_Photo by_] [_Henry Thelwell_
Sir Tatton Sykes.
]
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Last on our list of Famous Sons of the East Riding stand the names of CHARLES AND ARTHUR WILSON.
The younger sons of Thomas Wilson, founder of the great shipping firm of ‘Thomas Wilson, Sons & Co., Limited,’ they were born at Hull in 1833 and 1836 respectively. On the retirement of their eldest brother David in 1867, the control of the firm came into their hands, and how it grew and prospered, and how the town of Hull grew and prospered at the same time have been described in a previous chapter.
The parallel between the ancient family of the De la Poles and the modern family of the Wilsons has been noted by more than one writer. It may rightly be said that as the former were the founders of the commercial prosperity of the town of Kingston-upon-Hull, so the latter were the founders of the commercial prosperity of the city of Hull.
For thirty-two years—from 1874 to 1906—Charles Wilson sat in Parliament as a representative of the burgesses of his native place. Then his political services were recognised by the Ministry, and he became the first Baron Nunburnholme of Kingston-upon-Hull.
[Illustration:
_Photo by_] [_Barry, Hull_
Charles Wilson, First Baron Nunburnholme.
]
Arthur Wilson did not, like his brother, enter political life, but became widely famed as a sportsman. For twenty-five years he was Master of the Holderness Hunt, and the most famous Meet under his rule was that at Brantingham Thorpe, then the residence of Mr. Christopher Sykes, in January 1882, when more than four thousand people assembled to greet the Prince of Wales.
Charles, Baron Nunburnholme, died at Warter Priory, on October 27th, 1907, and his brother, Mr. Arthur Wilson, at Tranby Croft, on October 21st, 1909. The body of the latter was drawn to its resting-place in Kirkella Churchyard on a farm rulley by a team of farm horses, and public feeling at the time may be gauged from the following passage in one of the newspaper reports of his death:—
In Hull Mr. Wilson was known and respected as a just and honourable merchant and a philanthropist; in the county he was known and admired as a model landlord, and a keen and fearless sportsman.
[Illustration:
_Photo by_] Arthur Wilson. [_Barry, Hull_
]
XXVII. SHIPS OF THE HUMBER.
Let us ask ourselves what is our idea of a ship. However we express this in words, it will be vastly different from the idea of a ship that possessed the minds of those early inhabitants of Holderness of whom we read in