The River Hull Tragedy 1848

In 1848, in the City of Kingston Upon Hull the commute to work for a contingent of poorer industrial workers rapidly developed, through a series unfortunate yet avoidable events in to a major tragedy. 

The Kingston Cotton Mill was on the western side of the tidal River Hull on Cumberland Street in the Wincolmlee area which had a concentration of factories and premises in manufacturing and production.

Many of the employees lived in the densely populated terraced and back to back house streets on the eastern side of the river corridor such as The Groves off Cleveland Street and required the services of a Ferryboat for the daily crossings from home to workplace. This was a viable short cut avoiding a longer walk to the nearest bridge crossings. 

One such ferry crossing point was known as Old Harbour being some 40 to 50 yards from bank to bank.

Although the perception of a Ferry is now something substantial and robust the 1848 equivalent on the River Hull was just a small boat with a single crewman and oars or operated on a rope or chain.

The tariff for passengers was sixpence a week for an unlimited service although in reality dictated by patterns of shifts and the state of the tides and prevailing weather. 

On the morning of Friday 8th December 1848 the small ferry had been delayed after having run aground on the thick River mud banks and so causing a build up of workers understandably keen to get to work and not upset management or supervisors at their place of employment .

It will have been a dark and cold winters morning at 6am and tempers were frayed with quarrels and a clamour to get on board. This led to some panic and a number making a jump from the bank onto the boat. 

The Boatman, Charles Ireland who lived in nearby Church Street, was heard trying to discourage the impatient passengers and that the vessel could take no more. 

In addition the tidal River Hull was running rapidly towards its confluence with the Humber Estuary which made conditions treacherous. 

The arguments and bad behaviour of the passengers continued as the boat reached midstream. 

Under normal circumstances and a smooth passage the boat could usually cope with a bit of larking about and belligerence amongst its occupants but with an estimated 25 to 27 persons aboard the vessel keeled over throwing everyone into the icy cold water. 

The men and lads were able to strike out and swim for the shore but a number of the women were heard to scream on hitting the water and a few clung together for a few moments before the shock of the cold and weight of saturated clothes caused them to disappear into the murky brown depths. There had been no protocols or allowance of time for an organised abandon ship along the mantra of women and children first.

There followed an eerie and sobering silence before the mustering of a search and rescue attempt. 

This was difficult given the state of the tide which prevented other boats on the banks from being launched. Shipyard and Staithes workers alerted to the tragedy were powerless to do anything. 

The only course of action was to assist the survivors who had reached the shore and retrieve the unfortunate lifeless bodies of those who had perished. 

The death toll was shocking from what should have been a simple journey to work. 

14 died, amongst them 3 sisters and with two children aged 13 years. 

At the Inquest held the following July at the Reindeer Tavern the Boatman was exonerated of any blame and the cause given as accidental drowning due to the misconduct and unruly behaviour of individual passengers. 

A subscription was organised for the burial of the unfortunate victims

Inner City Squalor in Hull 1847

If you take a few moments to study old 19th Century maps of a place you start to build up a picture of what it must have been like to have lived there. 

There is only so much however that a one dimensional representation can convey. 

What cannot be imagined is the combination of sights, sounds and smells that will have been part of a typical everyday life for the residents and work force. 

A very graphic and disturbing account of my home city of Kingston Upon Hull as it was in 1847 really emphasises the squalor, deprivation and disease ridden environment of a good proportion, if not the majority of its inner city population. 

The document was a report of the Sanitary Committee of the Medical Society of Hull specifically on the sanitary state of the town. 

The streets, alleyways, courts and cul de sacs did have interesting and somewhat idyllic and characterful names. 

These are, apart from a few examples, long lost to todays Hull A to Z map. 

Bore's Entry, Dibbs Court, Caleys Entry, Paradise Place, Old Dark Side, Atlas Alley, Westwards Yard, Eastcheap, Botanic Terrace, Mechanics Lane, Tripps Square, Boteler Street, Popple Street, Marvel Street, Milligans Buildings, Dickens Entry and Black Swan Yard are just a few names. 

On the old maps the areas around the River Hull corridor and the network of land drains and ditches is a solid mass of black to denote the density of development. There is little differentiation between houses and industry as they co-existed wall to wall, yard to yard. 

The dwellings were rented as the notion of owner occupation was only within the means of the very wealthy and emerging middle class and so the slum landlords went for the smallest floor areas, back to back buildings, tiny windows and no fireplaces which meant very poor natural light and ventilation. 

Overcrowding was the norm with reports of 3 married couples in one room, concentrations of 15, 16 and 21 persons both adult, child and infants across 3 rooms. The highest density seen in Hull was 46 persons in less than a handful of rooms. 

Even worse was that the essential amenities, however crude, had to be shared and it was not unusual for 1 privy lavatory albeit just a bucket of soil or open trench, to serve ten users. 

Very few of the housing areas had, what the Committee Report referred to as "covered channels of communication with the main drain" meaning that all foul waste, bodily and other, just ran under natural flow into the nearest drains or stagnated.  

There were badly constructed outfalls which impeded the removal of the sewage to the usual watercourses such as the Damson Drain. The occupants of St Quintins Place, William Street and Hedgerow Drain were said to be "strangers to the purity of atmosphere". 

The description of stinking ditches and smoking dung hills was as damning as it was evocative of the poor living conditions. 

The term "Muck Garth" was used for the location at the end of each terrace or block of tenements and houses where human excrement and detritus was deposited. They were no more than open ditches and the combination of decomposing effluent, animal carcasses and vegetation made for a cocktail of stifling and toxic emissions. 

There was little open space for a breeze to dissipate this stench and in the summer months in particular the air quality was oppressive. The liquid refuse could only be depleted by evaporation under the sun. 

Add to the human lifestyle factor the presence of domestic animals in the houses and courtyards and you got the cumulative effect of pig waste and from kept rabbits. The word Middenstead, long since disappeared from the vocabulary, referred to a dunghill. These could be piled up against the walls of the houses and with pungent and harmful liquids and residues seeping into cellars, wells and standing in fetid pools on the unmade or badly paved paths and roads. 

The population were captive in these areas of Hull because it was where they found their means of employment. 

There was no regulation or control of where and how industry could establish itself or in its processes and waste products. Factories on the very doorstep of the squalid housing produced noxious and hazardous gases and odours. A common stench was from Sulphate of Ammonia which was used in many lines of manufacture. Dense smoke persisted in the districts and was absorbed into the lungs and wash-line hung clothes of the residents. 

The industry of Hull included fish drying, bone boiling for soap and glue products, slaughter houses, glass and rope works, whale blubber processing, foundry's and ship building. 

The work force eked out a pitiful living in these operations and suffered for it in frequent debilitating illness and mortality rates for adults and children were disproportionately high in all of the Inner City Wards of Hull even those where improvements in housing and drainage had been implemented. 

The impact of fever, stomach complaints, English Cholera, dysentery and respiratory illness was disastrous on families and the wider population. 

The 1847 Report will have shocked and terrified its authors in equal amounts but was the catalyst for public expenditure by the Corporation to bring in clean water, swiftly and hygienically remove waste, upgrade living conditions and slowly improve the existence and health of the people of Hull. 

Many of the aforementioned streets  were not actually demolished and cleared until the second half of the 20th Century.

Mine Camp 1889

The grainy imaged or sepia tinted photographs depicting Victorian life and times are all very interesting and evocative of that era in the history of our country. However, being in black and white we are deprived of the reality of what were often multi and vibrant colours of clothes, street decorations and buildings. 

Take for example, in my home City of Kingston Upon Hull (or just Hull), the Parade of the Humber Division of Sub-Marine Miners on July 29th 1889. 

The newspaper coverage of the event, not actually a formal State, Commemorative or Guard of Honour occasion, described the very bright uniform of the Regiment which was compared to the brilliance of a Rifle Brigade in tunic and that of Artillerymen in their trousers. 

Add to this the appearance of stylish forage caps, garters and accoutrements and it is little wonder that what was just a march down to the Victoria/Corporation Pier to catch a paddle steamer to the Annual Training Camp at High Paull attracted quite a crowd of onlooker and well-wishers. 

Smoke and flags were raised and cheers rang out to support the newly formed Division of this specialised branch of the military. 

The role of Sub-Marine Miners had been established in 1886 under a War Office Circular and taken up in Hull in the following year with an inaugural 60 personnel. 

The title of the Regiment does sound a bit confusing at first- Sub-Marine Miners but refers not to underwater excavation but the emerging science based weaponisation of fixed explosive mines

The fear amongst the Generals and Senior Staff was of the vulnerability of the mighty Estuaries of the United Kingdom to attack from foreign powers. 

In official language the emphasis was to maintain a permanent peace in the country and in the interests of providing security for commerce. In more colloquial terms and specifically in Hull the principal aim was afford a high level of protection by converting the River Humber into a death-trap if enemies dared to come around Spurn Point and threaten the Ports and population centres.. 

Our perception of mines nowadays is largely from seeing spiky horned ,black or colour painted old wartime sphere shaped objects used as charity collection boxes on many typical English seaside promenades but in the late 1880's they were a bit more basic and crude. 

Made out of glass containers packed with nitro-glycerin they were quite effective but also very hazardous to handle. 

The methodology to which the Sub-Marine Miners aspired was to create a fixed field of mines to defend estuaries and harbours with these being fired electrically from the shore by spotters with knowledge of the exact location so as to damage or deter any invaders. 

It was nothing pioneering as the use of mines was documented in the ancient world and adopted to some effect in conflicts through history. 

On that summers day some 100 men and officers paraded from the Wenlock Barracks in the west of the City via Park Street to reach the Pier. 

The 1889 Training Camp at High Paull was 15 days of activities. 

Due to the need for skilled men the pay was amongst the highest in the military disciplines. The training included mock battles and seminars on modern electrical systems. 

The culmination of the fortnight was the blowing up of a large raft in the main Estuary channel by means of electrical charge and witnessed by many gathered on the breakwaters. 

Unfortunately the Military Command sought to dilute the role of this specialist discipline and in 1891 reverted the Regiment from a Volunteer Division to q Militia. 

Many of the original intake of members objected to the onerous change in terms and conditions and simply resigned. 

The title of Sub-Marine Miners seems to have been lost from public familiarity due to its short lived and ultimately unnecessary purpose and role in the defence of the country and in particular on the doorstep of the Port of Hull.

Left to our own devices

This is a particular favourite from a few years ago with shameless childhood reminiscences..... 

We called it "The Device". 

It was a name that suited our sense of mystery and excitement as young children making the most of the play value of our local environment. 

Before the realisations of "stranger danger" and the like we roamed freely through the town streets, back lanes, fields, woods and any private property not protected by anything that resembled a physical barrier to inquisitive souls.

The Device had appeared one afternoon. 

We did not see how it came to be in our domain because for some part of the day we were required to be at school. In reality, two men from the Council had arrived in a van carrying the apparatus. 

It consisted of two parallel cables, thick, rubberised and secured to the road with hammered in brackets through the tarmac. Fairly ordinary stuff to us who had experience of quite technical things from prising the lids off gas meter boxes, leaving metal objects in the path of Municipal Grass Mowers  and throwing old plimsolls up  to straddle the lines and cables that criss-crossed the district. 

We stood on the kerb and verge and weighed up The Device. The ends of the cables were just that, ends. Squatting like a golfer in the planning of a long putt we took turns to squint along the full distance of the strands. They were perfectly aligned and with regular and solid fixing to the carriageway. A stout stick, wedged under the sections between the brackets was unable to dislodge anything to any satisfying extent and we soon lost interest. 

The road itself was a busy one. In our short lifetimes to date we had seen the traffic levels increase significantly as our town continued to expand with new housing, shops and business premises. When at one time it was possible to just sit on the kerb, feet on a drain gully for a good proportion of a summers day the same practice now ran a real risk of being run over or tossed up into the hedge in the bow-wave and slipstream from a large articulated lorry. One of our number had been hospitalised after having his toes crushed under the wheels of a delivery van for Liptons Stores.

A project in school about the olden days had included studying a yellowing parchment type map, or even a bit like linen on a gauze backing. What was now the busy road had been, some 100 years before, but a single line rough cart track going and coming from nowhere in particular. 

Times had certainly changed. In a lull in the otherwise constant movement of vehicles the braver amongst us mimicked a tightrope walk along one of the cables or straddling both. As the black lines lifted up over the far kerb they disappeared from view into the unkempt grass of the verge. A scuffing action with our feet cleared the vegetation where it covered the cables. 

It was at that point that we found the main part, the brains of The Device. It was a small metal box. 

Our Mother had a Tupperware container about the same size which could easily cope with a full packet, although of shortlived existence, of digestive biscuits and remnants of former wrappings around Custard Creams, Abbey Crunch and , my particular favourite, Bourbons. The sizes of the rectangular objects were compatible and perhaps Mother should have followed the example of The Device by fitting a large, imposing padlock to the biscuit container to prevent it from being opened.

Even the best tempered steel was not strong enough for the impact of half a brick and the lock was easily demolished. 

Inside we found some sort of mechanism and a dial display of black numbers around a series of white drums. As we stared at our discovery there was a whirring and a clicking sound. The right hand digit increased by one. The same sounds and process repeated on a regular basis and the counted total increased each time by a single increment. I think we must have been a bit thick because it took some time for us to realise that the action of the display was caused by the passage of a vehicle, along the road and  over the cables. 

In a collective expression of "oohh, The Device counts traffic" , thoughts of mischief and mayhem flooded into our young and active minds. 

In the following weeks and at every opportunity out of school and having completed any domestic chores we all took it in turns to jump up and down on The Device. 

It was quite a logistical operation involving most of the kids in the area. There were those keeping an eye out for cars and lorries using the road. Others were witnesses to the increasing count of the dials. On a strict rota all of us, bar none, showed great energy and commitment in jumping up and down. 

Initial curiosity in increasing the digits on a steady, plodding, marching action basis soon developed into very intense competition to achieve the highest count in any sixty second stint. Quite maniacal behaviour ensued and the All Comers Best Record for counts per minute changed hands, it seemed, just about every time someone took up the challenge. 

Within twenty four months that stretch of road had returned to its mid Victorian status as a quiet and sleepy lane, going from nowhere to nowhere because the town had a brand new, dual carriageway by-pass. 

Apparently the Council and Highways Departments, after undertaking a structured and authoritative traffic survey had grossly underestimated the amount of vehicle movements in proximity to the housing estate and what was evidently a very popular open play area for the local children. The original 10 year plan to create a safe, family orientated environment was accelerated in the interests of safety and amenity.

Even today, some 50 years later, when I drive along the 'A' Road that runs around the periphery of my town I have a sense of misguided civic pride.

The Roos Flashers

This is one of my all time favourite pieces on a local history find in East Yorkshire 

I was always a bit reluctant to take out and walk my dogs early in the morning.

This may have partly been down to laziness, the prospect of cold air supplanting that nice cozy, warm position under the duvee or the physical effort to propel my body along vertically when it was so much easier to give in to gravity and just lie prone and horizontal in bed. 

However, a tangible element in the whole reluctant attitude thing was that it always seemed to be reported in the media that the gruesome discovery of a body or bodies was always made by a man walking a dog or dogs in the early hours just after dawn.

 

I was happy to leave potential for such discoveries to the likes of taxi-drivers, joggers or the Postman.

 

In much the same chain of thought I always got the impression that men digging ditches, in the old way by hand, were always likely to come up with interesting things.

 

This is borne out by a previous blog about the stumbling across, by ditch digging men in 1989 , of the treasure trove of artefacts, thought lost, but actually just stored in the buried basement rooms of the bombed Municipal Museum of Hull since 1943.

 

Of course, any excavations with shovel, pick and wrecking bar can be hazardous for those wielding the implements. In Hull, even today, any construction projects breaking into the heavy clay top-soils whether on a virgin site or previously built upon ground , stand a chance of unearthing unexploded Ordnance from the second world war. An academic year does not go by without a small child bringing in a live ammunition shell with German markings to 'show and tell' to classmates inevitably dug up from an urban flower bed by their Grandfather or Uncle. The sighting of the small white bomb disposal van with Police escort is still very common on our streets. 

 

Other risks include hitting an unforeseen pipe or cable or what must be a horrible initial feeling of the blade of a spade cutting into a human skull just under the surface. I have felt some concern for workers on a large housing estate on the site of derelict docklands close to the City Centre as my perusal of Old Maps indicates the prior existence of a Leprosy and Cholera Hospital. Diagnosis of symptoms of such afflictions may not be covered by Health Insurance if disturbed and made airborne by pick and shovel.

 

On rarer occasions, accepted,  the damp, waterlogged and unpleasant practice of ditch digging may find something fabulously significant;

 

 

Take these cheeky chappies. Just ignore the oversized genitalia for the moment and concentrate on the context of the image.

They were dug up by, yes, by a gang of labouring ditch diggers in 1836 way out towards the seaside town of Withernsea on a tract of agricultural land called Roos Carr. Their antiquity and significance were not really appreciated until modern radio carbon dating techniques were available in archaeological investigation and this revealed  them to be  about 2600 years old, well into the Bronze Age or early Iron Age. Experts without such technological assistance considered their origins as Viking from a raiding party or the work of an enthusiastic lone Scripture themed wood carver and depicting Noah and his family.

The location, so far in the past will have been reasonably inland from the coast particularly given that, in the documented period from the Doomsday Book in 1086 , there was at least three miles to the cliff top rather than about two farmers fields now. The location may have been thickly forested or marshy and barren.

The items, embedded in thick heavy blue clay were well preserved. As well as several of the distinctive and intimidating warrior Figures standing between 35cm and 41cm tall ( see picture above) complete with quartzite eyes and those nifty detachable genitalia, there was a serpent headed boat with paddles, and a wooden box. One of the figures appears to have gone missing until 1902 when it was acquired by Hull Museums after decades of having been played with as a doll by the daughter of one of the original labouring gang.

The Victorians fixed four of the figures with glue and nails into the serpent boat as it was speculated that they belonged as crew. Their prudish attitude either out of denial or to spare the blushes of Museum Visitors considered what was actually intended as the male parts to be short arms.

Carved from Yew their purpose has long since been a matter of informed discussion. The fact that they were buried suggests a Votive Offering to the gods with no intention for them ever to be recovered. The use of Yew is thought to have some significance as it was often associated with particular deities in the prehistoric world of ritual and religion.

Only 9 other similar caricature discoveries have been made in the British Isles and Ireland which makes the Roos Carr figures very important not only in the context of the history of this part of northern and western Europe but in world history. 

For all that, the figures are not that well known but were voted into the top 100 of the Yorkshire World Collection as part of the London Cultural Olympiad Programme. Presumably some way behind Geoffrey Boycott's cricket bat, Harry Ramsden's Fish and Chip Frying Range, Aunt Bessie's batter puddings, Pontefract Cakes, Black Sheep Ale, a night out in Hull and a picture postcard of Whitby or Scarborough..

The musings of Capability Brown

 I never found it very funny. Who in their right mind would devise such a thing? 

There I would be, in the innocence of my childhood years, in the grounds of some Country House whilst on a day trip with the family.  There was always plenty to see and enjoy amongst the opulence and splendour of some well-to-do persons’ home and grounds. I did not appreciate at that young age the merits of a collection of art or furnishings or the finer points or architectural period design.

What I did like, however, were the wide open spaces around these establishments. Understandably oblivious to most things and free to lark about I did not deserve to then come a cropper by falling over the edge of a lawn into an abysss, albeit usually soft and grassy below. 

As usual, my carefree wanderings led me to be a victim of the landscaped feature of a Ha-Ha. 

Yes, very funny, hilarious and no doubt that the first ever unfortunate soul to suffer the embarrassment of a tumble resolved the whole issue in the mind of its designer as to what to call it. They are quite a common sight on National Trust, English Heritage or Private Estates in the UK which suggests that they were once a sought after item for the discerning aristocrat or wealthy land owning businessman or industrialist. 

The concept is perhaps found in today's architecture and design of infinity swimming pools in that there is no differentiation between the surface of the water and the distant horizon. 

The traditional Ha-Ha has been around since at least the 17^th Century in France but not reaching England until late in the following century when it became part of the sales catalogue and portfolio of large scale Landscape Gardeners such as Bridgeman, Kent and Capability Brown. 

The actual concept is pretty simple in that it combined the criteria of keeping grazing livestock from accessing the more formal pleasure gardens of a Country House and yet did not throw up an intrusive obstacle which could infringe on the views from said property. 

"Let us in, it's friesian out here"

The other options were of course a conventional raised wall or metal stock fencing which had little scope for improvement of form over function. 

Going back further in time where there was a need to provide security against attack the role of the Ha Ha was performed by a Moat some of which were huge and cumbersome earthworks with the trench soil used to form a bank or in another defensive role. 

However, a typically sophisticated, genteel and extravagant clientele as emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries with no actual or perceived threat or peril to their existence will have been seduced by the idea of a feature with a bit of fun attached to it albeit likely to be at the expense of a servant, visitor or unsuspecting trespasser. 

Fast forward to the commercial value of the tourist industry to asset rich but cash poor Stately Homes of today and a good example of a Ha Ha can be a useful asset although there is certainly an increasing need for good safety notices and warnings over the risk of people falling over or down one. 

In my childhood there was a much more relaxed and common sense approach to Health and Safety and so my disturbingly regular accidents were in fact providing a service to prevent those from following in my misfortune. Ha Ha.