The intention was to equalise the Poor Rates in that many families where the bread-winner was employed in maritime activities such as general shipping, fishing and whaling were plunged into destitution if their means of income was interrupted or curtailed by accident, injury, illness or in frequent lay-offs from work.
The Bill, called the Hull Sailor Poor Bill, was not unique in its aims and intentions as similar local taxes were in place in other port towns such as Sunderland.
The First Reading before Parliament opened up a huge amount of opposition and this came from what was described as the owners of houses and lands in Hull and York, Shipowners in Hull and constituents of the Sculcoates Ward in the town.
Clearly, these wealthy and influential individuals could lobby the Members of Parliament to some effect.
Their line of attack against the Bill was one of broad statements, all of which were challenged by its Proposers as being false and misleading.
In many situations where the privileged and rich are asked to contribute to those less fortunate than themselves there is a throwing up of hands in horror at the prospect of the use of their money. Those with a vested interest in Hull ships expressed concern that they themselves would suffer hardship from having to pay a levy of this type.
When in employment each seaman did pay the sum of sixpence a month, originally to Trinity House, and this went towards the upkeep of hospitals. The fund was always limited and Poor Relief was called upon or Parochial assistance had to be relied on.
A further strand of opposition to the Bill was through the use of the potential for negative economic and commercial impact from a local levy on ships. The powerful lobby claimed that Hull would be prevented form competing effectively with other Ports. In reality, those proposing the Bill, stated that any levy would be of an insignificant amount and particularly when considered against the annual expenses of each ship.
The lobbyists then focused on the abandonment of a similar scheme in Liverpool on the grounds, they claimed, that it had been widely seen and perceived as unfair. In fact the Liverpool Tax was quashed on a legal technicality although a learned lawyer at the time had strongly defended the treatment of ships for local taxation as though they were stock in trade.
Whilst shipowners were taking the very lucrative profits from freight, livestock, passenger, trawling and whaling activities centred on Hull a considerable amount of hardship was associated with, in particular, the Greenland fisheries trade and numerous poor were created by this. There were financial benefits for the Shipowners in the form of a Bounty given by the Government for whaling ships. On average a whaler had a crew of 40 and with one third of these being outsiders of the town coming from many other ports in the North of England. Furthermore the owners had to provide an Apprentice for every 50 tons weight of a ship of age no younger than 12 and no older than 20 and were reimbursed for this.
The opponents to the Bill were vociferous that other users of the Port would leave if a levy were imposed but that was in itself a falsehood in that the tax would only be imposed on Hull ships.
The charitable and philanthropic motivation of the Bill was continually delayed ,thwarted and frustrated by the mealy-mouthed words form the wealthy vested interests.
Even under the assurances that it would be impossible for the shipping trade in Hull to be ruined by the imposition of a trifling rate on shipowners the Bill did not get past the Second Reading. It was confined to the archives of Parliamentary Records amongst other great ideas that got nowhere because of the blocking tactics and lack of social justice of the rich and greedy.
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