May 23, 2022 - Friends Of Hull General Cemetery

The Chairmen

May 23, 2022 by Pete Lowdenin General, History, Volunteers1 Comment

Like most businesses the management of the day to day running of a company can usually be left to middle management. That’s why such people are employed. However, in the case of policy and investment, the board of directors usually takes on those decisions. The decisions regarding the strategic running of the Cemetery were and are taken in the board room. And the ruler of the board room is usually the chairman of the company. This is a short history of two of the chairmen of the Hull General Cemetery Company.

William Irving, John Pearson Bell and John Solomon Thompson were the first three chairs of the company. John S. Thompson was discussed last month in the Anniversary item. Anniversary 1859

This month let’s concentrate upon the other two men mentioned above. All of these men were of the original shareholders of the Company when it was established. No other chair could make that claim. These three were part of that group who had the original vision. For that we should salute them.

William Irving

The first Chairman was William Irving junior. Dave Morecambe, who is a descendant of William, wrote about this man in a post last year. The Irving Family

Suffice to say that he was the chair at the provisional meeting in March 1845, held in Bowlalley Lane. When the Company became a viable entity he was replaced by John Solomon Thompson. Whether this was because of pressure of work with his own business one does not know. He still remained on the Board of Directors. When Thompson resigned he took up the chairman’s role once again. This was on the 7th June 1859. His period of chairmanship was to become an eventful period in the life of the Cemetery. Anniversary 1859

The first chapel in Western Cemetery

William was instrumental in having the first chapel built in what was to become Western Cemetery. The foundation stone of this chapel was laid in October 1859. In a long, and no doubt to the Local Board of Health (LBOH) members in the crowd, insensitive speech he commented,

‘They were met to lay the foundation stone of a building to be used as a chapel on ground to be appropriated to the use of the entire borough for the interment of the dead and he might be permitted to say that, in making that offer the cemetery company was not asking the inhabitants of the town to accept from their hands a property which would not reflect any credit on those who had long been engaged in carrying out the project.

Then he remembered what that place was 12 or 13 years ago. A marshy flat without shrub or tree and then when they looked at the beautiful grounds which they all experienced such pleasure in passing through he thought the reverse of credit was due to those who made such a change.

William went on to say

He did trust the town would consider that the company in handing over to them a property like that for the interment of the dead and undertaken to keep it in proper repair and condition were conferring a favour. It had already become a city of the dead and there were not less than 6000 interments there up to the present time.

The company from first to the last of their design, had only at heart the thought of presenting to their town’s people a place where they could be laid with pleasurable feelings and which would prove an ornament to the borough.’

He presented a silver trowel to the mayor, Martin Samuelson, the owner of an iron foundry. This factory was situated on what eventually became known as Sammy’s Pint and where now sits The Deep. On the blade of the trowel it was inscribed, just in case, the Corporation didn’t quite get the message,

‘Hull General Cemetery Company. The foundation stone of the chapel on ground appropriated to the LBOH as the burial board for the borough was laid by the worshipful the mayor, Martin Samuelson esq; 3^rd of October, 1859.’

Pearson

Of interest was that in the company commemorating this event stood Zachariah Pearson. He was there in his role as Sheriff. I wonder if he didn’t look around him that day and see what a pleasant place it was and perhaps the idea of a public park was germinated. One can hope so. Finally, Martin Samuelson was given the chance to reply and then the assorted notables in the audience did a very sensible thing. They sat down to a luncheon that was,

‘provided near the gates of the grounds and after the ceremony of the day the company adjourned thither.’

All that talking can raise a thirst.

The fatal mistake

In 1861 William did a foolish thing. However much one looks at it one can’t see any other explanation for it than he threw a ‘hissy fit’. In doing so he condemned the cemetery and the Company to a long, slow, lingering death.

It all started with, to my mind, an innocuous item in a local newspaper. Here it is.

As you can see a fairly typical meeting. Resolutions passed and long winded phrases by politicians signifying nothing. The gist was quite clear enough though. The Hull General Cemetery burial charges were too steep. The new Borough Burial Ground was just another part of the Hull General Cemetery. That the parishioners of Holy Trinity desired and deserved their own burial ground away from the tendrils of the Company. That the churchwardens of that parish should continue to lobby Sophia Broadley for the patch of land on Hessle Road that would become Division Road Cemetery. In essence the usual stuff. So why did William get so wound up about this?

Church versus the Company

For William to take exception to this was foolish. The church authorities had long hated the Cemetery. It had taken much of their earnings from them by providing burial spaces. The Churches had resented this even though their own burial grounds were disgusting and immoral. The plan to seek another burial ground for Holy Trinity had been around before the idea of the Hull General Cemetery was mooted. Once, in 1847, it had almost seemed likely it would happen. However, at a parishioner’s meeting, the idea was voted down as the costs were seen as too prohibitive.

Now with the emergence of the Borough Burial Ground, later to become the nucleus of Western Cemetery, the church authorities thought they would try again. They also knew that Sophia Broadley had a poor opinion of the Company as it had been tardy in paying its debts to her brother, and after his death, to her.

William must have known that even if the new site was acquired in the near future it would be some time before it could function. To get annoyed about this was folly. If it had just been this perhaps it would have all passed off quietly. Sadly, the matter didn’t end there.

The Corporation drops its opposition

A further news item later that month increased William’s ire.

Again, one has to ask, what could have caused William to lose his temper here. To answer that let’s look at the recent past. Back in October William had made a speech already referred to. In that speech he had stated that the grounds of the Borough Burial Ground were ‘handed over’ to the Corporation and were ‘conferring a favour’ on the population of Hull.

As recorded earlier he had gone on to say,

‘The company from first to the last of their design, had only at heart the thought of presenting to their town’s people a place where they could be laid with pleasurable feelings and which would prove an ornament to the borough.’

Betrayal?

This latest news item must have seemed to him to throw those words back in his face. To his mind I would suggest that he could not understand why the Corporation would act in this way. For it would have been the final paragraph of the news item that would have exercised him the most. For now the Corporation were appearing to want to set up a rival to not only the Company’s grounds but also their own. Under the Public Health Act of 1848 the Local Board of Health regulated burials in its district or parishes. As such it could stop any such burial ground being opened. Such as the one Holy Trinity desired to implement. Yet here, it appeared, they would ‘withdraw their opposition’ to this new burial ground. To William this must have seemed like a betrayal.

Why?

Why would the Corporation act against its own vested interests? To William there was only one answer; the Corporation, especially the LBOH, and the Cemetery Company had a long history of distrust. Here was just another attack from them. He obviously felt that whatever trust between the two sides engendered by the opening of the Borough Burial Ground was now gone.

And here he did a foolish thing. He wrote to the Corporation offering to sell them the Borough Burial Ground. He did this without consulting his fellow directors. The letter was faithfully recorded in the minute books of the Company. What isn’t recorded is the reaction of his fellow directors to this other than their acquiescence to his fait accompli.

The letter

Here is the letter.

‘To the Burial Committee, LBOH 8/5/1861

Gentlemen, I have read with surprise the report of your board meeting on the 29^th ult and the resolution passed on the occasion. It appears to me that your board is dealing with the burial question have not fairly considered the rights of the Cemetery Company.

At the request of your board the company entered into an arrangement to provide 5 acres of land, then let off as gardens, as and for the place of burial for the inhabitants of the borough; to lay out the same as an ornamental cemetery and also to erect a suitable chapel thereon; and when the ground should be found insufficient the cemetery engaged to provide another suitable and adjoining piece of land and set it apart in the same way for your board.

The cost

These works have been carried out by the company at a cost of £1328 exclusive of land.

The company have justified their part in this agreement to the letter, and also to the satisfaction of your board as the following resolution of the 5/5 1860 will prove Copy of letter from burial board written above, motion moved by Mayfield, seconded by Richardson.

The company, in expending their money to meet the requirements of the board naturally looked to a fair return in the shape of interest on the outlay but your board’s resolution of the 29^th ult renders it hopeless. The company think that in arriving at such a decision your board were wholly regardless of the position of the company with your board under the arrangement referred to the effect of your resolution being to deprive this company of the whole or a large part of their anticipation.

The offer to purchase the cemetery

Under these circumstances. I have to suggest whether the proper course for the Local Board of Health to adopt would be to purchase the ground included in the arrangement and thus, by taking the whole affair into their hands, release the cemetery company from their present unsatisfactory position, brought about as it has been by the action of your board.

Should the above suggestion to purchase meet with your views and should your board decide on adopting it, you would then be in a position to provide a family burial place in the board’s cemetery for the fees alone, which you can regulate at your pleasure and thus preserve the management of burials under your own control.

To carry out the suggestion the cemetery company would be willing to sell your board the land included in the arrangement on the following terms, subject to such regulations for preserving unity of design and uniformity of appearance as might be mutually agreed upon.

The purchase price for the site

Say 5 acres of land at £315 per acre (the cost to the company £1575. Amount expended by the company in laying out, draining, planting and erecting a new chapel to meet the requirements of the burial board £1328. Total £2903.

The company would grant a perpetual right of road through the present cemetery, the board contributing their proportion of maintaining it in good order.

The company think that they are fully justified in laying their suggestion before your committee, satisfied that they are entitled to their due consideration at the hands of your board for the large (and as far as they, the company are concerned, unnecessary) outlay they have incurred for the convenience of your board, and they would urge upon the board, through your committee, the necessity under existing circumstances. If your board’s arranging either to purchase the ground as suggested, or to give such compensation as may be mutually agreed upon.

William’s conclusion

In conclusion I may state that the object of the promoters of the cemetery company was to provide for the inhabitants of Hull what so much needed by them, a place of burial for all sects and denominations; to secure to all classes of the community the means of decent and undisturbed sepulture according to the rights of their own religious faith, and to put an end to intramural interments. This has been the aim of the company from its foundation to the present time and it was with this view, and not with the expectation of pecuniary gain that the arrangement with your board was entered into.

Yours

Wm Irving’

Westward No

With this letter William effectively sealed off any hopes of the expansion of the Cemetery to the west.

Naturally enough this letter caused some surprise with the Corporation and they did not respond immediately. It’s possible that further discussions were taking place that are not recorded.

On the 3rd July the minute books record that a vestry meeting had taken place for Holy Trinity and that the decision to buy the Division Road site was passed. As such the Board decided to wait on developments.

By the 28th August things had moved. William had had two meetings with the Local Board of Health with regard to selling them the land. From these meetings the cost of purchasing the land and chapel was priced at £2903. A poor agreement by the Company but they were hamstrung by William’s letter. Later it was costed out that the Company had lost money on the deal. The sale was finalised on the 28th March 1862.

The sale takes place

On the 5th March 1863 at the AGM it was stated that,

‘The sale of the west end was reported. It was also stated that the purchase price had cleared the company of its debts. However, it was also reported that the land that was sold did not make a profit but only broke even in terms of both its cost and the renovating the company had made.’

And this was without taking into account the closing off of any expansion of the Cemetery in that direction.

William’s death

William continued to be the chairman of the Company until his death on the 27th May 1883. A resolution was passed at the first Board meeting after his death, It read,

‘That the board of directors hereby record their sense of the very valuable services rendered by the late Mr William Irving, in the promotion of this company, (of which he was one of its first directors and its first chairman) and of his zeal and ability in advocating its interests as a director from its formation and his attention and uniform courtesy as its chairman for the last 24 years. The board of directors beg to tender to the family of their late esteemed chairman their deep sympathy in their present bereavement.’

On the 2nd August 1883 the Board received a letter from Thomas Stratten thanking them for their sympathy for the family at that time. Thomas Stratten was the co-executor of William’s will.

John Pearson Bell

William was replaced by John Pearson Bell. Born in Hull in 1809, he had studied at Glasgow University and the London Medical School to become a doctor. Once qualified he had returned to his native town. In April 1836 he married Louisa Lucy Bowdler. He lived in the South Myton district of Hull. This had some good areas such as Lister Street, where he lived, and English Street. It also had some particularly bad areas. It was known in Hull as the Potteries and some houses were little more than workmen’s huts left over from the brick-making days.

In 1847 he was one of a number of authors of a small pamphlet entitled, ‘The Health of Hull’. In this work, compiled with other doctors, the authors had shown how Hull was poorly equipped to deal with any outbreak of disease. This was to be shown to be tragically true two years later when an outbreak of cholera struck.

Chartism

The following year, in 1848, Dr Bell also raised the issue of Chartism. A life long Tory, he recounted to a local newspaper how shocked he had been when he entered someone’s shop to find a petition.

He never did manage to get to the bottom of this and in later years I’m sure he found the whole episode humourous.

John was elected to the Board of Directors of the Company in March 1849. He was influential in the negotiations that took place with the Local Board of Health when that body was trying to buy the Cemetery.

The election of 1852

Around the same time he gave evidence to a parliamentary commission. This had been set up to investigate the corrupt practices that were alleged to have taken place in the election of 1852. This scandal led to Hull not being represented in parliament for two years. (It will come as no surprise to many that I am writing a book about this scandal).

The allegation regarding Dr. Bell was that he gave money to people to vote Tory. One allegation was that he gave money to one voter to buy a litter of pigs. He denied this and other allegations. John said that at no point was he involved in handling any monies. He had acted simply as a Tory election worker. In one exchange where he was the witness he explained the closest he had come to bribing a person in Cottingham to vote,

The sanatorium

In 1858 his daughter, Lucy Ann, married Henry Soulby. He also was a medical practitioner and by the 1881 census he and his wife were living at Waverley House, Waverley Street with her parents. In 1861 he and Sir Henry Cooper opened a sanatorium on Beverley Road. The advert for it was quite refined,

Throughout this period Dr Bell, John Solomon Thompson and other directors were trying to reach an agreement with the landowner to the north of the cemetery. This landowner William Watkinson Wilkinson had long been unfriendly to the Cemetery. If truth be told his animosity was justified. When the cemetery opened they had trespassed upon his land and cut some of his trees down. Since that time a temporary truce had existed but open warfare was rarely far from erupting.

The 1854 Act

This ‘peace’ had not been helped by the 1854 Act of Parliament the Company had gained. In that they had been given the right to extend northwards on to Mr Wilkinson’s land. He could not oppose this compulsory purchase of his land directly but he could negate it at his leisure. In June 1857 things reached a critical point as the minute books show,

‘The solicitor produced a valuation by Mr Wilkinson of the land adjoining the cemetery and reported that he had forwarded a copy thereof to Mr Earnshaw, solicitor for the owner of the land and had a reply from that gentleman declining to accept the Mr Wilkinson’s valuation as the price of such land and the matter having been discussed and Mr George Wilkinson having explained to the board the grounds on which he arrived at his valuation it was moved by the chairman, seconded by Dr Bell that £200 per acre be offered as the price of the land to be clear of all encumbrances except tithe rents.’

Mr George Wilkinson, was the surveyor employed by the Company. He was not related to the landowner Mr. W. W. Wilkinson who had by now passed away. However his estate was managed by his wife who obviously felt it her duty to delay and stop the Company from getting the land.

Another mistake

At the AGM in March 1858 the Chairman’s report spoke of this situation, and once again a strategic mistake was made.

‘The purchase of the land too also remains in abeyance. As our directors have, however, given the owners the necessary notice of their intention and of their wish to have a price named; and not succeeding in this, they instructed Mr Wilkinson, the surveyor, to make a survey and valuation of the land sought to be bought, for the Board’s future guidance, and whose report (confirming your directors views as to its value) is as follows.

‘I have examined the land situate at Newland Tofts, in the parish of Cottingham, adjoining on the north side of HGC belonging to the devises of the late Mr W. Wilkinson esq. and I am of the opinion that the value of the same is £165 per acre or thereabouts, the purchaser paying the tithe commutation rent charge of £3 2s 4d per annum, whether the said rent charge be a little more or less, according to the average price of corn. The price of the 14 acres, 2 roods and 9 perches at this valuation will be £2,401 15s 7d’ signed Mr G. Wilkinson

‘No further steps’

The vendors and their solicitors however having declined to negotiate on Mr Wilkinson’s valuation your directors have taken no further steps in this matter. – It now remains to be considered whether, under existing circumstances it will be prudent to take the next steps pointed out by the land clauses consolidation Act viz; to require the sheriff to give notice to summon a jury to assess the value and compensation for severance, and this step your board does not at present see it prudent, being desirous now, as they have always been desirous, of effecting an amicable arrangement if possible.’

Nowhere to expand

In not acting in trying to gain this land they effectively stopped expansion to the north. As we have seen within a few years they had lost the chance to expand westwards. The Cemetery was enclosed to the south and east by roads. Without new land to sell grave spaces it had to die. That the directors failed to see this, or chose to ignore this fact, is hard to understand.

By 1859 Dr Bell was elected as Deputy Chair. In 1875 he became a J. P. and magistrate. In 1883 he became the Chair of the Company on the death of William Irving.

He was lucky that in his three years as chair there were no serious issues to deal with. The major one was that the Corporation began to develop what is now Spring Bank West and required landowners on either side of the new road to contribute to the ‘making of this public road’. The Company took legal advice which found that they had no legal obligation to do this and therefore they didn’t.

Golden wedding celebrations

In 1886 Dr. Bell and his wife celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary. He was presented with a bust as a gift, commissioned by his Freemason Lodge, and executed by William Day Keyworth. He presented his wife with a diamond ring. Just a few short months after this he died.

Dr Bell’s death

Dr, Bell’s death was noted in the minute books by his fellow Directors,

‘Mr Oldham, the deputy chair, having alluded to the loss the company had sustained by the death of their esteemed chairman Dr. Bell which took place on the 26^th ultimo; and the directors being desirous of recording their sense of the valuable services rendered by Dr Bell to the company and of tendering their sympathy with his family in their bereavement

It was resolved that the board of directors of the HGCC herby record their sense of the very valuable services rendered by the late Dr Bell in the promotion of the company (of which he was one of the original trustees) and of his zeal and ability in advocating its interest as a director for over 37 years and as chairman during the last 3 years. The directors beg to tender to Mrs Bell and the family their deep sympathy in the bereavement sustained by them through his death.’ A copy of this resolution sent to family.’

Conclusion

With the death of John Pearson Bell the next chairman was not one of the originators of the cemetery. The baton had now been passed on to the ‘next generation’. Some of the originators of the cemetery were still there in the board room. However they would not and could not lead the project any longer. Their time had passed.

It could be argued however that whoever took over, the cemetery’s time had also passed. It had lost its way and could no longer expand. The role of all the future chairmen of the Company could now be best described as running a continual damage limitation exercise. A sad end to a glorious project.

Pete Lowden

Pete Lowden is a member of the Friends of Hull General Cemetery committee which is committed to reclaiming the cemetery and returning it back to a community resource.

petelowden.co.uk

Anniversary June 1972

May 23, 2022May 30, 2022 by Pete Lowdenin General, History, Volunteers

The anniversary this month is poignant. It marks 50 years since the Hull General Cemetery Company dissolved itself. Since that time the site has undergone some changes; some good, some not so good. It has changed ownership for better or worse. The site has been ‘developed’ and then allowed to sink back into the ‘decay’ it had been in before that ‘development’. One could say that Hull General Cemetery has had mixed fortunes since the last meeting of the shareholders of the company took place.

But that was in the future. In June 1972 no one knew what would happen to the site, least of all the Company, and neither did its future owners, Hull City Council. At no time did it seem certain that Hull City Council would become the owners. Although, quietly and behind the scenes, some activity told a different story.

Let’s look at how the Council did take over and this story may take us all back a lot further than you’d think.

To sell or not to sell

On the 14th December 1853 the company received a letter from the clerk to the Local Board of Health. This body had recently been set up in response to the Public Health Act of 1848. Amongst its many duties was the control of burials within its district. It was with this duty in mind that Mr Wells, the clerk, wrote to the Company. Mr Wells said that he had been instructed by the Parliamentary Bill Committee to ask the Company to name their price with regard to selling their cemetery.

This letter on the face of it was straightforward. Basically it asked for the company how much they wanted for selling the site. Underlying that letter though was an implied threat. This threat was that the Parliamentary Bill Committee were, at that moment, steering a bill through Parliament that sought to ‘improve’ the town. Part of that improvement was the right of compulsory purchase of the cemetery. That the letter came from this committee rather than the Local Board of Health itself would not have been lost on the Directors.

It also cannot have slipped the Directors’ minds that the Local Board of Health’s solicitor had written to them in November. This November letter was much less friendlier. It stated that,

The threat of the Local Board of Health (LBOH) to compulsorily purchase the cemetery coupled with the oblique threat of erecting gas works in front of the entrance of the cemetery would have been fresh in their minds.

A more emollient approach

The December letter stated that the LBOH,

‘would be glad to receive from the Company an offer to sell to the local Board of Health for the benefit of the Borough the Hull General Cemetery and all its property rights and interests.’

A reply was requested by the 22nd. The company replied saying that, ‘it was not their present intention of the Company to part with their cemetery.’

The following February 1854 another letter arrived. In this the Parliamentary Bill Committee suggested that three directors should meet three LBOH members with a view to settling this issue. The Company agreed to this and dispatched the Chair, John S. Thompson, William Irving and John Pearson Bell to this meeting.

Suffice to say that both parties attended the meeting with their own agenda. Although there were glimmers of agreement it was not wholly successful for either side. The Company did agree to sell the cemetery to the LBOH but they wanted the LBOH to come up with a price first. However the LBOH did not do this and the matter was not pursued. No doubt the LBOH felt that their Act of Parliament would gain the cemetery for them. They were in for a surprise.

The Acts of Parliament

For the Cemetery Company were also pursuing this approach. It became a race which Act would be enacted first.

As such both parties set to with a will to get their respective Acts of Parliament through the next session of Parliament. By 1854 the Corporation had their Hull Improvement Act in place that would have enabled them to purchase the cemetery. However the Company had managed to get their own Act in place. This forestalled any municipal authority from compulsorily purchasing a cemetery established and incorporated by an Act of Parliament. Stalemate. A couple of years later anther approach almost made it over the finish line but was scuppered by greed. You can read about it here. An Anniversary: June 1856

And so this state of affairs continued for the next 120 years.

Having said that, the fortunes of both parties altered significantly over time. In 1854 the Company was definitely in the driving seat. In effect it could name the conditions upon which it would sell. This was its highwater point. After this the pendulum swung the other way. By the turn of the 20th century the company would have been glad to sell the cemetery but the Corporation now had its own burial grounds and was content to wait.

One hundred years later

By the middle of the 20th century the chair, Arthur J. Downs, a relative of Rose, Downs and Thompson, the engineering firm, was reporting to the Company AGM that negotiations to sell the site to the Corporation were stalling.

‘It was noted that the corporation were insistent that steps be taken to recall capital as a condition to their considering the matter further. As such the matter was not competent business for discussion at an Ordinary General Meeting, it was decided that the new board, when constituted, should take up negotiations and refer back to the proprietors as necessary.’

Recall of Capital

This issue of ‘recall the capital’ refers back to the foundation of the Company. Avid students of this subject will remember that the initial shares in the company were sold for £10. Out of that £10 only £1 of that was asked from the shareholders by the Company. The Company had, from its beginnings, worked on income it generated and initial lending via bonds. As such the original shareholders reaped the benefit of dividends for over a hundred years without actually paying the full price for their shares.

By the time the Company found itself in financial trouble many of the original shareholders had died or their families had moved away. Thus the Company felt it was unfair to trouble the descendants for the remaining £9 owing.

Sadly, the Corporation didn’t view that particular issue in such a misty-eyed way. They demanded that before any purchase of the cemetery this money should be paid into the cemetery coffers. In this way the Corporation felt that they would not have to pay the entire cost of attempting to bring the site back to a healthy state. Upon this rock all future negotiations foundered.

1955

By 1955 two changes had occurred. Firstly a new chair was installed. This was Clifford Hookins Ashburn. A solicitor, like many of his predecessors. As such he perhaps saw more clearly that the present situation could not continue.

The second change was that on the 27th January that year the nettle was grasped. At an Extraordinary Meeting of the proprietors a resolution was put forward. This stated that,

On the face of it this resolution would allow the Company to continue negotiations with the Corporation. However an upset at the meeting changed things.

So the ‘burden’ of paying the £9 owing would not simply be taken up by the remaining proprietors but also by the relatives or descendants of all the shareholders. Some of these people may not have known they were shareholders in the Company. Those old shares could be mouldering in a trunk in the attic or have been lost over the intervening period of a century. It’s doubtful whether any of them had received any dividends over time as addresses would have changed.

This put the Company in an invidious position. They would now need to source where these ‘missing’ proprietors were and that would take money. Something the Company were sadly lacking in.

The offer of a deal

Realising that this task was impossible. the Chair and the Company’s solicitors, Payne and Payne, had, by June 1956, opted for hopefully an easier way. They approached the Corporation to accept £3 10 shillings per share rather than the full £9. The Board thought that this approach at least passed the buck back to the Corporation. The Board felt that it showed their willingness to compromise on the issue and provide a solution.

By January 1957 the Board heard that,

Roscoe’s Report

At a board meeting on the 21st August that year the Directors were informed that the site visit had been undertaken. Mr Roscoe, the Corporation Parks and Burials Superintendent, had visited the site. In researching this article I have not had sight of the report. However what we do have is a resume of the report and the conclusions of the Town Clerk, J Haydon W. Glen. It’s not pretty reading for the Company.

It starts quite positively and then takes a turn for the worst.

It went on to say,

The resume by the Town Clerk was simply saying that the Company had managed to get itself into this mess, was still in business, so should endeavour to get itself out of it. As it says, ‘it may be wondered why the Corporation should get involved in the matter at all.’ And an objective observer would probably agree with them. It needed the Company to fail completely before the site could be rescued.

With that report, the hope that the Company had of the Corporation taking the site over was gone.

1966 and all that

In November 1961 the Company formally recognised this and recorded that they would not approach the Corporation again. The issue resurfaces indirectly in November 1966 when the Company asked for another look at their own counsel’s advice from a decade ago. This advice had been to sell the site quickly as may be seen below,

At the next meeting of the Board on the 27th August 1968 Mr Wilkinson reported back. He said that although the Corporation were not unsympathetic to the Company, they said they themselves did not ‘have the resources to take the initiative in the matter.’ As such the Corporation said the Company ‘must do what it thought fit.‘

The plan

Upon this news the Directors decided to undertake another plan. This was to list the Company under the Companies Act 1948. Taking this approach meant that the Company could apply to the Courts to be liquidated under that Act. The Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) of the proprietors that would vote on this issue was to take place on the 11th August 1970. The Board were confident it would be approved.

At this meeting 10 proprietors attended, owning 153 shares between them. The chair outlined the situation facing all those present after which the outcome was a foregone conclusion. A resolution was put forward from the floor and it was unanimously accepted.

From now on the liquidation of the Company was simply a matter of when. Over the next 20 months the process of liquidation followed its legal course. By May 1972 everything was in place for the Company to be terminated. And then, at the eleventh hour, an outside intervention occurred.

Mr Dennis

On the 22nd May, at the Law Society Offices, Bowlalley Lane, another EGM took place. In an unconscious ironic twist of fate both this and the final shareholder’s meeting took place in the very building that the first meeting of the Company had taken place in back in 1845. Out of the 967 shareholders known to the Company only seven were present. However those present did own the majority of the Company’s shares between them.

At this meeting in May, Clifford H Ashburn, the chair, invited a Mr Dennis to speak. This young man, a Hull University graduate and now a businessman in a property company, outlined his proposal.

The chair had invited representatives of the local press and radio to this meeting. As such this late intervention was reported in the Hull Daily Mail the following day.

Under the headline ‘Hull Graduates Want To Buy Derelict Cemetery’, Mr Dennis’s scheme was explained. The article went into much more detail than the Company minute books. In essence it’s an intriguing ‘What If…’ aspect of the long history of the cemetery.

Counterfactual

As the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper once said,

‘History is not merely what happened; it is what happened in the context of what might have happened.’

And with the intervention of Mr Dennis we have a perfect opportunity of imagining such a thing in connection with Hull General Cemetery. Could such an intervention have succeeded? What would have been the likely outcome over time?

On the credit side the Cemetery Company was not in debt. It still owned two properties. Yes, these were up for sale but that sale could be withdrawn. On the debit side it had no staff and the site was totally overgrown and shabby. However this last point appeared to be a credit point to the prospective buyers. In effect the site could have been transferred and the new owners have put into place their own plans. As long as the new owners closed the burial side of the business which the Company had already begun to do there would have been no legal objection that could have been sustained by the Council.

What then could have occurred? Mr Dennis said that a fence would be erected around the site. This would have been quite an expense. He also said that certain headstones and memorials would be made safe and restored. Once again this would have been an expensive undertaking. Other than making the paths of the cemetery passable no other work was envisaged. I would suppose that routine maintenance of the trees would have taken place to make sure they would not damage the stones but beyond that the site would be left in situ.

Income generating?

Mr Dennis did not say whether the venture would be income generating. However he was a businessman, even if he had long hair and ‘outlandish’ ideas, so it’s possible there was a germ of an idea to make money from the site. We do not know. However we can hypothesise.

Mr Dennis may well have foreseen that such a site could potentially generate money as a ‘heritage’ resource. We are all familiar with visiting country houses etc but accessing other sites rich in heritage is also viable. Possibly Mr Dennis may have had such an idea that the site could become such an attraction. With the rise of genealogical studies in the 1990s such sites became much more popular. Guided tours of the historic monuments (for a price) could have taken place. Accessing both local and central government funding for environmental and bio-diversity work could have also generated significant income. Another form of income generation could have been leasing it out as a film or television set. One can imagine how this could have been successful.

By the millennium the site could have become a self-sustaining part of the rich fabric of attractive heritage and natural highlights of the city.

Meanwhile back at the meeting, and the press report that followed.

Plastic people

The article began by stating that,

Mr Dennis, the representative of the graduates, stated,

‘that he feared the Hull Corporation would take over the cemetery, and by flattening it out, make it “a ghastly and tasteless plastic graveyard for plastic people.”.

Mr Dennis channelling Frank Zappa there! And of course he wasn’t far wrong in that assessment as a previous article pointed out. A Monumental Loss

Warming to his theme he outlined the plans he and his fellows had for the site,

This was perhaps not what the present owners wanted to hear. They had lamented the state of the cemetery for the best part of 40 years without paying for its restoration. Now, sat in front of them, is this long haired ‘hippie’ saying that he and his fellows preferred this state of affairs and indeed wanted it to continue. One can imagine their consternation at this news.

Under the paragraph heading, ‘Not Crazy’, Mr Dennis further outlined how he would take control of the cemetery,

In the Yorkshire Post Mr Dennis was quoted as saying,

‘I want to buy it because it is a nice place just as it is – as long as it will not cost me too much. You could say I just want it as a garden. Let the place rest in peace whereas if the council got hold of it we would have council officials marching all over it, levelling it out. Many people enjoy looking around it in its present wild state. Let them enjoy the pleasure.’

He also said in the Hull Times that he did not want the Corporation, ‘to take over the cemetery, to make it into a second Queens Gardens.’

Cold water

At the end of the Hull Daily Mail article the chair of the Cemetery Company poured cold water on this plan. He said he did not think it was possible for Blawhurst Limited, of which Mr Dennis was a founder, to buy the cemetery.

‘For one thing it may be too late to do anything now as we are well on the way to having the Company would up. It must be in doubt whether Mr Dennis’s company have enough cash. There are also various legal complication to be considered.’

With that cold assessment we now move on to the endgame of the Cemetery Company and to the final meeting of the Company. However, before we enter that meeting room for the last time, the intervention by Mr Dennis and his associates caused some ripples beyond the room.

The cat is out of the bag

On the 31st May, eight days after this meeting, the Joint Under-Secretary of State at the Department of the Environment (DOE), a Mr Keith Speed, revealed that Hull Corporation had already enquired for a direct grant from his department to ‘tidy up the dilapidated 127- year old cemetery.’

Sir Keith Speed, as he later became, was the minister for the Navy and was sacked by Margaret Thatcher in 1981. He had publicly disagreed with the cuts taking place on the Navy that she and the defence minister John Nott, were imposing. A year later, with the Falklands War, his assessment was proved correct. Naturally enough he was never forgiven by Thatcher and he was only knighted after she had left office. He died in 2018.

This embarrassing revelation for the Corporation came about, probably much to the Corporation’s chagrin, via the West Hull M.P. James Johnson at the time. He had received a letter from the DOE after he complained about the state of the site. So, contrary to past denials and negative pronouncements about the site the Hull Corporation were seeking to acquire it. But they did not want to buy it but ‘inherit’ it.

A clarification – of sorts

Responding to this news, Sir Leo Schultz, the leader of Hull City Council, said, ‘It was impossible at present to say whether the Corporation would step in.’ This statement, made no doubt to cover for the Corporation’s earlier machinations in applying for a DOE grant, continued,

‘There were plots which people had bought in the area but had not taken up, and the public still needed access to graves in the cemetery. The company is still using it as a burial ground, I understand, so we have commitments regarding it. this means we could not take steps to clear it up until the company has totally completed its business.’

The phrase, ‘to clear it up’, perhaps already shows the Corporation’s plans for the site. Ominously Sir Leo Schultz went on to say,

‘That in any case the Spring Bank area was not the only cemetery in the city which was untidy and needed attention. There were old cemeteries such as those near Division Road and Sculcoates Lane which also must be looked at under the clean-up scheme’

And so they were cleared up, with the significant loss of heritage assets such as the headstone of David Garbutt, the man behind the Avenues project, in Division Road. In Sculcoates Lane the destruction of the chapel that Greenwood in 1835 said was a great artistic piece of work was another blow to Hull historical record. ‘Clean-up’, as a phrase used by the Council at this time, surely should have struck fear into any historian.

The final meeting

The final meeting of the Company shareholders took place once again at the Bowlalley Lane site. The date was the 1st of June 1972. At this meeting two resolutions, unanimously agreed by all present were put forward. The first was that, ‘The Hull General Cemetery Company be dissolved.’ and the second stated, ‘That the Hull General Cemetery Company Limited be wound up in Court.‘

The shareholders then had to deal with the intervention by Mr Dennis and his associates. The shareholders had already agreed that they could not countenance this deal. As the minutes show,

It was only after the press were informed of this decision that Mr Dennis was asked to join the meeting. There he was not told that his offer had been rejected. He was asked to explain his offer once again which he did.

What a novel idea

This approach would not have endeared him and his associates to the shareholders. He was saying that the cemetery, as it stood, was fine. That he could continue to run the cemetery as a business but that would not be its main function. Its main function would be as a site of historical and environmental interest. In essence Mr Dennis was stating something that to us today is quite normal but to the ears of the shareholders it was not only novel but dangerous. Indeed Mr Dennis was articulating what the Spring Bank Cemetery Action Group and the Friends of Hull General Cemetery said later. That the combination of both nature and history complimented each other and should be preserved as much as possible. That in it’s present state (in 1972) it was attractive and informative. The shareholders must have thought the young man was mad.

Back at the meeting

Meanwhile back at the meeting,

So the last chance to preserve the beauty of the Cemetery as it was was lost. That the directors stated that Blawhurst Ltd was a ‘company of straw’ is ironic as it is still one of the leading rental property owners in Hull. Once again one wonders what if the directors had gone along with this scheme what would we now have today on the site? A fruitless exercise I know but sometimes one can’t help playing such mind games.

The final minutes of the final meeting of the Hull General Cemetery Company were never signed off as no further meeting took place. In 1872 the Marie Celeste was found floating in the Atlantic with no one aboard yet still appearing as if it was crewed. One hundred years later so must the Hull General Cemetery have looked. The site continued to exist, the stones still stood in serried ranks, the wild things still scurried around and the trees and bushes still encroached further on to the paths. The site did not care a fig for legal obligations or who owned what. It just did what it does today; it continued to exist.

Hull Corporation come clean

For 18 months the site was ownerless and then things changed. On December 14th 1973, under the headline, ‘City to buy derelict cemetery’, the open secret that the Hull Corporation would take over the site was revealed finally.

The article went on to say in an unflattering way, and it must be said that the Hull Daily Mail was one of the site’s severest critics. It never failed to use the word ‘eyesore for the site.

Perhaps more sinisterly, the plans for the site were expounded by Mr J.A. Milne, the Director of the Council Leisure Services Department.

This is where this part of the story ends and the next stage of the story is already on this website. Please read it and realise what we have lost. A Monumental Loss

Postscript

I attempted to contact Mr Dennis back in 2016. I was intrigued by this whole episode as I hope you are. He had since retired from his role as a Director of Blawhurst Ltd and now lived in Devon. Sadly I never received a reply to my enquiries and perhaps he felt that, as L.P. Hartley said in The Go-Between, ‘The past is foreign country; they do things differently there.’ Like us all he perhaps feels that his youthful indiscretions should remain hidden and forgotten. Who am I to argue with that? It is a shame though.

Postscript Two

This is my last piece as editor of the website. It some ways it seems quite fitting to end with the end of the Company. It’s almost as if I had planned it that way which I assure you I hadn’t. I hope you have enjoyed these glances at some pieces of forgotten and ignored history. I hope you continue to enjoy the website and the cemetery itself for as long as you want to. Bye.

Pete Lowden

Pete Lowden is a member of the Friends of Hull General Cemetery committee which is committed to reclaiming the cemetery and returning it back to a community resource.

petelowden.co.uk