Pete Lowden

The Creation of Hull General Cemetery: Part One

May 1, 2021May 1, 2021 by Pete Lowdenin General, History

The Creation of Hull General Cemetery: Part One

I wrote this article in 2015 back in a time when Nick Clegg was the Deputy Prime Minister. It was published in six parts in the Hull Civic News in 2016 back when the country was still European. As Dylan sang, ‘The times they are changing’ but I think even he might not have foreseen such changes occurring since I sat down at the keyboard and started typing this story.

I’ve revised the article here and there for this website. You may find some comments slightly out of kilter, such as the state of the cemetery at that time I was writing, but I thought they should be left in. It shows the progress that has been made. Finally, I’ve divided the story up into three parts for ease of reading. The other parts will follow in the next couple of months.

This is a brief overview of the creation of Hull General Cemetery, with some personal views.

As a young child I used to love walking to Hull Fair every October. One of the delights was to kick my way through the large drifts of fallen leaves along Spring Bank West. These had fallen from the many over-hanging trees on the Hull General Cemetery side. Of course, I never strayed too far from my mum. Even though the Cemetery had a large wooden fence enclosing it, it was still a dark, scary place to be next to. Especially without the reassurance of a grown up. But the cemetery itself exercised a fascination. It was as much a part of the ‘fun of the fair’ as candy floss and the big wheel.

I suppose the attraction of it, for me at that age, was that I loved history. By far my favourite subject at school, I was in awe of historical ‘things’ and I could see that Hull General Cemetery was old. Therefore, to me, it was valuable, just as much as dinosaur bones or the Crown Jewels were. But even better, this history was here in Hull.

1977 and all that

Moving forward, some 20 years from that time, I worked for Hull City Council. I was employed as a gravedigger. Firstly in Northern and then Western Cemetery. The Council began its despoliation of the Hull General Cemetery whilst I was working for the Council. This destruction was done in the name of progress, transforming something precious into something mundane.

You may want to read ‘A Monumental Loss’ elsewhere on this site for a fuller picture of that travesty. A Monumental Loss

History is bunk

Working in Northern Cemetery at the time I’d sometimes get off the bus at Western Cemetery and walk home. The route home was through Western and HGC. I was a union rep at the time so this journey was not simply a whim. The health and safety of my members was important and I wanted to check up on this. So, a walk home was sometimes the only way I could do this. I noted the destruction that was taking place there with every step home. And every night I knew that something precious was being lost.

I can still remember one senior member of the Leisure Services Department telling me at the time that if he had had his way the entire site would have been cleared; no ifs or buts. Henry Ford once said, ‘History is bunk’. It would be fair to say the Council at this time agreed. This was long before the ‘heritage’ industry was seen as a money spinner for local authorities. However, even at the time, just a quick look up the A1079 to York might have enlightened the elected members somewhat.

Today ( but actually 2015)

Now the site seems to be a multi-functional ‘community resource’; as a dog walk, a cut through to the Dukeries, a place for both ‘serious drinkers’ to frequent and drug users to hide their habits away from prying eyes. Principally it has now become an unofficial rubbish dump. Was that what that tide of destruction was for?

I am not anti-dog. Far from it, I have owned dogs most of my life. Nor do I refuse to take an alcoholic drink without a good reason. I am also aware that the Council runs quite an efficient waste disposal sites. They’ll even come to pick up items from your house. So how did we come to exchange a rare resource for the above?

I am pretty sure that the Council did not envision these limited outcomes for the Cemetery when they cleared it back in 1977/8. We cannot undo the harm that officialdom did 40 years ago. What we can do is cherish and protect what we have now. The Hull General Cemetery site is still an historic asset. It should, and could, be treat with more dignity and respect.

Enough pontificating, let’s look at how and why the Hull General Cemetery began.

Burial practice and sites

Almost all burials, throughout the Christian period in the British Isles, were undertaken within the consecrated ground of the parish church or the grounds of a religious order. It was an inalienable right within the common law to be buried in consecrated ground within one’s own parish The exceptions to this were few and far between.

The most numerous of these exceptions would have still born births. If the child had not been baptised it could not be buried in consecrated ground. A harsh ruling but the Church was very strict that any burials within consecrated ground should be of people who had been baptized as Christians.

Suicides were sometime excluded as this was also seen as strong sin against God. In that the individual was taking unto themselves the time when they should die rather than leaving that to God. However, this was not a hard and fast rule. Space was made available for such deaths, usually in the Northern part of the church yard, to accommodate such burials.

The other major grouping who would have failed to be buried in consecrated ground would have been rebels or traitors and, as can be imagined, these were few and far between over the centuries.

The religious orders

The other main burial area during the period up to the Reformation was within the confines of a religious Order. There were three such places in the vicinity of what is now Hull. The Carmelites had a Friary situated on the land that now stretches between Posterngate and Whitefriargate. Their tenure of this piece of land is still remembered by the street name. Burials took place here and excavations in the early 19t century uncovered such burials.

The Carthusians were based at the Charterhouse. This chapel of this site was used for burials up until the mid 19th century. The final religious order in Hull were the Augustinians. Their clothing, or habit, was black and they became known as the Black Friars. Their base was close to the east of the old Market Place. Not surprisingly they too gave their name to the street where they were based. Blackfriargate has almost disappeared but it is an historic Hull street. It was excavated by the Humberside Archaeology unit in the early 1970s. Many burials were found to have taken place there.

Syphilis and suppression

Of interest, a number of the skeletons excavated at this site showed evidence of syphilis damage. As these people were buried well over a century before the sailors of Columbus were supposed to have brought back this disease from the New World this discovery has caused some old beliefs to be re-examined.

The suppression of the monasteries, in the 16^th century, obviously ended burial within such institutions. The only burial place available to the population after this was the parish church yard. Until the end of the 17^th century that is.

Non-conformists

With the rise of non-conformism, and the splintering of that into its myriad forms, another option began to present itself. Commonly called Dissenters, in that they objected against the teachings of the Established Church. they wanted no truck with burial in consecrated ground.

As such these sects looked towards providing another form of burying place for themselves. These burial places had to be outside the consecrated ground of the church. As an example, in Hull the Quakers purchased some land, in what is now Hodgson Street, for the burial of their members. Other denominations built chapels to cater for their religious meetings. In the vaults below the chapels, they laid their departed members to rest in them.

Population increase

This system worked well enough whilst the population of towns outside of London were relatively small. At the turn of the 19th century Hull had a population of around 20 to 25,000 people. It could have conveniently fit into the KC stadium. However population was on the rise and not just in Hull.

Without over bearing this article with too many figures, some may be useful here. I’m using the Victoria County History here, Volume 1. It states that Hull and Sculcoates in 1700 had an estimated population of 7,512. A century later this had increased to 25,613. By the time of the first census in 1801 this figure was 22,161. In the 1831 census the population had almost doubled to 32,958. By the 1841, some six years before the Hull General Cemetery opened its gates, the population stood at 65,670. In essence the population of Hull and Sculcoates had almost trebled in 40 years.

With the increase of population, space was at a premium in the small, enclosed parish churchyards and burying grounds of the Dissenters throughout the town.

Below is an image of Bunhill Fields in London. A Dissenter’s burial ground since the 1660s, by Victorian times it was notorious. Daniel Defoe is buried there. It provides a graphic example of how poor and overcrowded the small burial grounds were at that time.

The dignity of the dead

The disposal of the ever-increasing amount of the dead, began to be a major problem. Their disposal suffered a fall in the dignity which should have been shown to them. Hull and Sculcoates were not immune to this rough and ready treatment of the dead.

Holy Trinity Church, by the 1830’s, had for its interment use, the ground surrounding the church in the Market Place. This site had been used for burial since the foundation of the church in the 13th century. It later acquired in 1783 some 3 acres of land on Castle Street as a new burying ground. However, all of these burial grounds that were associated with Holy Trinity were full by the 1830’s.

St Mary’s Church in Lowgate had its own churchyard on Lowgate. It also had the small Trippett Street burial ground of approximately a quarter of an acre. In later years this site was levelled off and the burial ground found another use. It was used, in the recent past, as a backdrop for the wedding photographs after the wedding at the local Register Office. This burying ground had been opened in 1774 but by the 1830s it too was full.

The only other Anglican burying sites in Hull and Sculcoates at this time were the churchyard of St Mary’s, Air Street, which was also full by this time, and the new burying grounds for this parish church in Sculcoates Lane. This was situated on the south side of the road and was opened in 1818. On the east side of the River Hull, St Peter’s in Drypool, was also struggling to bury the parish’s dead.

The burial grounds were full

For all of these sites, the same problem arose. How can you carry on burying the dead in a ground that is already full. There appeared to be no answer. The churches did not want to forgo the revenue that burials in consecrated ground gave them so turned a blind eye to the despoliation of the dead by the sextons and gravediggers. For, to accommodate the next burial, the previous one had to be hacked away.

Burial space was at a premium and managing to inter a body must have been something of a work of art. Foster, in Living and Dying, cites an example of a burial in St Mary’s Churchyard in 1844 where the previous occupants of the grave were all taken out and stacked in the church whilst the gravedigger presumably deepened the grave to accommodate the previous occupants plus the new internment.

He also states that correspondents to The Hull Advertiser of the time were constantly informing the editor of the latest indignities heaped upon the dead in Hull. Just a thin scattering of earth over the next occupant of the grave was all that seemed to be required. There are tales of dogs, pigs and rats haunting burying grounds. An image that can best be left to the imagination. One commentator of the period said, of churches generally, that they looked like they had been built in pits, so much had the ground around them been raised up by burials.

Funerals

Funerals began to take on their present appearance about the 1830’s, concurrent with the rise of the privately funded cemetery such as the Hull General Cemetery in Hull and others across the country. Indeed, it can be argued that this burst of urban cemeteries that, later in the Victorian period, gave in some senses, the impetus for the rise of the ‘funerary industry’.

Of interest, at least in terms of fashion, was the dropping of the term “burial or burying ground” to be replaced by exotic terms such as cemetery and necropolis around this time. In our modern, more cynical, times we would probably say that the death business had had a makeover.

Profit

Cemeteries, run by a private company, were of course typical of the Victorian sense of laissez-faire in most things. That such a thing as the disposal of the dead should be left to a private company, and that a profit could ensue from that activity, was seen as natural. Accordingly, entrepreneurs usually joined together to form joint stock companies issuing shares in the company. The individuals who bought shares would then expect a dividend from their investment. It was this profit motive that gave a great deal of the impetus to the creation of many of the Victorian cemeteries of Britain that we can still see today.

Civic pride and cemeteries open to all

Another major force, apart from the hygiene aspect already alluded to, was the growth of civic pride. This pride, that obviously manifested itself in the erection of the municipal palaces that masqueraded as town or city halls. It also wanted museums, libraries, parks, market halls, boulevards and prisons to embellish their respective centres. Concurrent with this was the need for great urban centres to have a cemetery that could command respect amongst its equals. And so, the growth of cemeteries across the country was assured.

The other aspect that cannot be ignored is that these cemeteries were non-denominational. They endeavoured to cater to all Christian faiths. The idea behind this non-exclusivity of burial was one of the greatest draws of a general cemetery. Firstly, from the public’s point of view, it allowed a dignified Christian burial for their loved ones in a pleasant surrounding. Secondly, from the proprietor’s point of view, it allowed a wider clientele and customer base. A win-win situation for all.

The pioneer private cemeteries

The first private cemeteries in Great Britain were sited to cater for the large urban centres. The first one was probably in Chorlton Row, Rusholme Road in Manchester. It opened in 1821 specifically for Dissenters. Made famous by The Smiths in the 1980s it is now a park. Burials stopped taking place there in 1933.

Another early claim to fame is the Rosary Road Cemetery in Norwich. Developed in 1819 but not opened until 1821. This last cemetery was 13 acres in size. It was taken over by Norwich Council in 1954 and managed so sensitively that in 2010 it was granted Grade II listed status. A lesson there for all such ventures. Sadly, much too late for Hull City Council.

Liverpool and local anguish

The Hull newspapers of the time reported such improvements of the town’s rivals. The death of William Huskisson, M.P. of Liverpool, who was also the first fatality of a rail accident in the world when he was killed at the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway on the 15^th of September 1830, was widely reported. He was buried in the St James Cemetery in Liverpool. This cemetery had been opened the year before. It was large enough to cater for at least 50,000 burials. This was something to be marvelled at by the citizens of Hull. That this was the second large cemetery that Liverpool had opened in less than 5 years just added salt into the wound. The business opportunities that such a venture provided did not go unnoticed. The item from the Hull Advertiser of November 1833 highlights this.

Kensal Green

In February 1833 the news that a large cemetery was due to be opened in London set civic hearts a beating and was duly reported in the Hull Packet. That later on this cemetery was embellished by some of the most beautiful monuments outside of a museum simply increased the desire to emulate it in Hull.(1)

And further afield

In the July of that same year it was reported that some people in Leeds had formed a committee looking at this issue. It was reported that they were in the process of purchasing some land with a view to forming a general cemetery company. In the September the Bishop of Durham had given up some land in his diocese to be used as a private cemetery. By the November a news item stated that people in Manchester were to set up a joint stock cemetery company, the subscribed amount to be of £20,000 with shares at £10 each to create a much larger cemetery.

Much closer to home, it was reported, at the end of November 1833, that York was about to begin the process of setting up a general cemetery company. Even Malton began preparations to establish a general cemetery for itself in 1836.

By this time, even if there had been no pressing need for a general cemetery in Hull, there would have been a popular demand for one simply to maintain civic pride. That it took so long after this to finally open one is quite difficult to understand.

Cholera

One factor hindering the establishment of the cemetery may well have been that at this time (1832) the first attack of Asiatic cholera took place in the town. Although one would think it would have added impetus to the pressing need for a large cemetery, it may also have prevented economic growth. This was needed to finance and spur the project on. Without financial backing from the great and the good such an enterprise was extremely unlikely to take off.

Interestingly, when the second wave of cholera struck Hull in 1849, the Hull General Cemetery was seen as a godsend. In disposing and dealing with so many of the victims of the pandemic it assisted the town greatly.

In 1839 a reviewer of the book, “Gatherings from Graveyards” (2) in the Hull Packet stated that,

‘The Metropolitan burial places are pre-eminently considered: and well has the talented author asserted his notion that burying the dead in the neighbourhood of human habitations is a national evil… and as Hull at no distant day will proceed to form a cemetery worthy of our flourishing seaport.’

Stories in the press

During the elections of churchwardens for Holy Trinity the following April it was reported in the Hull Advertiser that it was, ‘hoped that before long a general cemetery would be here (in Hull).’

Finally, in the August of 1840, an advert, seen below, appeared in most local newspapers. This advert would have led to an outpouring of civic pride. At last a general cemetery was to be developed for the use of the townspeople of Hull and its neighbours.

The press reacted supportively and encouraged investors with the hope that,

‘We trust the support necessary to carry the object of the company into effect will be properly rendered… Public cemeteries have been rendered ornaments to the towns where they have already been constructed, and have besides, we believe, been found highly remunerative to the public-spirited projectors.’

In the Hull Advertiser of the next month, it was reported that the share list of subscribers was nearly complete. And there the matter appeared to rest. And die.

Doctor Gordon

In the Hull Advertiser in November 1841 under the interesting headline, ‘Noxious Effluvia’, Dr. Gordon spoke to the Hull Literary and Philosophical Society about ‘the effects of decomposing animal and vegetable substances upon the human constitution’. During this talk the need for a public cemetery for the town was again raised. Dr. Gordon, known as ‘the people’s friend’, was a noted advocate for a clean way to dispose of the dead.

Tragically he died young, in 1849, and was buried with much acclaim in Hull General Cemetery and his memorial was erected via public subscription. At its erection it was the largest monument in there and vied with the later Cholera Monument. Unfortunately, due to subsidence, it was reduced in 1900, to half its size.

To legislate or not

By the April of 1842 the whole idea of a general cemetery appeared to have disappeared entirely. Once again the Holy Trinity Churchwardens were discussing the need for a new cemetery. They believed that Mr Broadley had offered some 2 acres for their use. This was the beginnings of the Division Road cemetery but that was still twenty years in the future.

During this discussion the vicar counselled prevarication. Future legislation, regarding urban cemeteries, was going through Parliament at the time. By the June of 1842 a Parliamentary Select Committee, with Edwin Chadwick driving it, recommended that every large town should have a cemetery. However, that cemetery should not be “not within 1,800 yards of the same.” So, effectively the cemetery should be a mile outside the town. Of course, the Select Committee failed to notice the urban spread that the increase of population was driving. The urban centres would continue increasing in size and any future cemetery would eventually be swallowed up by urban sprawl.

By the April of 1843 this legislation was dragging its way through parliament. The ramifications of such legislation would make it a necessity that a general cemetery be established in Hull. After the legislation was passed it would be illegal, unless in a private vault, to inter anyone in a public churchyard or burying ground, that was not yet full, after the 31^st December 1843. The same legislation made it easier for committees to be set up to purchase land, develop cemeteries and to run them. The door to Hull gaining its first general cemetery was not only open but there was a welcome mat just inside.

The Public Health Act 1848

This attempt at legislation failed. Further legislation, prompted by the Cholera for one thing, was enacted. In 1848 the first of many Public Health Acts was passed. Wide ranging in scope the allowed local authorities to undertake works to redress some of the evils of the Victorian urban experience. Housing, sanitation and burials were the three important features of the Acts. The Government allowed local authorities to set up what was known as Local Boards of Health that were regulated by the local authority and the national Board of Health.

One of the first acts of a Local Board of Health was to establish a statutory Burial Board to investigate the purchase of existing cemeteries or to establish their own. In Hull the problems of slum housing and the sanitation of most of the town was addressed first. The issue of providing a municipal cemetery was not a priority because, by the time of the first Public Health Act in 1848, the Hull General Cemetery had been opened. This issue though was to become a running sore between the local authority and the Company during the 1850s and will be the subject of another article later in the year.

Further stories in the press

Meanwhile, back in 1843, when hopes were high that legislation would soon arrive to resolve the problem the idea of the cemetery never left the media. Letters to the newspapers increased.

A rather savage correspondent to the local press in February 1843, going by the name “Investigator”, decided to intervene. His reasons for doing so remain unclear. His main brief appeared to be that the burial of the dead within urban centres, especially in the over full church yards in Hull, would be catastrophic to health. He said that it would lead to disease and a rise in mortality to those frequenting those places, and those who were unlucky enough to live near them. In essence, this continued practice, he said, was demeaning to both the dead and the living. He signed off with the message that,

“It degrades religion, brings its ministers into contempt, tends to lower the standard of morality and is a foul blot upon our boasted civilization.”

Cemetery or zoo?

A further correspondent in December 1843 lamented that the Zoological Gardens had been established in Hull when he stated the discussions had been about establishing a cemetery and refurbishing the Botanic Gardens. The writer said he

“gave up his cemetery, accepted the monkeys and the parrots, and concluded to wait for a more favourable opportunity of again bringing forward that which every one must feel the necessity and importance of.”

In the May of 1844, an impassioned correspondent using the title, “Amicus” wrote feelingly of how he had watched a gravedigger in St Mary’s church cut through coffins and human remains to effect a burial in the churchyard there. Of further interest was his comment that,

‘A public cemetery, it is true, was agitated through your columns and, if I am not mistaken, a feeble movement was made in consequence out of doors, but the project appears to have been abandoned; at least I for one have not heard lately that anything is being prosecuted towards securing the accomplishment of so vital a desideratum.’

Even the newspapers have had enough

The Hull Advertiser, somewhat curtly, in the October, printed this notice. It was an attempt to hold back the numerous letters it was receiving on the subject.

Likewise, the Hull Packet, one week later, published a scathing editorial of the lack of will and motivation to provide a proper cemetery for the town of Hull. It opened with the statement that,

‘Of the many improvements that are called for in Hull, there is not one so important, or so urgent, as that of its burial places.’

Going on to state, both in an emotional sense and by dry factual evidence, that burying in the old churchyards and burying grounds could no longer continue it argued the case. It concluded thus,

The green shoots of another cemetery company?

In the January of 1845 a small news item in the Hull Packet said that, “a scheme for a new cemetery had been mooted” but they were not sure of the details. Complicating matters at this time was a proposal from the Dock Company to buy the Castle Street burial ground as it already had adjacent land upon which it intended to build Railway Dock.

This proposal to the churchwardens of Holy Trinity could well have allowed the creation of yet another burial ground under the auspices of the church. And although the churchwardens carried the day, at a very rowdy meeting of parishioners and rate payers, for accepting the offer from the Dock Company, nothing came from this plan.

George Milner

Mr George Milner, was an advocate of cemetery burials. He later became a director of the Cemetery Company, and was buried in there in 1852. His monument still survives as shown below

In February 1845, he was the speaker at a public lecture at the Mechanics Institute. At this meeting he said,

“no town is in greater need of a general cemetery than Hull, and I do hope and trust ere long that one may be formed in every way befitting a town of such importance as our.”

That month the first advertisement relating to the Hull General Cemetery that we have today appeared in the local press.

The ball was finally rolling.

Notes

1. Kensal Green Cemetery is one of the so-called ‘Magnificent Seven’ cemeteries in London. It was the first one to be opened. It was designed as a type known as ‘garden cemeteries’. Hull General Cemetery was of this type. Such cemeteries were given a great boost by the burial of Augustus Frederick, the Duke of Sussex in its grounds. This man was the sixth son of George III. He had been so appalled at the funeral of his brother, William IV, in 1837 he vowed he would not have a state funeral. He was buried – with much pomp – in Kensal Green Cemetery in April 1843. Still later, in June 1848, Princess Sophia, the fifth daughter of George III, also opted for burial in this cemetery. The idea of the public cemetery burial had received the royal approval. Its future was assured.

2. Gatherings from Graveyards was written by George Walker. A thorn in the side to the burial industry notably the church and funeral directors. He cited many instances of sloppy and horrific burial practice which he published in this volume. His work on the charnel house that was Enon Chapel is worth searching out. But only for strong stomachs.

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

Hull City Council request to the FOHGC

May 1, 2021May 1, 2021 by Pete Lowdenin Events, General, News, Volunteers

As some of you may know, earlier this month Hull City Council made a request to the FOHGC. This was to temporarily stop any work in the cemetery other than collecting and disposing of litter from the site. This request appeared to stem from a complaint. An official enquiry was begun as a result of this. We have been informed that when a decision has been reached the FOHGC will be informed as soon as possible.

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

The Catacombs of Hull General Cemetery

April 1, 2021April 1, 2021 by Pete Lowdenin General, History1 Comment

Catacombs and Crosses

Almost everyone who enters Hull General Cemetery for the first-time remarks on the crosses. And why not? They are quite beautiful works of art. So beautiful that we chose one of them to grace the front of our first book. Made from cast iron and decorated to within an inch of their lives. They stand tall, graceful and, after over 150 years, they can still turn a head or two.

Not so the catacombs. They are lost, not even an image of them survives, and yet at one time they too were designed to be Victorian beauties. We can glimpse them in our imagination.

If we look at photographs of the Highgate Cemetery catacombs, or perhaps investigate the chamber under the chapel in Nunhead Cemetery we may capture an essence of them. But it is imagination. We have no real knowledge of their shape and form. Their existence was short and sweet in comparison to the crosses.

This work will talk about both the crosses and the catacombs. with a view to sharing what we know of who was buried in a catacomb or under a cross, and something of their lives.

The crosses will be discussed in next month’s post. This month it’s the lost catacombs of Hull General Cemetery.

Catacombs and Brodrick

As already mentioned, Highgate Cemetery has some wonderful catacombs.^[1] That cemetery was opened in 1840, some seven years before Hull General Cemetery. No doubt it offered inspiration to the directors of the Hull General Cemetery Company with their vision.

The catacombs of Highgate come in two forms. One, the more famous Egyptian avenue, which are similar to vaults, and the Terrace catacombs that we believe are more in keeping with the design of the ones at Hull, as envisaged by their architect Cuthbert Brodrick.^[2]

Fig 1: Key Hill Cemetery, Birmingham. Visited by the Chairman and the solicitor of the Company in 1846. Note the catacombs stretching from the left and built into the incline left by the quarrying company who owned the land before it became a cemetery. I believe this was the model the Company were seeking, and it is very similar to the Sculcoates Lane burial ground site south side.

As discussed elsewhere the Cemetery Company requested Brodrick to place detailed plans for the construction of both the lodge and, ‘the church and catacombs and the best mode of arranging the latter’, before them in the February of 1847.^[3]

The board’s resolution gives us an insight into what they envisaged would be the finished state of the catacombs.

‘Resolved that Mr Broderick be forthwith instructed to prepare (for consideration by the Board) an amended design for the church so as to embrace two places for divine service with catacombs underneath and also for the entrance lodge and the gates and palisades connected there with – the whole of the expense being limited to £3000.’^[4]

Brodrick’s designs

By the June Brodrick had done as asked and,

‘having informed the Board that he could erect five catacombs in such a way that the centre of the building should form a temporary chapel leaving one catacomb on consecrated ground and one catacomb on unconsecrated ground and be made available for immediate use. It was resolved that Mr Broderick be instructed immediately to prepare plans and advertise contracts for the same – the entire expense not to exceed £500.’^[5]

Brodrick went further, and looking to the future, envisaged a row of catacombs stretching westwards up the Cemetery, much like Key Hill.

Where both Brodrick and the Company made a strategic mistake was that they believed that the market in Hull could accommodate such a luxury as a catacomb burial. They were to be proved wrong.

Fig 2: Brodrick letter to the Directors. No date.

Optimism and the Chapel

However, in the beginning, the Cemetery was optimistic. At the AGM of the shareholders in March 1848, some nine months after the official opening of the Cemetery, the Chairman probably felt justified in telling the shareholders that,

‘Your directors have recently prepared a number of vaults and catacombs adjoining to the present chapel and sufficient for some time to meet any demand which may be made upon them either for public or private vaults or catacombs, and these, though only completed within the last few days, have already come into profitable operation an interment having taken place therein the price charged being remunerative to the shareholders. Your Board propose as these already prepared are sold off to continue these vaults and catacombs from the chapel along the whole North side of the Cemetery grounds so as ultimately to form by such means a handsome colonnade or covered walk along the whole of the extent which when completed will form either in the summer or the winter seasons a pleasant and attractive promenade.’^[6]

What did they look like?

Let’s take a moment here and try to envisage what these structures would have looked like.

Let us take a close-up view of the chapel from the Bevan Lithograph of the Cemetery that was made in 1848 as the starting point. It can be seen in Fig 3.

There is a distinct possibility that Bevan used the plans that Brodrick had drawn up for the chapel as his model, as when Bevan drew his lithograph neither the Lodge nor the chapel were built.

Fig 3: Enlargement of the Chapel from Bevan’s lithograph,1848.

As can be seen, the chapel as a structure, had two wings to the east and the west. The chapel, used for services, situated in the centre with an octagonal roof. This is corroborated by an aerial view of the Cemetery taken in the 1940’s. See Fig 4.

The octagonal roof is clearly discernible, as well as the wings to the chapel. It is within these wings that the catacombs we believe were installed.

Fig 4: The chapel in the centre of the photograph with structures to either side.

The final image that can be used to attempt to gain an insight into how the catacombs appeared, is taken from the images that Hull City Archives department undertook before the clearing work began in the Cemetery in the 1970’s. See Fig 5.

The chapel is derelict by now and the western part of the catacombs appears to have been dismantled. The eastern catacombs would have stood further back and therefore would not be visible in this photograph.

Fig 5: The chapel prior to its destruction in 1977/78. Note that the structure housing the catacombs to the left of the chapel no longer appears to exist.

Herbert Seaton

And so, we come to the occupants of the catacombs. The first occupant of the catacombs, the one that the Chairman mentioned at the AGM, was Herbert Seaton.

This man was an extensive landowner in both the West and East Ridings. He was someone who had fingers in a number of pies. Where and how he had acquired his money is difficult now to resolve. He was consistently mentioned in both the local press, and the poll books as a ‘gentleman.’ This gives little or no clue to his wealth. Baptized, and probably born, in 1782 to Herbert and Martha Seaton.

Fig 6: Herbert Seaton’s parish baptism record.

His father, Herbert, 1744-1814, appeared to have strong links to Holme-on-Spalding-Moor and indeed this was where Herbert junior was born.

The family originated in Lincolnshire and it appears that Herbert senior, was the first one of his family who moved to the East Riding. At this time, much of the Riding was going though what was known as Enclosure. This was where, usually via an Act of Parliament, what had been known as common land, was appropriated by groups or individuals of power and money, and enclosed via ditches or hedges, into larger parcels of land.

Indeed, our view of the present countryside is the result of these activities. If Herbert senior was involved in this it could perhaps indicate how the family appeared wealthy.

Fig 7: 1841 census return for Herbert Seaton. Residing at the house that night, apart from himself, were his wife Grace, Elizabeth Pepper, a relative of his wife’s and a domestic servant Jane Wells.

Marriage

Herbert junior married Grace Pepper at Hook, near Goole on the 20^th July 1811. Around this time Herbert and his new wife began to live in Hull. Settling in the newly laid out English Street. A part of the western extension of Hull that was creeping along what was to become Hessle Road.

As one can see from the census, Herbert is cited as being ‘Ind’ which is the shorthand for ‘independent means’. The address, although not given on the form, was 23, English Street.

The site, subsumed long ago by light industry, was at one time a very salubrious area. Herbert was appointed as a surveyor of the roads alongside Thomas Earle, the sculptor, in 1829 for the Holy Trinity Parish. A parochial as well as a council appointment, this involved monitoring the state of the roads in the parish and engaging contractors to repair them as necessary.

Politics

By 1836 he had become a councillor for South Myton ward which included English Street and he served in this role until his death. Politically he was a Liberal and Reformist candidate.

Around this time politics in Britain were convulsed by the Reform Act of 1832 and its repercussions at local level. In 1834 the Hull Corporation was drastically changed and several Aldermen were removed.

Seaton would have been one of the more prominent figures on the reformist side in this battle. He and others invited Richard Cobden and John Bright to speak in Hull at the height of the Corn Law issue. Later in his political career he became the Chairman of the Watch Committee, the committee that supervised aspects of law and order in the town.

Religious beliefs

Herbert’s religious beliefs were firmly in the Unitarian faith and he probably worshipped at the chapel in Bowlalley Lane. He was also part of the cultural life of the town and was a member of the Lyceum Library committee for a time.

At the first AGM of the new Hull General Cemetery Company, Herbert Seaton proposed that John Solomon Thompson, William Irving and George Milner be re-appointed as directors of the Company, a choice which was seconded and carried unanimously.

Herbert was, of course, always one of the foremost proponents of the creation of the Cemetery and one of the original shareholders of the Company holding ten shares.

Seaton’s death

Herbert died on the 7^th February 1849, aged 66. The Christian Reformer or Unitarian Magazine and Review, from its annual review of that year stated,

‘Feb. 7, at his residence, Hull, HERBERT SEATON, Esq., aged 66 years. He had for many years retired from business, and devoted his time and services to the improvement of the town. He was an earnest and devoted attendant on Unitarian worship. In his private relations, he was a kind master and an affectionate husband. His remains were attended to the cemetery by a long train of townsmen and fellow-worshippers, anxious to pay the last token of respect to his memory.’^[7]

The Gentleman’s Magazine also noted his passing,

‘Feb. 7. Aged 66. Herbert Seaton, esq. of Hull. His funeral at the Hull General Cemetery was attended by many of the town council, and the whole police force of the borough – the latter out of respect to him as ex-chairman of the Watch Committee. Mr. Seaton’s eminent worth, in his public career, as a quiet but energetic worker in every sphere where he was called upon to act, procured for him the deep respect of all to whom he was known.’^[8]

Funeral

His funeral as reported in the Hull Advertiser was one of the largest to take place at that time,

Fig 8: 16^th February 1849, Hull Advertiser and Exchange Gazette.

Fig 9: Herbert Seaton funeral memorial card.

Herbert was the first occupant of the catacombs of Hull General Cemetery. As can be seen in the burial record of the Company that this is recorded as such.

Fig 10: Hull General Cemetery burial record for Herbert Seaton. Note catacomb 7 is used instead of a grave number. The entry above him is that of Dr Gordon, a noted Hull physician known as ‘The People’s Friend’. Both of them died on the same day.

The economics of the catacombs

After such bright beginnings the Company must have thought, as witnessed by the Chairman’s speech at the AGM already mentioned, that they would be selling the catacomb burials on a regular basis.

As the purchase price of a catacomb burial was at the very top end of the interments the Company supplied, it would have gladdened the shareholders to hear the Chairman speaking like that. A catacomb burial which included,

‘a whole vault, 7 feet 6 inches in length, 7 feet 5 inches wide and 7 feet 4 inches high, the purchaser placing a wood, stone or iron door in front and having the interior fitted up in any way he please at his own expense.’^[9]

The cost of such a form of burial was £105 guineas, a formidable sum, which is probably around £10,000 today, plus, two guineas for each further burial that occurred. A normal brick lined vault, of the type that Dr Gordon had, would have cost 14 guineas. A considerable difference in price.

The middle class of Hull must have made the same calculations and as a result chose the latter for their burials. Catacomb burial was really for a very select few.

Construction issues

In August 1851 the board were informed by John Shields, the Cemetery Superintendent, that,

‘Mr Shields reported that the east end of the Catacombs had given way and the directors having made an inspection of the same it was resolved that such measures that are necessary to be taken to secure the same and that the chairman be requested to see Mr William Sissons and obtain his opinion as to what was best to be done under the circumstances.’^[10]

The following month, September 1851, the surveyor William Sissons reported back to the board with the bad news that they would have to deal with the land owner to the North of the site. So, the Board,

‘Resolved that the secretary do see Mr Earnshaw, the solicitor of Mr Wilkinson’s trustees, the owner of the adjoining land on the north of the cemetery and ascertain whether the ditch dividing the two properties belongs solely to the cemetery company or jointly with Mr Wilkinson’s trustees, and if the latter then that leave be asked to make the reparations required.’^[11]

William Watson Wilkinson

Due to an unfortunate misunderstanding in 1846/7, the relationship between the landowner to the North, William Watson Wilkinson, was frosty if not antagonistic. There are no records as to what Mr Wilkinson’s response was to the Company but later it was firmly established that the ditch between his land and the Company’s was his and it is unlikely that he would allow them access to it nor allow any work to it.

The chapel had a long unfortunate history of constantly needing repair, as obviously did the catacombs. One has to assume that this was the result of both the ground that they were built on, and poor foundation work. The Company constantly refurbished and repaired but it was a battle they were always going to lose.

By 1858 the Company perhaps realised that its hopes of building rows of catacombs along the north side of the Cemetery were negligible. It did, however, offer a reduction in the price of its vaults and catacombs in the April of that year. In terms of catacombs this was not a success.

Grace Seaton

In 1864 the Company sold two more catacombs. The wife of Herbert Seaton, Grace, died in July 1864 and was laid to rest in catacomb 8 which has to be presumed to be next to the remains of her husband.

Earlier that year another catacomb burial had taken place. This was the burial of Hannah Matthas who died on the 18^th January 1864 and was laid to rest in catacomb 3 on the 21^st January.

Lost at sea

As the burial record states, Hannah, was the widow of William Matthas, a master mariner. William had been a whaling captain during the industry’s heyday. He was the captain of the ‘London’. This ship, of 273 tons, was built in Ipswich in 1791.^[12]

Due to paucity of records it cannot be said whether it was sailing from Hull from its launch but it was definitely registered at Hull by 1814. In 1817 it was sailing on another voyage to the whaling grounds when it disappeared. The logical conclusion was that it had foundered and the response from the townsfolk was as to be expected,

Fig 11: 27^th August,1817, Hull Packet.

You may notice that the captain’s Christian name begins with an ‘R’ but this may have been a typographical error on the part of the newspaper. In the death notice of Hannah, it states that she was the wife of ‘Wm.’ So I think we can assume that William is the correct forename of the captain.

A floating cask

By the October of 1817 the subscribers were asking petitioners to meet with them to allocate the share of the subscription fund. And there the fate of William Matthas and his crew may have been left except for one odd piece of information that was found in the April of the following year. The Hull Packet reported the find later that year,

Fig 12: 29^th September 1818, Hull Packet.

Hannah Matthas

Hannah carried on with her life, residing at Osbourne’s Gallery in Trippet Street. There are no images of this site however it is marked on the OS map of Hull, 1853. As you can see in Fig 14, it was situated opposite the Public Baths, a building opened in 1850, and closed as a Public Bathhouse in 1902 before becoming the first telephone exchange in Hull in 1904.

As can be seen from the 1841 census return in Fig 13, Hannah describes herself as being of independent means, yet she was living in a galleried apartment block.

These were rare in Hull but quite common in many other areas of the country, especially London and Scottish towns and cities. They were usually of poor quality, with wooden balconies and stairs to the upper floors. Poor in construction and cheaply made they were close to the bottom of the rung of the housing ladder in Hull at the time.

When Hannah was living at this address, she shared the block with at least 10 other families.

Fig 13: 1841 census return showing Hannah Matthas, close to the middle of the page. This page shows only half of the tenants of the address.

Fig 14: 1853 OS Map of Hull, showing Osbourne Gallery opposite the Public Bath building in Trippet Street.

Hannah continued to live at his address until her death. Although stating that she was a lady of ‘independent means’ her choice of residence did not particularly chime with that statement. Yet, at her death, she claimed a catacomb burial,

Fig 15: Burial record for Hannah Matthas. Note catacomb 3.

Her death and will

Upon her death, she left the princely sum of just under £800 pounds to a distant cousin, her only surviving relative. Did the cousin, in gratitude, decide to spend £105 guineas of this legacy on her benefactor and have her buried with some pomp.

We don’t know but it is an intriguing thought isn’t it?

There were only these three catacomb burials during the Cemetery’s entire life. This fact was inscribed on a flyleaf of one of the burial registers of the Cemetery.

Fig 16: Inscription on fly leaf of one of the Company’s burial registers.

What had been a grand desire on the part of the Company eventually failed to materialise. The hope that it could sell catacombs along its Northern border was just that; a hope. It can safely be said that its failure was one of the contributory factors in the decline of the Cemetery.

Postscript

99% of the above was written in 2018. Since then I managed to discover a little bit more. The basis for this ‘revision’ stems from some architectural plans. These were drawn up in 1981 by a young student named Peter Ranson.

At that time the chapel was still standing although now simply a roofless shell.

The student architect’s plans were commissioned by Hull Civic Society and submitted to the Council in 1978. Nothing was heard from the Council during that time. Then, without any consultation, they demolished the chapel in the Autumn of 1981. I’ll talk about that blunder later this year.

One of the good things that we can draw from this is that we have access to the plans that Mr Ranson drew up. Firstly, here is a rough sketch he drew up. It was obviously drawn up after the redevelopment of the site as the stones on the map are so few. If you notice in the image below, the chapel has two wings.

The area, cross hatched, and to the right of the chapel is the area that I believe was used for catacombs. Here’s a enlarged view.

Let’s remind ourselves of what Brodrick stated in his letter,

The catacombs would be accessible from ‘the outside’. Therefore their entrances would not be through the chapel. As such they would be extraneous to the chapel building.

This appears to be the case with the hatched area. It also is on the North side of the cemetery and would have backed on to the drain that ran along that side of the cemetery. So, a case can be made that this area is the site of the catacombs. Not conclusive but better than we had.

The plans

However, more evidence can be gained by looking at the main plans.

We are now looking at a more detailed overhead view of the chapel. To the upper right corner there is the supposed catacomb area. It is divided into two sections.

The first section appears to be an antechamber. Beyond this is, what I believe to be, the burial area for the catacombs. Please note that Mr Ranson has inscribed to the right of the antechamber the note, ‘Replace nameplates where found’. This can only refer to the dead buried within.

I would suggest that this is more conclusive proof of this part of the plans being the catacomb area.

Of course, it is all conjecture. However, I think we owe it to the people buried there and to ourselves, not to let go of another aspect of history. The catacombs are long gone but that doesn’t mean we should forget about them.

Bibliography:

The Hull Whale Fishery, Jennifer C. Rowley, Lockington Publishing Company, 1982.

The Hull Whaling Trade: An Arctic Adventure, Arthur Credland MBE, Hutton Press, 1995.

Mortal Remains, Chris Brooks, Wheaton, 1989.

London Cemeteries: An Illustrated Guide and Gazetteer, Hugh Meller, Avebury,1981.

Highgate Cemetery, Victorian Valhalla, John Gay & Felix Barker, Friends of Highgate Cemetery, 1984.

Highgate Cemetery, Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust, 2014.

The British Whaling Trade, Gordon Jackson, Adam & Charles Black, 1978.

Acknowledgements:

Fig 1: Mortal Remains, Chris Brooks.

Figs 2, 3, 5, 10, 15, 16: Hull History Centre.

Figs 4: Authors’ collection.

Figs 6, 7, 9, 13: The National Archives.

Fig 8: Hull Advertiser and Exchange Gazette.

Fig 11, 12: Hull Packet.

Fig 14: OS map, 1853. HMSO

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

Wonderful Wildlife

April 1, 2021April 1, 2021 by Pete Lowdenin General, News, Wildlife1 Comment

2021: The story so far

January got off to a great start. The volunteers and visitors to the cemetery enjoyed some good and frequent views of a Buzzard. They’re not very common in and around Hull so to have one in the cemetery was an unexpected pleasure. It’s not known whether it’s male or female though, but it is still being sighted occasionally. February was a month of contrasts, with a week of snow and sub-zero temperatures at the start of the month. It ended with a week of sunshine and higher than usual temperatures. There was plenty of warm sunshine in March too.

Flowers

This winter was a bumper one for Snowdrops, with at least 3 different types in flower all over the site. The sunshine and higher than average temperatures during that last week of February gave the Lesser Celandines flowering in the grass verge on Spring Bank West a welcome boost. These low-growing bright yellow flowers open up in the sunshine and typically have between 8 and 10 petals although they can sometimes have as many as 12 or 13.

Lesser Celandines can also be found inside the Cemetery and these are now starting to flower, although being in partial shade they’re a little behind the ones on the grass verge and the stems of their flowers are noticeably longer as they reach for the sun.

The Blackthorn is already in flower – its white blossoms appear before the leaves do, unlike the Hawthorn which flowers slightly later in the Spring after its leaves have opened.

Butterflies and other insects

The Lesser Celandines provided a valuable source of nectar for some early butterflies emerging in late February. I counted 8 Small Tortoiseshells one day, plus a Peacock. Both species overwinter as adults in sheltered vegetation and will no doubt have been tempted out by the warm sun.

Butterfly sightings continued throughout March whenever it was sunny, with some more Small Tortoiseshells and 2 more Peacocks seen on the grass verge just before the Spring Equinox.

A Comma, another butterfly that overwinters as an adult, was seen later in March, again on the grass verge. It gets its name from a distinctive white comma-shaped mark on the underside of its wings.

There were lots of other insects buzzing around the grass verge in late March too including a Bee-fly, the first time I’ve seen one there. This small fluffy fly is harmless to humans and uses its long proboscis to get nectar from flowers. When hovering its wings seemingly disappear in a blur of movement.

Birds

There are several Wood Pigeons living in the cemetery and these can be seen every day pecking around on the ground or flying noisily in and out of the trees.

There is also a pair of resident Stock Doves and these are usually seen together, sometimes with the Wood Pigeons. Stock Doves are around the same size as feral Pigeons and sometimes hang around with them too.

The Stock Dove is on the left of the photo – its band of blue/green feathers is larger and more noticeable than on the Wood Pigeon and it lacks the white patch. The Wood Pigeon is the larger of the two species although this is not apparent from the photo.

The smaller birds have started to pair up and look for suitable nesting sites, but I’ll say more about them in the next newsletter.

Overall a very good start to the year, and with many of the trees and shrubs already showing small green shoots there is the promise of much more wonderful wildlife to come!

Postscript: Helen Bovill

Helen Bovill is a member of the FOHGC. She is a gifted naturalist and photographer. Her photographs have graced the FOHGC Facebook site for a while now. It’s with great pleasure that we now have the chance to share in her knowledge and expertise here. Helen has kindly consented to write an article every month on the broad subject of nature for the website newsletter. This is the first of what I hope will be many such articles. So sit back and enjoy.

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

An Anniversary

April 1, 2021April 1, 2021 by Pete Lowdenin General, History1 Comment

This month’s anniversary is related to money. A subject the Company often found problematic.

On the 16th April 1847 the directors of the Company met for an adjourned board meeting. The subject? To examine the tenders received as a result of their advertisement for builders of the Lodge. I’m afraid they were in for a shock.

The Lodge, was to be the centrepiece of the entrance to the Cemetery In effect the Company was hopeful that it could be built for just over half the estimated cost. As you can see the cost of erection of the Lodge was, ‘so much more than contemplated’ to the Board. Was this simply penny pinching? Or was it that the whole enterprise had been seriously under-estimated from the beginning.

Lack of capital

After all, the Board had opted for only 1000 £10 shares to be issued This meant that the capital that the Company had to use was quite sparse. The Company had paid over half of that money over to Mr Henry Broadley to purchase the land that the cemetery was to to stand. Admittedly this was to be paid in annual instalments but the payment details were only over five years. Then another £3000 to drain the site, and to lay out and furnish with trees and shrubs.

No revenue was coming into the Company’s coffers at this time. The beginnings of a doubt was growing in the minds of the Board. Maybe the directors had bitten off more than they could chew. This feeling would only grow. What had seemed a good idea, and had the backing of many of the most influential people in the town, wasn’t turning into the money-spinner the shareholders had hoped.

By early 1848 the Company was asking its superintendent, John Shields, to see where he could make savings. He told the Board that he’d already let some staff go. The cemetery only became a going concern, and thus profitable, with the ‘visitation’ of the Cholera epidemic in 1849. It’s an ill wind , so they say.

The first of the cutbacks but not the last

The following day, the 17th, the Board agreed with Mr Wilson that he should build the Lodge for £1000.

I wonder what he missed out of the building to come to this reduction of over £500 off the original estimate.

Sadly, we will never know. What we do know is that every superintendent who lived in the Lodge moved out and lived elsewhere after a while. Perhaps that shows that those initial cutbacks may have had a long lasting effect of almost a century.

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

New storage unit erected

April 1, 2021April 1, 2021 by Pete Lowdenin Events, News, Volunteers1 Comment

I was going to title this, ‘HQ for the FOHGC in the HGC’ but I thought better of it. Way too many acronyms! Good news. Our storage unit was erected this week.

Yes, we now have a new storage unit. It will make a good tool storage spot and even a place to shelter from the rain. Some of the volunteers are thinking in terms of cups of tea and biscuits and sitting watching the world go by. As if.

The unit is sited at the Princes Avenue end of the site, very close to ‘Prim Corner’. Backing on to the backyard of a property on Princes Avenue.

The base for the storage unit was laid on the Monday 15th.The foundation was mainly made from hard core and packed earth. It was then topped with paving slabs to give some stability.

Unit erected in record time…. for us

Due to the delivery driver having a puncture the storage unit could not be delivered on Tuesday. However it was delivered on Wednesday and the storage unit was erected by the volunteers in about two hours.

Trellis was erected. It is planned to embellish it with ivy and possibly other climbing plants. The ivy has already been planted. It is hoped that this will eventually camouflage the unit and allow it to ‘blend in.’

Of course, we understand that it may be vulnerable to theft and vandalism. This is something we all sadly have to accept these days. However, we are also optimistic that, with the increased footfall in HGC, the chances of such a thing happening are diminishing.

Sorry, no lattes

I must stress that any rumours that the volunteers will be serving cream teas from the unit are untrue. Also wide of the mark is the idea that we are investing in a fancy expresso machine to provide cappuccinos and compete with our neighbours.

No, the volunteers will still be relying heavily on their own flasks. As for cream teas? Well, just look at us. I rest my case.

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

Next Month

April 1, 2021April 1, 2021 by Pete Lowdenin Events, History, News, Volunteers

Next month it’s hoped to bring you the story of the Eleanor Crosses that grace the Hull General Cemetery. A sad tale of loss in one case and perhaps an expression of guilt in another.

I’m hopeful of also beginning the tale of how Hull gained the cemetery which I’d hoped to bring you this month but Charlie Collinson took longer than I thought. I thought i should show him the same kind of respect that some of the other, more respectable or should I say richer – people get.

There will be more nature notes from Helena and more fabulous photographs.

Plus any news regarding the Cemetery that comes my way. Any activities by the FOHGC that are fit to print, and, of course, the monthly anniversary post.

Your comments are always welcome. I can’t reply via this website but I try to reply via email if the email wants a reply.

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

A Grave Digger

April 1, 2021April 1, 2021 by Pete Lowdenin General, History1 Comment

There was someone in the story of Hull General Cemetery who saw quite a lot of the changes in the Company’s fortunes. This man undertook the job without which the cemetery could not function. That role was as a grave digger. The person’s name was Charles Collinson. Obviously he was not the only grave digger that the Company employed throughout its existence. However he serves as a good example of someone who fulfilled that role.

His part is not widely known unlike many of the servants of the Company. He is not one of the great and good. His remains do not still grace the cemetery. However, in terms of longevity, Charles Collinson matches few other people whose lives were entwined with the cemetery. Here’s his story.

Early years

Charles Collinson was born in the June of 1882 in Driffield, East Yorkshire.

As can be seen from his birth certificate, his father, Stephen, was born in Bainton. His mother, Annie, born in Fridaythorpe. They were obviously a typical family living in rural Britain at that time. When mechanisation was beginning to make great inroads into agricultural practices. A time of change.

His father was listed as a general labourer in the 1891 census. A job with few prospects and one that was far from secure. The young Charles was also listed on that census as a scholar, aged eight, along with his elder sister Ada, ten, and his younger brother, George, six years old.

School

Charles attended the Driffield Local Board School. He enrolled there on the 13th May 1889 and left on the 26th June 1894.

He was lucky. Elementary education became an obligation on the parents of children from 1876 and by 1880 attendance at school, rather than home schooling, was compulsory.

This length of time in education was almost certainly the norm for that time. After all the education system of the period, at least for the working class, was fairly basic.

Literacy and numeracy, coupled with a smattering of rudimentary geography and history would have been the academic subjects covered. Sometimes sewing and basic crafts such as tailoring and shoe repairing were also added to the curriculum. And, of course, religious studies were usually mandatory. By 1899 the school leaving age was raised to 12 years of age.

As we can see Charles left on his 12th birthday and had enrolled a few days before his 7th birthday. Therefore he attended for roughly just over 5 years of schooling.

School attendance was often also worse in rural areas at this time. Young children had been used since medieval times for some mundane tasks. Crow scaring, tending flocks, stone picking; all were jobs that a needy family would have expected their offspring to do. It was well known that village schools would have poor attendance during harvest time. So, out of that 5 years of schooling, we have no way of knowing how much time Charles actually spent in the classroom.

Work

The next time we encounter Charles is in the census of 1901. He is no longer living in the parental home although he still lives in Driffield.

As you can see from the above, he is now 18 years old and is now a boarder.

The head of the household is a farm hand and Charles is listed as a servant. It is unlikely that a farm hand would have been in a position to afford to employ a servant. So, it’s more likely that Charles was the servant to a local farmer and drove one of the farmer’s wagons.

The prospect of Charles following in his father’s footsteps was extremely likely from this census entry. However, that didn’t happen.

Marriage

We next meet Charles on his wedding day. We do know that he married Gertrude Harriett Putt in 1906. The marriage took place in Driffield and Gertrude was a Hull girl, from the Hessle Road area. Her family was steeped in the fishing community ways. All the females in her family had been listed on past censuses as net braiders or fishing net menders.

So, here is a question that I don’t have any answers for. How did these two people meet? I can theorise but that’s all it is.

Its probably more likely that Charles travelled to Hull rather than Gertrude to Driffield. I’ve written before on other sites on this topic. The towns and cities of Victorian Britain only maintained their massive population growth due to immigration from the rural hinterland. Child mortality being what it was, without this immigration town and cities would quickly have become deserted. So, its reasonable to suspect that Charles came to Hull to escape the life of a ploughman.

He may have been forced into this. Agriculture at this time was shedding many jobs due to the introduction of machines. Threshing, baling, ploughing etc., were all jobs previously done by hand but now were mechanised. So it’s reasonable to suggest that Charles came to Hull rather than Gertrude going to Driffield.

Looking around when he arrived in the big city, and being a farm boy, I would suspect that factory work was probably not to his taste. What else would appeal? The fishing industry was in its heyday but perhaps Gertrude warned him against that prospect. She’d have seen enough tragedy related to that kind of work living where she did. Construction work was a possibility but it was subject to seasonal fluctuations and was not seen as a steady job.

City life and parenthood

Now what job would be transferrable from the rural to the urban setting? Think horses. Yes, Charles became a blacksmith. We know this from the baptism record of his son, Charles Henry Collinson. This boy was baptised on the 16th October 1907 at the parish church in Driffield. Yet the address given was 6, Myrtle Grove, Selby Street in Hull. Selby Street in 1919 is pictured below.

They had travelled the 20 miles or so from Hull to Driffield to celebrate the christening of their son with Charles’ family (and possibly Gertrude’s too). My imagination sees a hired wagonette, gaily festooned, and full to the brim of relatives out on a ‘Beano’ to celebrate the christening. Lets hope they stayed overnight.

Blacksmithery was a good trade. However, by the first decade of the 20th century, horses were soon to be a thing of the past. Charles, I suppose, would have been looking round for something with more future. Now, I do admit this is tenuous, but a job as a grave digger offered both outdoors work and the prospect of steady work. I think he may have turned up at the superintendent’s office sometime between 1907 and 1911 and asked if the cemetery had any vacancies.

Back in 1974 I remember a younger version of myself doing much the same at the office at Pearson’s Park. I’d like to bet that Charles received the same answer that I did which was, ‘When can you start?’

1911

So, with the 1911 census, we come to the first solid evidence that Charles worked in HGC. The 1911 census also gives us evidence that Charles or Gertrude were literate and numerate as the 1911 census was completed by the occupier. Sadly, the educated one was more likely to be Charles. Even though he experienced schooling in a rural setting, education for girls was often seen by the families and authorities as a waste. As such many girls and young women were trained as domestics where literacy and numeracy were not vital to the task of scrubbing.

Charles was now employed by the Company. There are so few records left with information about the actual employees other than the superintendents. It is quite refreshing to find records of others. In Charles Collinson’s case, this was the beginning of a long, and sometimes, turbulent relationship that lasted until at least the 1960s.

From the census form we can see that the Collinson family had moved from Selby Street, a little further down Anlaby Road towards the town. Their new address was 2 Maple Avenue, Convent Lane. The corner of Convent Lane and Anlaby Road is pictured below.

Holidays

Charles joined the Company’s pay roll at an auspicious time. In the August of 1911 the Board was informed of a development. This was that their grave digging staff made a request to have holidays. Apparently they knew that the Corporation grave diggers just up the road in Western Cemetery were allowed such frivolities. The grave diggers wondered if holidays could be extended to them. A serious discussion took place and, in a spate of generosity not usually seen, the Board agreed to this request as you may see below.

The Great War

The next time Charles comes to our attention is during the First World War. You’d probably think that digging graves would be a reserved occupation. This was not the case. Unlike train drivers, coal miners and farm workers, grave digging was not seen as vital to the war effort. Of course, the government wanted the dead burying, if for nothing else, than to keep up the morale of the people. And, in a perfect world, such workers would not have been required to serve in the forces. Sadly, by 1916, the losses in the conflict had reached such proportions that conscription was imposed to fill the gaps.

In January 1916 the Military Service Act went through Parliament and single men could be compel to enlist in the forces. By the June of that year the Act had been amended to include married men. This meant that Charles, being a man in his thirties, was in the frame for being called up to the colours.

That very month the papers arrived and although the Company sought to having him exempted they withdraw their objections when they managed to get someone to replace him. So Charles went off to the Army.

Unfortunately I have not found his Army record. It may well have been part of the cache of Army records that were destroyed by enemy action in the Second World War. We do know he was conscripted and served. We also know that when he was released from military service. He returned back to his old job as a grave digger in the Cemetery on the 11th February 1919.

Back home

During the early years of the 1920s the wages of the staff of the Cemetery was comparable to the Corporation’s staff. During the First World War scarcity of labour had allowed wage inflation to take place. Its doubtful if Charles gained from this experience much. When he returned to his grave digging post he probably was surprised at the amount he was paid. Touching over £3 10s per week it would have been a welcome sight.

Sadly it wasn’t to last. From 1922/3, the economy began to contract, especially in the old heavy industries such as ship building and mining There was now a surplus of labour. As a result wage contraction and unemployment set in. By 1926 this resulted in the General Strike.

The grave diggers had had their wages reduced gradually over this period. By April 1924 the wages had been reduced to £2 17s 6d. The manual staff, I’m pretty were sure grumbling to themselves. However, probably looking around at the wider world, I’m also sure they will have kept their heads down.

Sherwood Avenue

Around this time Charles and Gertrude moved into their final family home. No.4, Sherwood Avenue, Welbeck Street. Both Charles and Gertrude, hopefully revelling in her new found right to vote, are present on the electoral rolls for Spring 1921 at this address.

Above is the Sherwood Terrace name plate and below is No 4, Sherwood Terrace today, with HGC as the backdrop to the right.

The 1930s

Charles next comes to our attention via a brief mention in the Company Minute books for 1931. He and his fellow workers, Tebb, Hunt and Wilson were to receive a Christmas Box from the Company totalling 30/-. This was divided up into 10/- for Collinson, 7/6d each for Tebb and Hunt and 5/- for Wilson. So why did Charles receive the lion’s share of this largesse? The answer is simple. Charles had now reached the elevated position of Foreman grave digger. Having worked for the Company for over 20 years he had reached, probably, the pinnacle of his desires. Later in the decade it was all to come crashing down.

Some of you may remember me lamenting Michael Kelly’s disposal of some of the Hull General Cemetery’s documentation during World War Two. One thing that has survived this rash act of destruction are a few pages of a wages book of the period.

As you can see by 1937 Collinson was still the Foreman grave digger. Another grave digger was Kinsley and the residual arm of the now defunct stone yard staff was Tebb whose pay was dictated by the work he had to do.

Tebb received 1/7d per hour and extra for the lettering he did. In stone he received 10d a dozen, in marble 1/1d a dozen and finally in granite 2/7d per dozen. But as you can see in the above wages book this man’s wage varied greatly.

1938

The year 1938 is important in modern history. It was the highpoint of the appeasement policy by Britain and Frnace of the dictators of Europe. The image of Neville Chamberlain waving a scrap of paper on Croydon Airfield after returning from Munich are redolent of a shameful period in our history. With the western democracies betraying the Czech people to seven years of brutality under the Nazis and 45 years under Soviet control it was a time of national shame.

Coincidentally the year was one of shame for Collinson too. By this time Charles was now 56 years old. He’d been employed by the Company at least 27 years. He’d probably risen as far as he could in its service. He lived close to his place of work in a nice little two bedroomed house in a nice area. What could possibly go wrong and spoil this idyll?

The Hull Daily Mail

The Hull Daily Mail of the 26th September ran a headline that did just that.

It read, ‘Robbed Child’s Grave to Win Prize at Flower Show.’ Here was Charles Collinson’s Munich.

And that man in the dock was Charles. Apparently he had stolen , for a long period, choice blooms from graves to enhance his chances of winning local garden shows. Perhaps not showing a great deal of intelligence, he produced winning displays, consisting of exotic flowers, that he claimed he had raised himself. The organisers of the shows had had their doubts about Collinson’s flowers’ pedigree for some time but kept these doubts to themselves.

No, it wasn’t the success at the flower shows that caught Collinson. It was the actions on the part of the bereaved who saw their flowers disappearing and complained. Complained to the Cemetery and the Police. One of them had even written to the Home Secretary with the aim to have his child exhumed from the cemetery all together.

To catch a thief

The police used a novel method to capture the perpetrator. They marked flowers with pin marks on a grave that had often been targeted. The next day, out of 12 chrysanthemums placed on the grave, only seven remained. The police must have had a good idea who was committing the thefts as they then went to a local flower show and watched Collinson prepare a vase for display. After he had left the show they took possession of the vase and found two of the marked flowers. The police searched his greenhouse where they found two more chrysanthemum blooms marked with a pin hole.

During questioning about this, Collinson said he had bought them from a local shop. When told he was suspected of stealing them from graves he said he bought them in the Market Hall.

Detective Bishop informed the Hull Daily Mail that they had received numerous complaints over the last five or six years.

The article went on to say,

And so we come to the judgement of the Magistrates. But first let’s look at how the Company dealt with this shocking news.

The Company’s view

On the 23rd September, some 2 days before the case came to Court, the directors, at an Special Board meeting, discussed the ramifications of it. Michael Kelly, the superintendent, informed the Board that Collinson had told him that he intended to plead guilty to the charge.

So, as you can see, if the Court did not impose a custodial sentence upon Collinson, the Company were prepared to continue his employment.

A step down

His position would be inferior, as would be his wages, to his present position. However, he would still be employed. Another interesting point is that Kinsley would now be the Foreman Gravedigger, yet the Company chose this moment to reduce not only Collinson’s wage but also to reduce the wage that the foreman would earn. In essence the Company won both ways.

The magistrates did act leniently towards Collinson. He was fined £5 with the alternative of 30 days imprisonment. Collinson chose the fine. The Court said they had taken a ‘very considerate view of the case’. During the hearing they had heard from Michael Kelly about Collinson’s record of work at the Cemetery but this was not a vital factor that allowed the Court to act in such a way.

No, sadly, there was another more important factor that gave the magistrate’s their opportunity to be lenient

Gertrude

As we have seen Gertrude had married Charles in 1906 and had borne a child, a boy, in 1907. Since then her presence in this story has not been great. Now it does. The magistrates had mentioned in their deliberations, reported by the press, that Collinson had a sick wife. It was probably this factor that had stopped Collinson going to prison.

We know little about Gertrude’s illness.

Of interest she is not recorded at the house in Sherwood Avenue on the 1939 register. Yet, Charles is, and he states he is married. So any marital difficulties that the trial may have thrown up are not apparent. I would surmise that Gertrude was in hospital at the time of the taking of that register.

I am basing this assumption on her death certificate.

The cause of death

The cause of death is interesting. Basically Gertrude died of a stroke or heart attack. Fatty plaque deposits thickening on the walls of the arteries, eventually leading to a blockage that results in a stroke or heart attack is quite common now. In the past such incidents were less well diagnosed. Often sudden deaths such as this were termed apoplexy and even further back in time, visitations.

One of the side effects of this disease is vascular dementia. We are familiar with senile dementia today. Vascular dementia is similar in its effects but the cause is many small mini-strokes that damage the brain cumulatively. Symptoms are weeping, apathy, transient befuddlement. Such symptoms in the 1930s and 40s may well have meant some care in a hospital. Worse cases would have probably been cared for in mental establishments. Was this where Gertrude was on the night of the 1939 register?

I also note that she died outside the Royal Infirmary in Prospect Street. Were Gertrude and Charles entering or leaving the Infirmary when she died? Charles states that he was present at her death. Knowing that a heart attack or stroke is a matter of moments, Charles must have been by her side rather than being called to her side from home or work.

Yes, of course much of this is supposition, but it does chime with the facts that we know. Gertrude was buried in HGC, in the same grave of her son, Charles Henry.

Charles Henry

We saw the christening of Charles Henry in Driffield and I had hoped that there had been a suitable party to celebrate. We then saw Charles Henry in the 1911 census. A child of three. Our next chance to check up on him would be the 1921 census, to be released in 2022. He does not feature in any register or record set that can be accessed at this time. Apart from, that is, the record of his death.

Charles Henry Collinson, a youth of 19, died on the 21st October 1926 and was buried on October 25th. His cause of death was heart failure as a result of pulmonary tuberculosis. TB was rife in these times and was known as the silent killer. In Victorian times it was often termed consumption.

The cause of the disease was not known for along time. Simon Wills states in, How Our Ancestors Died, that the medical profession cited many reasons for catching it, ‘consumption of alcohol was linked to to the cause of TB , as was masturbating.’

In 1882 Koch, famed for his work on cholera, discovered that TB was caused by a type of bacteria. Unfortunately that didn’t make it easier to avoid catching it. My paternal family in Dundee, between the period of 1870 and 1878, lost four members of the family all from TB. Living in crowded tenements its difficult to see how one could avoid it. My great grandfather did, but only by going to sea at 14 years old.

A TB sufferer would expel the bacteria every time they coughed and coughing was what they did a lot of. Some times the coughing fits themselves were dangerous and I believe that this is what happened to young Charles Henry. That during a violent coughing fit his heart failed under pressure. The family grave is pictured in the foreground of the image below.

Charles alone

So, in the midst of the Second World War, Charles was left alone. We have no knowledge of any extended family he could turn to. It’s possible that he still had one of two contacts amongst his gardening friends but his conviction may have soured that type of relationship. The only thing he had left was his work.

Luckily, he was now much too old to be conscripted for the forces in this war. So his job was safe. Not only safe but enhanced. Once again the armed forces recruitment meant a shortage of labour. With the result that wages rose. In Collinson’s case the war also meant that he was now the sole remaining grave digger as Kinsley had been called up for service in the Royal Navy in the October of 1939. He was once again the Foreman grave digger, but he was only in charge of himself.

In September 1941 Michael Kelly reported to the board that he was having great difficulty in recruiting labour owing to the war. By 1943 Collinson was earning £3 17s a week which was over a £1 more than at the start of the war. Collinson was now aged over 60 years old. And it probably showed in his work.

Time to go?

In July 1945 at a Board meeting it was suggested that a replacement for Collinson should be sought as he was, “now (an) aged man and unwilling or unable to do any more work than he is obliged to do now, namely grave digging.”

This plan didn’t work. They did manage to employ a Thomas Stanworth as a a labourer in the November but also had to increase Collinson’s wage to £4 10s as, unsurprisingly, finding people willing to dig graves is not as easy as it sounds.

By April 1946 the Board had decided to dispense with Collinson.

A strange decision. Elements of paternalism yet quite brutal. However this decision shows the situation the Company now found itself in. Where the saving of £3 a week on a wage was important yet the Company also recognised a debt of loyalty to Collinson. It was all hot air anyway.

By the next month the Board had reversed its decision and both Stanworth and Collinson were reprieved. This may be due, in part, to the resolution of a concurrent debate in the board room. This debate was, how could they reverse their generous decision. made only two years previously, to give an annual pension of £200 to Michael Kelly.

Michael Kelly, had been the superintendent of the Cemetery since the 1890s and was an ill man at his retirement. Indeed he died in 1949. As a gesture to his long service and extremely good handling of the affairs of the cemetery this pension was given. By the May meeting of 1946 the matter was decided,

“The directors gave full and careful reconsideration to the several matters referred thereto at the last meeting of the Board and in the light of all the circumstances. As they now appear it was resolved that the sum of £250 in value of 3% War Stock be given to Mr Kelly on the 31^st inst. as an outright payment in lieu of the pension hitherto given him and resolved further that the wages of the labourer’s Collinson and Stanworth remain as at present, namely £4 10s and £4.8s respectively subject to revision in 6 months’ time.”

Stanworth didn’t wait for any revision and left the month after. He’d seen what the Board had done to its most faithful servant, Michael Kelly. He must have guessed that whatever ‘revision’ happened it wouldn’t be positive. And it wasn’t.

Collinson, of course, had nowhere to go. At 64 he was virtually unemployable and by now, he was probably reluctant to change his habits. He would wait for the results of the revision.

Frank Coulson

In the October that year a new name appeared. This man’s name was Frank Coulson. A Londoner, and known as ‘Cocker’ probably because he called everyone ‘Cock’, he featured in my life too. He was my first foreman at Northern Cemetery back in the 70s. However this was his first job as a grave digger. He shadowed Collinson for a week, learning the job and at the end of that week, Collinson’s long service with the Company was terminated on the 19th.

As Lord Stafford said on the scaffold in 1641, ‘Put not your trust in Princes’. Frank should have taken note. Some two years later Coulson himself was sacked. Not because he was a poor worker. Indeed he kept the cemetery going singlehandedly. No, it was the dire financial circumstances that the Company now found itself that they could not afford his wages.

Reprise

So where was Charles? Was this the final part in his long acquaintance with the cemetery? As he has really left the stage?

No, of course not. The week after Coulson’s employment was terminated, Collinson was back on the payroll. the change, as demonstrated by the page from the wage book, was seamless.

We have no knowledge of who made the first move to rekindle the relationship. I would suspect that it was the Company. In December 1948, when Coulson lost his job, the Board had stated that grave digging would be done on a casual basis. This would have meant that they could employ Collinson’s skills on an ‘as and when’ basis. This arrangement would have probably suited Collinson too as by this time he would have been receiving his old age pension.

And so Charles Collinson, who’d probably known the cemetery in its Edwardian pomp, with a large workforce, was the last grave digger. Indeed the last manual worker for the Company.

The 1950s

Collinson doesn’t feature much in the years afterwards. He crops up in April 1957. By this time he would have been 75 years old. The Board meeting of that month makes mention that Collinson may be able to patch up the fence near Welbeck Street.

As you can see from the wording above, Collinson was now being asked to do jobs rather than told to do them. I would think that whether he did them was dependent upon whether he had the stamina and strength.

At this board meeting the directors also spoke of their agreement with Sam Allon Ltd to demolish the stone yard. Sam said he would do for free if he could keep the materials. The Company were delighted. In the end Sam Allon must have made a profit for he gave the Company £15 afterwards.

The last of the Kelly’s

In August 1957, the Board were informed that both Ann and Cicely Kelly, Michael’s daughters, wanted to retire. Ill health was cited.

Cicely also mentioned that Collinson had ‘expressed a wish also to give up his duties.’ Was Collinson influenced by the Kelly sister’s imminent retirement? Did he see this as an indication of an end of an era? After all he had seen the stone yard demolished recently and the superintendent’s house had recently been converted into flats.

As I said at the beginning of this piece, Collinson witnessed many changes in the Cemetery’s life. He may have seen enough.

By the following May, Ann had died. At the Board meeting that month the management of the cemetery was discussed.

Sporadic glimpses of Collinson emerge after this.

In a letter from Payne & Payne, accepting that some nuns could be exhumed and re-interred in Northern Cemetery, it is mentioned that,

“It would perhaps be well to make it clear to Mr Moses (the undertaker) at the outset that it is no use relying on Charlie Collinson to do all the necessary manual work, because although I dare say Collinson would like to supervise the job, I think at over seventy, it is asking too much of him.”

The old retainer

In the same year, and from the same source, the Company’s solicitors, who were now managing the cemetery, another mention of Collinson is made.

“Dealing with the loss of Collinson’s ladder, I think we should perhaps offer to help him with the cost of materials if he himself is building a replacement. As you know unless he can use the short cut over his back wall into the cemetery, he has rather a long walk on to the job, but I will leave this to you to deal with as you think best.”

There is an element of paternalism here now in talking of Collinson. He has almost assumed the role of the old family retainer; still present but unable to do what he used to do but no one has the heart to tell him to go.

Our final glimpse of the man on a personal basis comes from the same source, the Company’s solicitors. On the 25th June 1960 a letter was sent to Collinson. It read,

“Dear Mr Collinson, it has come to the Director’s notice that the 26^th is your 80^th birthday. The directors have asked me to take this opportunity of passing your birthday greetings from them, and also to express their continuing appreciation of your services to the company.”

Unfortunately, the letter is some two years early as he was only 78 at the time. Still, I’m sure it was a nice surprise for him and good gesture from the Company.

Our final glimpse of this man is from the minutes of the board meeting of the 27th August 1968. The secretary, Ms Boetham, reported to the board the current situation with regard to the maintenance of the cemetery.

Four years later the Company wound itself up. Its a pleasing thought that Charles Collinson was still there, with his spade, when the flag was metaphorically rung down on it.

If he was still there on the Company’s books he would have ben employed by the Company for, at least 61 years and at most 65 years. A considerable amount of time by any standards.

Afterwards

At this time its also conceivable that Charles witnessed, from his bedroom window, as the tractors moved in during 1977. Demolishing in weeks what he’d spent almost his whole working life trying to maintain. I wonder how he felt?

Another bitter pill for him was that when the Hull City Council took over the site no further burials would be permitted. Therefore Charles could not be buried with his wife and son. Charles was to be alone in death too.

Charles died on the 15th December 1979 from bronchial issues. He was cremated. His abode at death was Aneurin Bevan Lodge. He had forsaken Sherwood Avenue after 50 plus years.

Its intriguing to think that I, who began work in Western and HGC in May 1979, may have met this man. If he had been able to pay a visit to his old work place of course. And the likelihood of that, when he was aged 97 years old, is slim.

A silly fancy no doubt, but us hand grave diggers need to stick together. There aren’t many of us left. We really are a dying breed.

Postscript

Unfortunately, the image at the top of this article is not Charles. It is of a grave digger at Mottram Cemetery, pictured at the turn of the 20th century.

There are no images of Charles that I know of. He was just another of the characters who featured in the life of the cemetery who we have no idea of their likeness. These include John Solomon Thompson, the first and best chairman of the Company, and John Shields, the first superintendent of the cemetery, who helped Cuthbert Brodrick lay out the cemetery. So, Charles Collinson is one of the ‘missing’.

But wait a minute! As you may remember when Charles was due to go to Court, the directors of the Company said he’d been employed , in 1938, ‘for well-nigh 30 years’. The trial was in the September so Collinson could have started in employment for the Company during October of 1908 at the earliest.

Here’s an image taken from the Hull Daily Mail of December 1908 at the funeral of a Mr. Moran in Hull General Cemetery. The caption is of gravediggers laying the wreaths on the grave. Is Charles Collinson one of these hazy, fuzzy figures? Well, your guess is as good as mine but let’s hope that it is. If it is we are lucky and if it isn’t, well let’s pretend it is. I think Charles deserves that, don’t you?

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

The work done by the FOHGC during early spring

April 1, 2021April 1, 2021 by Pete Lowdenin Events, History, News, Wildlife

The work done by the FOHGC during early spring has continued during the present lock-down period. Obviously the bird nesting season has begun during this particular period so the FOHGC has taken this factor into account in their planned work. The volunteers have been keeping their social distance and taking additional precautions. The work done by the FOHGC during early spring is noted below. The further work that took place in March follows on.

Summary of activities in February

Hull City Council Planning Department have advised us that we do not require planning permission for the storage cabin. The cabin will be ordered in the near future.

The buzzard appeared to have left the site. This was not the case however, and it has since been sighted several times.

The Facebook site continues to grow under the management of Barbara Lowden, and we now over 1000 members!

Pete Lowden continues to add various new facilities onto our website, including past research, news updates etc. This seems to be very popular. Pete is also trying to get guest ‘specialist’ writers to contribute.

The photographic record and the digitising of the burial records

The Photographic Record Project is now complete and transferred onto Access Database. This is complete with a ‘name’ index on Excel Spreadsheet, although the volunteers seem to be finding even more unrecorded stones! Several more previously unrecorded graves have been uncovered by the volunteers. These have been photographed and placed on the database and highlighted as a new find.

Kevin Rudeforth will try to upload the database to the Website. A copy will be available to East Yorkshire Family History Society, the Carnegie Trust and the Hull History Centre.

Eva La Pensee, secretary of the FOHGC, has contacted Philip Hampel, Principal Conservation Officer. Philip’s area of responsibility lies mainly in terms of heritage. He thanked the FOHGC for their work in HGC and said that the digitising of the burial records will be a great resource.

The digitising of the records is ongoing so it is difficult to give a precise figure of how much has been done. The work was divided into five yearly periods. Each volunteer went away with their ‘period’. The entire 20th century is now digitised. The project, although no end date was put forward, will likely be completed early next year. Our partners mentioned above, in terms of the photographic record, will receive a copy of the work.

The snowdrops have had a great show this month and the daffodils are now coming into full bloom. Eva La Pensee donated a large number of hawthorn, blackthorn and buckthorn plants. They have all now been planted alongside the Workhouse Area path. All appear to be healthy and well established now.

Meetings

Subsequent to the Zoom meeting, Karen Towner, Helen Bovill and William Longbone met up with Andrew Gibson of Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, the notes of which were circulated.

Jennifer Woollin has emailed copies of the digitized Tree Survey which were circulated.

Karen Towner, Helen Bovill and William Longbone met with Jennifer Woollin on the 2/3/2021. This was to look at the tree survey plans and discuss the planting regimes. I will circulate my notes over the next couple of days.

Two more nesting boxes have been made by volunteer Andy Lister, depicting the names of WW1 and WW2 fallen. These were erected in the central wild flower meadow.

Insurance cover

We understand that the Hull Civic Society have decided not to include FOHGC on their future insurance policy. This is disappointing, as we have had no formal notification or reason from the them for its decision. We will now arrange our own cover by for the coming year.

Vine wires have been fixed on the rear of a building near the demolished chapel. Honeysuckle and ivy have been planted there. It is hope they will conceal the wall.

We are still awaiting the chippings from Hull City Council. The chippings will enable the volunteers to maintain the pathways.

One of the descendants of the cooper on the whaling ship ‘Diana’ has adopted Gravill’s monument and planted it with snowdrops.

Ground ivy

The FOHGC have obtained permission from Jennifer Woollin to remove ground ivy from the wild garlic sites and other localized areas. This includes any gravestones. The wild flower meadow can now be made ready for planting. We are advised this should not adversely affect nesting birds.

We haven’t yet received the accounts, but there have been no outgoings this month, except for the £10 subscription to the National Association of Cemetery Friends.

There is an area at the rear of the cemetery near the wildflower meadow. Many damaged kerb stones have been left there and this area has long been used as a ‘dumping’ ground. It has now has now been tidied and planted with wild flower seeds. The kerbs have been checked for any numbers/inscriptions and recorded.

The work done by the FOHGC in March

The volunteers have been extremely busy during the March lock-down period, with the volunteers keeping their social distance and taking additional precautions.

Summary of activities in March

The storage cabin was ordered, delivered and erected in its agreed position at the rear of the Princes Ave shops. Thanks were given to Mike Tindall and Andrew Wilson for their support in obtaining the facility.

It has been fitted with storage and tool racking.

Further donation and more trees

A donation of £250 was received from Messrs Donaldson Filters to enable the group to purchase trees and plants. A further £20 was received from Stuart Johnson.

A flowering cherry was purchased and planted on the SBW verge, it is now in full blossom. In addition, an English oak, 2 silver birch and an alder have been purchased and planted.

We have been notified by the Woodland Trust that the 15 saplings awarded to us will be delivered in the next 3 weeks.

Nature

The snowdrops continued to have a great show this month, the daffodils are in full bloom and the bluebells and wild garlic are now awaiting their turn!

The hawthorn, blackthorn and buckthorn plants donated by Eva, and planted alongside the Workhouse Area all seem to be in bud and flourishing.

Several species of butterflies have been noted in the cemetery by Helen Bovill, particularly on the Spring Bank West frontage.

Many bird species, including blue tits, great tits, tree creepers, chaffinch and goldcrest have been seen in the cemetery this month.

There have been several sightings of the buzzard. We long to see a mate for him / her.

Visit from council officers

Jennifer Woollin and Adam Sivel-Thompson visited the site this month. They agreed that the trees that were adversely affecting the Thomas Stratten tomb and nearby grave can be removed by the volunteers. There are no nesting birds in them.

As agreed with Jennifer Woollin, environmental officer for the council, the volunteers have begun to prepare the wild flower meadow for planting. This should not adversely affect any nesting birds. We have many wildflower seedlings including sunflowers, cornflowers, cowslip etc ready for planting.

Jennifer and Adam Sivel-Thomson, one of Jennifer’s colleagues, were delighted to be shown the Giant Puffballs and Scarlet Elf Cup fungus. They said this fungus was particularly rare, especially in an urban environment.

Website and Facebook

Pete Lowden continues to add various new facilities onto our website, including past research, news updates etc. This is very informative and seems to be very popular, Helen Bovill has agreed to submit a monthly ‘nature’ post to the website. Pete is endeavouring to get guest ‘specialist’ writers to contribute.

The Photographic Record Project is now complete and transferred onto Access Database. The volunteers have found several additional headstones. These have been added to the database. Kevin is going to try and upload the database to the Website. A copy will be available to EYFHS, Carnegie Heritage Centre and the Hull History Centre.

The Facebook site continues to grow under the management of Barbara Lowden. We now have over 1070 members!

More discoveries

Captain William Cape died in the Crimea. The previously unknown plaque recording this has recently been unearthed. A frame made to keep it together has been assembled.

The Alder family’s unrecorded grave has been unearthed. This has a stylized Alder tree carved on it. The Friends have purchased an alder tree. In agreement with Jennifer Woollin and Adam Sivel-Thompson, it has now been planted adjacent to the Alder grave.

Insurance and chippings

The Civic Society have decided not to include FOHGC on their future insurance policy. The FOHGC still have had no formal notification or reason from the Civic Society for its decision. Quotations for a new policy to cover the volunteers activities and the cabin/tools etc have been received. The new premium will be approximately £250. Once we have agreement to proceed from the members Bill will organize the policy.

We are still awaiting chippings from HCC to enable the volunteers to maintain the pathways.

The cylindrical ‘granite’ off cuts, donated by Steve Griffin of Odlings Ltd, have been laid into the path near the Main Gate by Pete Lowden. When we receive another delivery, the other side of the path will be completed.

Awaiting accounts and bank statements

We haven’t yet received the accounts from Natasha, nor the bank statement from John Scotney, chair of the FOHGC. There has been quite a lot of expenditure this month with the cabin, trees etc. Bill Longbone has laid out the money and anticipates a cheque from Natasha in the near future.

Miscellaneous

After reporting the issue of dumped furniture in the yard of the rear of Princes Ave shops, most of it has now been removed. The volunteers will re-erect the broken fence to secure the property when it has all been cleared

Three signs advising that there is CCTV in the cemetery have been mounted. One is at the Thoresby St edible garden. The Princes Avenue shops has one. Another is near the laurel ‘drug den’.

Jennifer and Adam have confirmed that the volunteers can cut back the laurels as there are no birds nesting in there.

One of the members of the Facebook site purchased four further signs regarding littering. These were affixed prominently in the Thoresby Street cut through. Thank you Eloina.

Bill Longbone 26/3/2021

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

Council Support

March 1, 2021February 27, 2021 by Pete Lowdenin Events, General, News, Volunteers, Wildlife1 Comment

Council support

There was an article in the Hull Daily Mail about a fortnight ago. In it Hull General Cemetery was touched upon. The article was the result, I suppose, of an interview with the sitting councillors of the ward. It could well have been a press release by them. I don’t really know. Here’s the link.

https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hull-east-yorkshire-news/life-avenues-hull-area-proud-4973918

The link was placed on FaceBook but soon had to be taken down. It prompted angry outbursts amidst claims that it was just electioneering.

Once again, I don’t know if it was electioneering. It was in February which is surely a little early for the May elections but no matter. What is beyond doubt is the simple facts as stated in the interview / press release. The councillors who spoke to the Hull Daily Mail were telling the truth. At least in terms of the part about Hull General Cemetery where Council support has been integral to the improvements on the site.

No, hold on. Don’t shoot the messenger. Yes, I know the old joke about how can you tell when a politician’s lying? When their lips move. And ordinarily I go along with that. But here was that rare example of the opposite of that.

Now, I can’t judge a councillor’s performance on other issues. Nor do I want to, until May comes around that is. But I can judge a councillor’s net worth to Hull General Cemetery so here goes.

In my time on the FOHGC I have had dealings with a number of councillors. None of them were bad although it was plainly obvious that to a couple of them, the condition of a derelict cemetery was pretty low on their to do list. That’s the way it goes, and I would be lying if, on some days, Hull General Cemetery doesn’t always make my top ten topics.

However, on the whole I feel the councillors have given a fair share of their time to this subject. Yes, I can’t complain about the level of council support.

Name names

But, and here’s where I suppose I should put my tin hat on, two councillors have stood out in their efforts on behalf of the FOHGC and, by default, the Hull General Cemetery.

The first is Cllr. Marjorie Brabazon. When the condition of the cemetery was first brought up, even before the FOHGC was formed, Cllr. Brabazon took an active interest. She was one of the original attendees at the first meeting that set up the FOHGC. A regular attender at the meetings since then, she always offers support and guidance. She was also one of the people who took on the role of liaising with the local schools to form active links with them.

As the chair of the Libraries Committee, she enabled the books that were written about the cemetery by Bill and myself to be bought and put on the shelves of all the local libraries. To be read for free and make more people aware of the site. We reciprocated by selling them at cost price so that everyone won on that deal.

All of this whilst in the middle of a serious health crisis within her family.

The second is Cllr. Abi Bell. She wasn’t a councillor, at least in the Avenues Ward, when the FOHGC was set up. However once in post in this ward, she took on an active part in the work of the FOHGC. She was often the point of contact within the council that we used the most.

When the open meetings were taking place in 2019, she arranged for the leaflet printing and attended at least one of the meetings. She also attended other informal meetings outside the FOHGC formal setting when an issue arose that could not be dealt with on the monthly schedule.

On a personal note, her support and enthusiasm for the project often kept me going during some acrimonious times, never mind the other way around.

Both of these councillors have shown, at least to me, that when the subject of Hull General Cemetery comes up, politics doesn’t enter into it. They do what needs to be done.

Electioneering?

So, electioneering? Maybe, maybe not. Quite frankly I don’t care.

In fact, on this subject, I am apolitical. It’s not the political party that interests me, it’s what they bring to the party that is the Hull General Cemetery. Yes, I know that’s pretty shallow. Yes, I’m following my own self interests. What happened to being principled and not being selfish?

Well, come on, hand on heart, isn’t that the way many people have been voting in every democracy for the last few years? And I have to live with those petty selfish decisions which are and will be much more harmful to me and my family for generations.

So, cut me some slack here. And while you’re at it, try cutting the councillors some slack. At least in terms of Hull General Cemetery they’ve delivered.

Yep, that gets my vote.

P.S. The image at the front of this post is the monument to John Wilde in HGC. This man ‘used’ the electoral process so well during the 1850s in Hull that a Parliamentary Commission was called into being. It ruled that the Parliamentary election of 1853 was null and void. He was implicated in bribing the voters above and beyond what was seen to be acceptable in those days. As a result Hull did not have any representation in parliament for two years.

The practice during this election was over and above the level of corruption usually found in elections during this period. Take a moment here, and spare a thought for Thomas Perronet Thompson. He had been a Member for Hull in the past and was approached in 1854, as to whether he would stand in the 1855 election. He replied, and this speaks volumes for the heady level of corruption in the town at that time, that ‘he would as soon think of selling his daughter for a concubine in New Orleans.’ So, that’s a no then, Thomas?

Meanwhile back at Thomas Wilde.

As you can see, in the inscription on his tomb, this ‘issue’ did not merit a mention. In the long run politics is a very forgiving industry. Isn’t it?

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