In the 16th and 17th centuries Hull, like many other towns, was a place of some religious turbulence. A Friends Meeting in Hull was initiated by Richard Emmerson and John Holmes who were influenced by the East Riding preaching of William Dewsbury. The establishment of the Meeting was given a boost by the visits of George Fox in 1652 (after he’d slept the previous night under a haystack), 1658 and 1666. The Meeting was established about 1660. As was their fate the *Quakers were soon persecuted particularly by officers of Hull’s Garrison and meetings were broken up and people snatched from the street as well as, incredibly, from their own houses. In 1660 six Quakers were imprisoned on return from their expulsion from Hull but following the Act of Tolerance in 1689 the group were left alone to worship as they pleased.
The Hull Meeting covered the old town, Newland and Marfleet though another Meeting was convened at Sutton from about 1665. This Meeting actually post dates the ‘Sutton’ Quaker burial ground which was in use from 1659 though seemingly was only recognised as Quaker in 1672. Originally in the parish of Sutton it now lies between Hodgson St. and Spyvee St and is known as the Hodgson St burial ground. The first burial was Ellen Lilforth in 1659.
The land for this burial ground was previously owned by Anthony Wells. Anthony Wells first wife, Elizabeth, was buried there in 1676 but her stone was moved to the Spring Bank Quaker Burial Ground along with four others. Although there were other Quaker burial grounds around Hull there are now only two recognisable ones remaining.
All but five head stones disappeared from Hodgson Street. These were set in a brick structure in the burial ground. These five stones are now in the Hull General Cemetery Quaker site.
When the ‘Hodgeson St’ burial ground was developed in the parish of Sutton, Hull was still a walled town surrounded by countryside so this burial ground would initially have been in a rural setting. The bodies of early Hull Quakers would have be taken from the Lowgate Meeting House (est 1672) through the north town wall gate and over the River Hull at North Bridge.
Up to the late 1700s the Quaker burial ground was not really enclosed although factories (flax, cotton and seeds mills) and houses were springing up in the area as the industrial development continued. The burial ground did become surrounded by houses and industrial buildings especially after the north walls of Hull were removed for the development of the Town Dock (later Queens Dock now Queens Gardens) in 1778, at the time the biggest dock in England. Hodgeson Street burial ground was closed in 1858.
A more recent Quaker Burial Ground lies within the old General Cemetery on Spring Bank. This cemetery, of 22 acres, was formed by the Hull General Cemetery Company in 1846 in part from farm land under the ‘ownership’ of Francis Pickwell (14.7 acres) and John Richardson (8.7 acres).
In 1855 the Quakers took a 999 year lease for £100 on a plot in the General Cemetery. This plot is currently 50.7 m x 18.3 m. (0.23 acre) though a strip of land on the eastern side was donated for a path. Burials commenced here in 1855 initially starting at the southern end of the eastern most row and in the first year of the plot being opened there were three burials the first being Mary Ann Heward who on died on the 23rd June 1855 and was buried on June 28th.
Although the General Cemetery was closed in 1971 burials in the Quaker plot continued until 1974 with the burial of Philip Dent Priestman. This late burial is presumably why his grave does not conform to the others.
The burial ground presently contains 85 graves and some 140 official burials (including cremations) and two unrecorded cremations. What appear as gaps between graves are burials. In the Spring Bank Quaker burial plot the head stones are sloping tablets with stone grave surrounds. Notable graves are Isac Reckitt, James Reckitt (his son) and William Priestman the engineer who is famous for the heavy oil engine he developed. There are other well known Quaker families represented here.
Abridged from an article by Chris Coulson. The original can be found on his website
*Quakers are a historically Christian group whose formal name is the Religious Society of Friends.