Tag: anniversary

An Anniversary

by Pete Lowdenin General, History, Volunteers1 Comment on An Anniversary

 11th May 1854

A special piece of land in the cemetery celebrates its anniversary on this date. The plot known as the Quaker burial ground began with this entry in the Company’s minute book. After some lengthy negotiations the Society of Friends, often known as Quakers, signed the lease. The lease was for 999 years.

The Society of Friends, also known as the Quakers, take on their plot in HGC

The negotiations for this piece of land began in July 1848. This was only just over a year after the cemetery opened. The Quakers wanted to lease a strip of land on what was the frontage of the cemetery. It would have faced on to Princes Avenue and is now the site of the shops. The Company rejected this. They  did not want the drainage at the front of the cemetery site tampered with. One has to remember that running along the south side of the cemetery was Derringham Dyke. This ran all the way to Cottingham Drain alongside Queen’s Road. The cemetery culverted the Dyke but only at the cemetery’s entrance.

The following month another offer arrived from the Quakers. This offer was to take a lease on ‘part of the far field’ as their burial ground. The offer was accepted. At this time the cemetery ended roughly in line with the Cholera Monument. It owned the further 7 or 8 acres westwards, but that land had not been developed. John Shields was tasked with marking the new burial site out.

Why the delay?

And yet, 7 years elapsed between the agreement in 1848 taking place, and the lease being signed. Why?

Two reasons suggest themselves for this. Finance obviously was an important factor. The composition of the Society of Friends was broad. It took members from all classes. However, a reasonable proportion of them would surely have been from the middle class. The Society of Friends was therefore financially viable. It would also have looked after its funds. And in 1848 it didn’t need to sign the lease then. Which leads to the second reason.

The second reason was more important. The original burial ground for the Quakers, Hodgson Street, was still open. It finally closed in the year that they clinched the deal above. The closure was imposed by a Parliamentary Order in Council in 1855. This Act was known to be coming. With the passing of the Public Health Act of 1848 and the Metropolis Act of 1850, burials were regulated much more closely. The Metropolis Act was rolled out across the country. By 1855 it was Hull’s turn. At that time the Quakers had to act. And the entry above shows that they did.

An Anniversary

13th January 1942

An Anniversary

A Second Anniversary

An Anniversary

 

 

An Anniversary

by Pete Lowdenin General, History1 Comment on An Anniversary

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.

Board meeting minutes April 16 1847a

April 16 1847b

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.

Next Month

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.

 

Next month

by Pete Lowdenin General, News1 Comment on Next month

.Next month I’m hopeful of having at least two lengthy articles for you. Unpublished anywhere and brand spanking new for your delight. Delight might be a bit over the top but I’m sure you know what I mean.

The first article is about how the Hull General  Cemetery Company was established and why it happened at that particular time. Complete with severed heads and dubious dealings on the part of the Church It could be the basis for a new Hollywood blockbuster. Or not as the case may be. Anyway I hope you find it interesting.

The second article next month  is about a man who worked for the Company. We know a great deal about many of the people who are buried in the Cemetery but not a great deal about the people who buried them. This is an attempt to redress this imbalance just a little.

I’m also going to serialise the ‘Catacombs and Crosses’ part of the third book. I’ve just come across some more information that I didn’t know at the time and therefore it isn’t in that book. So, I thought it might be good to post it here.

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 always try to reply via email.

An Anniversary

by Pete Lowdenin Events, General, History1 Comment on An Anniversary

7th March 1901

This month’s anniversary is perhaps the first indication that the Cemetery’s position and land was becoming more of an asset than their role as a cemetery. The image is taken from minutes of the 55th Annual General Meeting. This was held at the Grosvenor Hotel, one Thursday evening on the 7th of March, 1901. It records that one of the directors of the Company raised an issue. James Oldham was one of the original shareholders of the Cemetery. At this meeting he floated, for the very first time, that perhaps the Company should consider thinking about selling their Princes Avenue frontage.

james oldham 7 march 1901

Interestingly, James Oldham, had come to this idea, as he said, by recognizing the urbanisation of the Avenues area. He said  how the area needed servicing with shops. By 1901, when this comment was made, the construction of the Dukeries area was well underway. The the eastern ends of Marlborough, Westbourne and Park Avenues were also under development.

The end result of this thought bore fruit some six years later.  Part of the frontage was sold for the construction of the row of three storey shops that still stands today. This transaction gave a welcome cash boost to the Company’s finances. Unfortunately that was rapidly squandered with an extra-ordinary dividend distributed to the shareholders. Just one more mistake in a sad catalogue of them made by the Company.

view along princes ave

13th January 1942

by Pete Lowdenin Events, General, History1 Comment on 13th January 1942

An anniversary

The 13th January 1942 was the 79th anniversary of an act of destruction that we could not conceive of happening today.

A Board meeting for the Company took place in the Cemetery Lodge on the 13th January 1942. Michael Kelly, superintendent and director, informed the other directors of  a decision he had taken. This decision was understandable at the time but for later historians of the HGC it was disastrous and tragic.

Below is a photograph from Bill Longbone’s family album of Michael Kelly, his wife and one of his daughters standing outside the rear of the renovated Hull General Cemetery Lodge. The renovation took place in 1906/7 which dates the photograph reasonably well. You may notice that the Lodge does not have its turret at the front of the building which was taken down during the widening of the entrance to Princes Avenue.

Michael Kelly and family standing outside the back of the lodge in HGC

Kelly’s actions

At this board meeting Kelly said that, ‘responding to the appeal from the Government for waste paper for War needs’, he had collected various documents dating back to the founding of the Cemetery and taken them to the collection point run by Hull Corporation. In other words he was recycling historic documents for the war effort.

The documents he collected for disposal can be seen in this entry from the Minute Books.

Minute book entry describing Kell's actions in destroying the Company's records.

The old journals and all of the ledgers lost. I could weep. Lost for what? To make paper for forms in triplicate for the use of various government departments. Sacrilege.

I think I may be a bit biased here but this ranks with the destruction of the Library of Alexandria to me. Another black mark against Churchill. Not only the iron railings that decorated the city but also the history of the Cemetery. All gone by his decrees. Words simply fail me. And that doesn’t happen often.