graves Archives - Friends Of Hull General Cemetery

Inspirational Women

March 12, 2022 by Bill Longbonein Facebook Archive, General, History, Volunteers1 Comment

This is an article that Bill Longbone produced some years ago for the Facebook site. In it he listed a number of women who were independent minded, resourceful and also influential. They also had a connection to Hull General Cemetery.

Bill called the article ‘Inspirational Women’ and the title fundamentally says it all. With one or two changes here it is once again for your pleasure.

Eleanor Rollit

Eleanor Rollit (Bailey) was born in Hull in 1853, the 2nd daughter of ship builder, William Bailey and Mary Badger Ainley. William was a self made man, and a partner in the steamship company, Bailey & Leetham, which was taken over by Thomas Wilson & Co. in 1903. William was a JP, and a director of the Hull Dock Company and lived at White Hall, Winestead.

Eleanor married Albert Kaye Rollit at the newly opened, St Peter’s Church, Anlaby on 26th August 1872 when she was just 18 years old. Her brother, Walter Samuel Bailey, of The Mansion, Anlaby, married Albert’s sister, Ellen Rollit.

Albert Kaye Rollit, was the son of solicitor John Rollit, and brother of Arthur, also a renowned solicitor who lived at Browsholme, Cottingham. Albert became a successful eventually became President of the Law Society, and was later knighted.

Eleanor’s charitable work

In 1874 their only daughter, Ellen Kaye was born, and the family lived at Thwaite House in Cottingham. Eleanor was very involved with local charities, and was a great supporter and benefactor of the Sailor’s Orphanage on Spring Bank, she was also a patron of the training ship T.S. Southampton, that trained wayward boys and orphans in the basics of seamanship, and was moored in the Humber at the mouth of the River Hull. Eleanor personally opened bank accounts with the Hull Savings Bank for the boys.

Eleanor was always referred to as charitable and philanthropic, she organized annual visits and fetes at the family house in Thwaite Street, for the children of the orphanage, and subscribed towards a new wing at the Hull Royal Hospital in Prospect Street.

Lady Mayoress

When her husband became Mayor of Hull in 1883-1885, Eleanor became Lady Mayoress and extended her support for local charities and good causes. She was also very active in the early women’s suffrage movement. Sadly, during her tenure of Lady Mayoress, she suffered heart problems, and died on 11 January 1885, aged only 31.

Her funeral was attended by ex-mayors, councillors and many of the local dignitaries. The cortege, which left from the family house in Cottingham, was lined all the way to Hull General Cemetery, with crowds of in excess of 20,000 people, including the orphans of the Sailor’s Orphan Homes. Her portrait was painted by Ernest Gustave Giradot and hangs in The Guildhall, a marble bust by local sculptor William Day Keyworth junior is also in the Guildhall.

In1892, her husband, Sir Albert Rollit, put a private members bill supporting votes for women, no doubt inspired by his wife’s work.
She was buried in the family grave, which includes her father in law, John Rollit and some of his children. Her headstone still remains in HGC, but the top section with her epitaph has been removed, and is in need of some repair work, (see photo below).

‘The Friends’ are looking at a proposal to carry out restoration work to the headstone.

Her husband, Albert, moved to London and remarried the controversial and twice married, Mary Caroline Michell, Dowager of Sutherland in 1896, he died in 1922, his cremated remains are in the family grave in Hull General Cemetery.

Thwaite House, was later purchased by the University of Hull, the gardens were used by the Botany Department the house became Halls of Residence called Thwaite Hall. The house and grounds are currently being sold by the University.

Mary Sharrah

Mary Alice Sharrah was born in Hull in1863, the daughter of William Simpson Sharrah, a prominent Wesleyan, who was The Seaman’s Missionary for the Port of Hull, and his wife Mary Ann. She taught music from an early age, setting up the Hull School of Music (The first school of music in England), in 1887, originally from her family home at 22 Reed Street, and later at 55 Spring Bank.

In 1894 she married William Henry Simpson, a director of a local grain merchant’s, and lived at their large house at 55 Spring Bank, which still exists. For teaching purposes she kept her maiden name of Sharrah, and referred to herself as ‘Madame Sharrah’. As well as music, she also taught drama and elocution, instructing many local talents such as Annie Croft, her son David Croft of Dad’s Army etc, Doris White and many others.

Charitable work

Madame Sharrah supported many charitable institutions with her shows and concerts, including The Mother Humber Fund, Newland Orphan Homes and the Hesslewood Orphanage. Throughout WW1 Alice was responsible for organizing many concerts in aid of servicemen.

Her daughter, Phyllis Sharrah continued the school after her mother’s death on 25th May 1940, amalgamating with Sizer Simpson School. The premises became 55 Antiques in the 1960’s, next to The Silhouette Club, and is now part of a number of listed buildings in the Belgrave block.

The entire family of father, mother and Mary are all buried in Hull General Cemetery, but sadly the headstones have been removed.

Mary Kirk Mawmill

Mary Kirk Mawmill was born in Beverley on 7th October 1810, the daughter of William & Hannah Mawmill. She married Edward Robinson Harland in Hull on 11th August 1832. Edward had been indentured to be a greengrocer, but a year after his marriage he started his own printing business at 14 Carlisle Street, (a street later demolished to make way for Jameson Street).

They lived near the business premises in Carlisle Street, and had 5 children, employing 2 apprentices. Unfortunately, Edward died suddenly in 1844 aged only 33, leaving Mary with 5 young children and a business to run.

Single mother of five

Mary was unphased by this set-back, and continued to run the business and bring up her young children. Under her stewardship, the business grew from strength to strength. She was described in the Hull Daily Mail as ‘a woman of rare business qualities, succeeding in keeping the Company together in the midst of great difficulty’.

A further set back occurred to Mary when her daughter, Emma, died in 1855 aged 20.

However, the business continued to expand, and became involved in the printing of tickets, two of her sons, William and Edward also joined the company to assist in the running of the Company. However, William died in 1880 aged 38, the company name was recorded as M Harland & Son. The other son Thomas, died in New Zealand in 1907 aged 74, the remaining daughter, Sarah, died in 1910 aged 73.

Her death

Mary died of an apoplexy at her home at 104 Regent Street on 3rd November 1885 aged 75, and was buried in Hull General Cemetery. After her death Edward took over the company, and moved to larger premises, to what was known as Phoenix Works, in Land of Green Ginger, although the correct address was Manor Street.

The company became one of the largest printing companies in Hull, moving to Springfield Way, Anlaby in the 1960s, and innovating into data printing and bar code systems. I believe that the company was taken over by a multi-national printing company in the 1990s, and business transferred to Eastern Europe, but a management buy-out took place and the company still trade at their Marfleet premises on Hedon Road.

Sadly, Mary’s headstone no longer exists, and she is not recorded in the MI books. She certainly was a resourceful and inspirational woman.

Mary was also the great grandmother of Annie Croft, the well known Hull actress and singer, but that’s another story…….

Annie Croft

Many people will have heard of Annie Croft, the Hull girl who became an international star of stage and screen, but few will know of her fascinating story.

Although, not buried in HGC, she is very much associated with it, as her great grandmother, Mary Harland and the woman behind the success of Harland’s Printers is buried there.

Annie Croft was born Gertrude Mulgrave on 17th August 1892 at 11 Tuke’s Terrace, Walker Street, to Frederick Steele Mulgrave and his wife Lily Ann (Davis).

Adoption

She was adopted by Michael Croft (1853-1895) and his wife Emma, the daughter of Thomas Harland and the grand daughter of Mary Harland, who we have discussed previously. She was baptised as ‘Annie Harland Croft, the adopted daughter of Michael & Emma Croft of 424 Hessle Road at the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel at the corner of St George’s Road on 24th November 1892. Michael and Emma had a shop on the opposite corner of St George’s Road to the chapel.

Over the years there has been much unfounded rumour regarding the parentage of Annie Croft. The ‘story’ was that she was the illegitimate daughter of Muriel Wilson, the daughter of Arthur Wilson and Edward Prince of Wales, (later King Edward VII), after an affair whilst the future king was staying at Tranby Croft. Whilst it is true that Prince Edward regularly stayed at Tranby Croft, (he was there at the infamous ‘Baccarat Scandal’) it has been proven beyond doubt that Annie’s ‘royal parentage’ was just a rumour.
Sadly, Annie’s adopted father, Michael Croft, died in 1895 aged just 41, leaving Emma to bring her daughter up on her own, but with some financial help from her father Thomas Harland.

Emma remarried William Drury, (a sea pilot) in 1898 and lived at 32 Waverley Street. Apparently William was a brusque man who liked a drink. He died in 1914, when Annie was 20 years old.

Becoming an artist

Annie joined Madame Sharrah’s ‘Hull School of Music’ when a young girl. She quickly became known as a talented singer and dancer, appearing in many of Mme Sharrah’s concerts and shows. In 1907, when only 16 years old, Annie decided to form her own school of dancing and music, which she called the Waverley Academy of Music, operating initially at the family home in Waverley Street, later moving to 5 Fountain Street.

In addition to teaching dancing, acting and singing, Annie produced many concerts and plays at the local theatres. During WW1 she produced many shows supporting local charities and raising money for servicemen.

David Croft

Annie’s talents were well noted and she was offered parts in plays in London, and film roles. She married American stage and film star, Reginald Sharland (1886-1944), in Hull in 1914, and appeared in many plays with him. They later moved to Bournemouth. They had two children, Peter, (1917-1988), and David Sharland (1922-2011), both of whom trained at Madame Sharrah’s Hull School of Music and adopted the stage names Croft.

David Croft became famous as the writer of several BBC sitcoms, including, Dad’s Army, Are You Being Served?, Allo, Allo, It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, and Hi-De-Hi.

Annie divorced Reginald Sharland in 1931, and remarried Francis Gough in 1938.

Annie died in Dorset died on 23rd March 1959. She was aged 66.

Jane Wing

Jane (Barnborough) was born in Preston in 1778, and married John Wing at Holy Trinity Church, Hull on 21 Feb 1811. John was born in 1777 at Beeford, and had moved to Patrington some time before 1791, where he had set up a small post office and a mail coach service. The coach ran from Hull to Patrington twice a week, and although less than 20 miles distant, the journey took a minimum of 4 hours. This was at a time when the route to Holderness was via the turnpike road at Wyton Bar, Preston, Hedon and Thorngumbald.

Transport before the railway

The business was very successful. John & Jane moved their premises to North Bridge Foot. This was situated at the junction of Witham and Gt Union Street.

Jane and John had at least 7 children, Thomas, John, Jane, Robert, William, George (died in infancy), and David.

In 1826, John died suddenly, aged only 49, leaving Jane to bring up the family on her own. Jane took up the challenge, and managed to continue running the coaching business with the assistance of her son John. He also ran The Holderness New Inn on the corner of Witham and Dansom Lane. John also developed a further coach route to Hornsea.

Into the Charterhouse

In December 1844, aged 67, Jane successfully applied for entry into the Hull Charterhouse. This was probably with the assistance of her youngest son, David. For many years he was a Poor Relief Officer for South Myton District.

However, in 1858 further tragedy struck when John junior died aged 46. His elder brother, Thomas, who in 1848 was recorded as having the Carpenter’s Arms and livery stables in Gt Union Street, took over the running of the business and The Holderness New Inn. He gave it up though, probably because of construction of the Hull to Hornsea Railway in 1862.

Thomas, moved to the St Stephen’s area of Hull, where he became an inn-keeper and coach proprietor.

Jane’s only daughter, Jane, married Samuel Fisher who ran a druggist store at Wilton Terrace, Holderness Road, next door to the ship’s chandler, and Quaker, John Good. Another son, Robert was a clerk at a commercial druggist. A further son, William, emigrated to Australia.

Hull to Withernsea

Ten years after Jane entered the Charterhouse, on 27 June 1854, the Hull to Withernsea railway line opened, cutting the journey time from Hull to Patrington to about ½ hour. This must have greatly affected the business that Jane had developed. However, a coach service ran to Patrington for some time after.

Jane died in The Charterhouse on 23 October 1861 of ‘Decay of Nature’ aged 83, and is buried in HGC with several members of her daughter’s family, the Fisher’s. The headstone was sadly removed in the 1970s.

Julia Hammond

Julia Hammond was born 31st December 1859 in Wisbech. She was the youngest of 10 children born to labourer, Christopher Hammond and and his wife Martha (Canham).

In the late 1860s the family moved to Hull, and lived at 3 Fanny’s Terrace, Clarendon Street. Her father died in 1871 aged 51, leaving her mother, Martha, to raise the children. Martha married John Hare in 1874, but she died in 1885.

Marriage

On 28th March 1875, when Julia was still only 15, she married George Turpin at St. Andrews Church, Kirk Ella. She was illiterate at the time, and simply put her mark. She was also under the marrying age and incorrectly stated her age as 18. Both gave their addresses as Wold Carr, which was approximately where Parkfield Drive is now, and would have been in the Kirk Ella Parish.

George was born in 1858 at Oxmardyke, near Gilberdyke. He was the son of Mark Turpin and Hannah (Simms) of Cliffe, near Market Weighton. At the time of their marriage, George’s occupation was given as a labourer. He later became a plate layer on the railways, eventually becoming an engine driver. They had 15 children, only 10 of which survived childhood. In 1881 the family was living at Cliffe, later moving to 13, Filey Terrace, Gillett Street, and then to 11 Gillett Street.

Training to be a midwife

Although having very little formal education, and being unable to read and write, Julia trained to become a midwife. This was at a time when only unmarried mothers and poor women actually gave birth in hospital. Prior to 1900, women in Hull were 6 times more likely to die from an infection in hospital, than at home. At that time, the majority of births in working class areas in Hull, were attended by a ‘local woman’, who would have experience of attending births, but would not be qualified.

Increasingly concerned about the infant mortality rate, the government introduced the Midwives Act in 1902. This meant that all midwives had to be qualified and registered. It took a couple of years to fully implement. Hull opened its first maternity ‘house’ at 569 Holderness Road, near Westminster Avenue, on 1st March 1905. In 1929, the old Sanatorium on Hedon Road, was converted into a Maternity home. However, there was a cost of £1 to enter the hospital, which not everyone could afford. Even as late as the 1920s, many women still employed the services of ‘a local woman’ when giving birth.

2500 babies delivered

Julia was one of only a handful of certified midwives in the Hull area. With her navy blue uniform, and riding her sit up and beg bicycle, complete with basket, she was a familiar figure in the Hessle Road area. She would have been on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. She went on to deliver over 2500 babies in the West Hull area.

Her husband, George died of an aneurysm at 17 Eastbourne Street 21st July 1929 aged 71.

Julia’s daughter Olive, and grand-daughter Sylvia, followed in her midwifery footsteps both serving in the Hessle Road area. Olive delivered about 3,600 ‘Hessle Roader’s’ before she retired in 1939, and daughter Sylvia delivered over 2000 babies until her retirement in 1958.

Julia died at 36 King Street, off Charles Street on 2nd May 1937 aged 77.

Both Julia and George are buried in Hull General Cemetery. The headstone no longer remains.

Jean Bartel

The story of the Hohenrein family of butchers and it’s tribulations during WW1 is well documented. Many of the family are buried in Hull General Cemetery, and are commemorated with an impressive marble monument.

The family originated in Mosbach, Baden- Wũrttemburg, near Heidelburg, Germany, Georg Frederick Hohenrein (1832-1902) emigrated to Hull in 1848, and established pork butchers shops in Waterworks Street and Princes Avenue.

This story relates to one of Georg’s great grand children, Jean Bartel, who, although not buried in Hull General Cemetery, has direct links to it.

Georg and his wife Katherina (Myer) had 6 children, 2 of which died in infancy. During WW1 the family suffered from anti German sentiment, and Charles Henry (1883-1974) changed the family name to Ross.

George William

Charles Henry’s brother, George William (always referred to as William) (1865-1933), married Julie Bierman. From this marriage they had a son, William born 1897, and a daughter, Else, born in Hull 3rd February 1898. Becoming increasingly concerned at the anti German sentiment during WW1, he emigrated to Germany with his family. However, as British subjects, George William. and his teenage son, William were immediately interred in the Ruhleben Internment Camp, near Berlin until the end of the war.

Moving to the USA

After the war, his daughter Else, married Alfred Leonhardt Bartelmeh, and in 1922, the family moved to America. They had a daughter, Jean who was born in Los Angeles 26th October 1923. Jean shortened her name to Jean Bartel. She later won the Miss America competition in 1943. Jean was the first college student to be crowned Miss America. She worked on Broadway as an actress/singer, and later worked in films and TV. Jean once claimed that “I was never beautiful, but I had vitality and looked healthy”. She married William Hogue but had no children. She died 6th March 2011 aged 87.

Sadly, her brother William, who became a doctor, was killed in an allied bomb attack in Germany in WW2.

Emma Hodge

Emma Hodge was the eldest of the 6 children of Henry Hodge and his wife Jane (Simpson). She was born in Louth on 27th November 1837. Her father was working there, prior to his retuning to Hull to establish his own seed-crushing mill.

Primitive Methodist involvement

The family lived on Holderness Road, near Williamson Street. Emma became very involved with the Primitive Methodist movement through her father. He had donated large sums of money for the establishment of chapels in Hull. He was also a friend of William Clowes. Clowes was one of the co-founders of this religion.

She was an active member of the ‘Bright Street Chapel opposite the family home. This chapel was one which her father had laid the foundation stone. He had also donated substantial monies for its construction in 1863.

Emma married Joseph T Robson (1838-1897) at the William Clowes Chapel in Jarratt Street on 26th May 1859. Joseph was a manager at her father’s mill on Holderness Road. He was also an active member of the Primitive Methodist Church.

Emma, (referred to as Mrs JT Robson), and her husband, were well respected, and regularly preached at local chapels. She also became a councillor, a rare event in Victorian England.

They moved to a house in Hornsea Parade on Holderness Road. During their marriage they had 3 children. These were Henry Hodge (1860), Edwin (1863) and William Arthur (1865),

Death

Emma died from Erysipelas, (an acute skin disease), on 30/6/1869 aged just 31. Her father was devastated by her death, and erected a large monument in the ‘Prim Corner’ section of HGC. The Reverend Joseph Wood wrote a rather morose book about her, entitled ‘Sunset at Noonday’. The 1870 ‘Primitive Methodist Magazine’ published Emma’s obituary. In it it is stated that ‘she was as near our ideal of the model wife and mother’.

Her husband remarried Ellen Mallinson in 1873, and had 2 further children. He died in 1897 aged 59 and is also buried in the same grave as Emma.

Rebecca Greenwood

Rebecca was the grand-daughter of William Irving, (the eldest daughter of Jane 1812-1860), and her husband John Richardson Greenwood (1806-1874), the son of a Hull shipping merchant. She was born in Hull on 8 April 1837. She was baptised at the Fish Street Independent Church on 22 June, 1837. The family moved to Dollar in Scotland, and later to Crosby Garrett. This was on the edges of the Lake District. Rebecca spent her teenage years here. Her paternal grandfather, George Greenwood, was a lay Baptist preacher who lived in Haworth. He was also a friend of Patrick Bronte. During the family’s visits to Haworth, Rebecca became friends of the Bronte sisters.

Emigration

The family emigrated to Australia in 1858, unaccountably, leaving their youngest son (Rebecca’s brother), William Irving Greenwood in Hull with her parents William & Mary Irving. Was it because he was a sickly child? We don’t know. He died of scarlet fever, in 1862 however aged only 11. He is buried in the family grave in Hull General Cemetery.

After the family emigrated to Australia, Rebecca married George Morrison M.A., after her family emigrated to Australia. He was the Principal of the National Grammar School, Geelong, in Melbourne. He was made the Principal on 7th December 1859. They had nine children. Rebecca helped run, and expand the Geelong College with her husband.

Rebecca Morrison played an important, though little advertised role, in the evolution of the Geelong College. Known simply as ‘Mrs Morrison’ to generations of students. She guided the boarding and domestic establishment that underpinned the operations of the School.

One ex-student wrote, “She always took a vivid interest in the boys at the College, and her marvellous memory for names and faces lent a great deal of charm to the visits of old boys, who came back expecting to find themselves forgotten, only to learn that Mrs Morrison remembered them and many little incidents of their school careers”.

George’s death

After the death of her husband in 1898, Rebecca continued be involved with the college. The Morrisons were to have eight children – five sons and three daughters. Rebecca died at South Yarra on 26 March 1932 aged 94 – three of her sons; Charles Norman, George Ernest, and Arthur Robertson Morrison having predeceased her. Geelong College still exists and continues to flourish.

Sara and Polly Smith

Sarah Smith was born in Hull in 1758, the daughter of Joseph Smith. She was baptised in Holy Trinity Church on the 31st August 1758. She also had a sister who was 10 years her junior called Mary, (Polly).

Sarah married mariner, William Robinson in Holy Trinity on 13th September 1785. She was obviously educated, as she signed her marriage certificate.

Matron

Sarah took on the post of Matron and House keeper of Trinity House on Christmas Day, 1794. In addition to providing lighthouses, charts etc, Trinity House were also trustees to a fund for relief & support of all maimed and disabled seamen, their widows, and children.

Remarkably, Sarah stayed in the post for 52 years, until her death on 21st November 1847 aged 90. She was succeeded in the post by her unmarried sister, Polly. She remained in the post for a further 10 years, until her own death in 1867, also aged 90.

Trinity House were obviously very impressed with the service of Sarah and her sister, Polly. “To record their faithful services the Corporation of The Trinity House have caused this stone to be erected.” The headstone still remains.

Sarah was buried in the same year that Hull General Cemetery opened. She was the 137th person to be buried there. A remarkable epitaph to two remarkable women.

Bill Longbone

Bill Longbone has had a long relationship with the Hull General Cemetery. He is an active member of the FOHGC and manages the work of the volunteers on the site. His biographical sketches of some of the people buried in the cemetery are one of the highpoints of the success of the Facebook site.

Heritage Open Days

September 19, 2021 by Pete Lowdenin Events, History, News, Volunteers, Walks2 Comments

As part of the Heritage Open Days there were two guided walks arranged.

The first one, on the 11th, was blessed with good weather, and as such attracted a large crowd. So did the second on the 18th. The count for each walk was around 50 to 60 people.

When dealing with such large groups one has to employ a louder voice. You also need to bypass some headstones as it’s just impossible to accommodate all of the people around them safely.

Also, in large groups, people move at a different speed and the slowest speed becomes the group norm. This usually means you cannot do all of the walk. This is what happened on the both walks. We concentrated on the headstones along the north side of the cemetery and terminated the walk at the Workhouse mound.

My reasoning for this was that the newcomers to the Cemetery may have never ventured into the site. They may have been a little intimidated to go out of sight of Spring Bank West. Therefore the back road would have been new territory to them and that’s why I chose it.

I hope everyone who ventured into the wilds of the Cemetery enjoyed it.

New guided walk

One of the results of these truncated walks was that another walk has been arranged to take place. This will be on October 2nd at 11.00 a.m.

The walk will go from Princes Avenue corner along the south side of the Cemetery. Along the way you’ll find the grave of a man who managed to bribe the electors of the 1853 parliamentary election. You’ll see the grave of an artist who lived through the Indian Mutiny. The grave of the man who built the iron Eleanor Crosses that grace the cemetery, the grave of the man who founded the Wilson shipping line and many others.

I’m looking forward to next years’ Heritage Open Days.

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

APPRA

September 13, 2021 by Pete Lowdenin General, News, Volunteers

The Avenues and Pearson Park Resident’s Association, or APPRA as its more commonly called, published an article about the work of the Friends of Hull General Cemetery this quarter. I’m posting it as I think it may as well be covered here. I wrote it some tine ago. I hope you find it interesting.

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 Quaker burial ground

August 24, 2021August 24, 2021 by Bill Longbonein Events, History, News, Volunteers, Walks1 Comment

Activities in Hull General Cemetery during August.

Most of the work in the cemetery during August was taken up with upgrading of the Quaker Burial Ground. This work was undertaken on behalf of the Quaker’s Committee.

The Matthew Good Foundation kindly donated £1,000.This was used for the purchase of trees, plants and materials to carry out the work.

The broken perimeter hedge/fence was repaired and new defensive planting installed. This was done to form just 2 entrances/exits. The privet was given a light trim.

A kerb and limestone chippings were placed around the 7 stones that originated in the Hodgson St and Owstwick Burial Grounds. This provides a great focal point for these historically important stones. The Quaker’s are looking to provide an information board to explain the origin of the stones. There already is a board explaining the presence of the Quaker burial ground.

The dilapidated headstone of Joseph Heward, the first Quaker burial in the cemetery, was re-laid and straightened. Several other fallen kerb stones were straightened. Moss was carefully removed from the lettering on the headstones to enable them to be more easily read.

A ‘Rest and Contemplation’ bench was erected in the SW corner. This was formed from a large sycamore branch that fell near the cholera monument a year or so ago.

Other fallen branches were chipped and laid as a path leading from the 2 entrances to the new bench.

New planting

The laurel bushes were pruned back to give a more formal appearance. Several shrubs and plants were planted to complement the existing plants. These including Fatsia Japonica, Choisya, Euonymus, Agapanthus and ornamental grasses.

A thousand spring bulbs have been ordered for planting in Autumn. These include wild garlic, English bluebells, snowdrops, crocus and daffodils. Hopefully these will provide a riot of colour in the spring.

A specimen laburnum was also planted to provide early summer colour after the bulbs have finished their display.

A shallow watering dish was placed in a shady area of the burial ground. This will provide a water source for birds and small mammals.

A short, on-site, talk about the Quakers in Hull and the work of the Friends of Hull General Cemetery, was given by the Quakers on the afternoon of Saturday 21^st August.

The volunteers gave a guided tour around the cemetery to the U3A, AWAKE history group during August, generating £36.00 in donations.

Bill Longbone

The Creation of Hull General Cemetery: Part Two

June 1, 2021June 25, 2021 by Pete Lowdenin General, History, Volunteers

The initial meeting

In the February of 1845 another advert appeared in the local press. This advert offered the speculator the chance to purchase shares in the new company. A prospectus was issued about a month later.

Of course, many of Hull’s townspeople had seen this stuff before some 5 years ago and were watchful of developments. The Hull Packet of the 7^th March simply said that, ‘We hear that a great number of shares have been taken to forward the project of a new cemetery at Hull, and that the provisional committee consists of some of the more influential inhabitants of the town.’

The press were quite right. Some of the most influential people of Hull were involved. What the press did not know was that a meeting had taken place on the 5th March. This meeting took place at the offices of Charles Spilman Todd at 15, Bowlalley Lane. Below is a picture of that address today. It is now a private house.

Charles S.Todd was to become both Sherriff of Hull and also the Town Clerk. At this time he was merely a practising solicitor and the solicitor for the proposed cemetery. It is from this date that the creation of the Hull General Cemetery really begins.

The Committee

Throughout March and April, the local press continued to run constant adverts for people to buy shares in the new company. The names behind the Committee were now published and the bankers too as part of these adverts.

By the 12th March the draft of the Prospectus was examined by the Committee and on the 19th it was released to the press. By the 5th April C.S.Todd could tell the Committee that he had received 400 share applications. It looked like the time was right for the creation of the Cemetery and its success.

You may notice that the membership of the Provisional Committee had increased. Whilst some early adherents had left, such as Edward Brady, this was more than compensated by the new arrivals. Sir William Lowthorp had joined the committee. He had been the mayor of Hull in 1837. It fell to him to present the town’s best wishes to the newly installed monarch. As a result he was knighted. He was also the father-in-law of Dr. Gordon. William Watson was another landowner to the west of Hull who had joined the committee.

John Solomon Thompson

The most important new arrival, however, was John Solomon Thompson. This man was to become the first chairman of the Cemetery Company, and in some ways, the best. He guided the Company through its initial days of purchasing the land and laying it out. His negotiations with the London and Midland Railway Company when their proposed rail line would have demolished the front of the Cemetery were admirable. He was also instrumental in pursuing the Act of Parliament that incorporated the cemetery. This in the face of the Hull Corporation pursuing its own Act of Parliament which would have enabled it to take over the cemetery. He will be the subject of an article later this year.

Evidence of something more substantial than simply selling shares was indicated by an advert in April that appeared in the press showing that the new company directors were not being idle and were actively seeking a suitable site for the Cemetery as may be seen below.

Above is no.15, Spring Bank today, which was the site of the temporary offices of the secretary of the Cemetery Committee, Shadrach Wride before the building of the Cemetery Lodge

Finding the perfect site

Some two days later C.S.Todd reported to the Committee that he had written to Mr Webster of Yafforth Grange. This gentleman owned property that was suitable for the cemetery. We’ll return to this person later.

By the end of April two more offers of land had been received. One plot was on Dansom Lane from the Revd. Nicholas Walton. This was dismissed out of hand. The Committee felt the price asked was ‘an exorbitant one and the offer could not be entertained.’

The second offer was for a site in the village of Marfleet, ‘A close of about 12 acres adjoining Marfleet Lane on the Holderness Road and belonging to Mr Pease’. This man was one of the bankers for the provisional Company. However, when C.S.Todd wrote to Mr Pease’s solicitor, Mr Saxelbye, who later was one of the first inhabitants of a large house overlooking Pearson Park, the offer of land was withdrawn.

Webster and Pearson

But by the time this offer was received and withdrawn, Mr Webster had replied and asked the Committee how much land they desired. As a result John S. Thompson and C.S.Todd set off on the long journey by coach to Northallerton. Instructed to ‘make the best bargain possible’ and not to offer more than £220 per acre their instructions were clear. Sadly, Mr Webster wanted £350 per acre and the deal fell through. Later, Zachariah Pearson bought the land it and became Pearson Park.

The map below is from1847. It shows what was to become Queen’s Road running along the top of the map from the top right hand corner till it joins Newland Tofts Lane, later Princes Avenue. The Sculcoates Union Workhouse, later Kingston General Hospital, can be seen at the right hand side of the map. The upper central portion is Webster’s land which became Pearson Park in 1860.

Enter Mr Broadley, M.P.

The Committee had another offer of land throughout this period. On the 5th May Charles Stewart had alerted the rest of the Committee to it. Henry Broadley had a site ‘on the Spring Bank of about 19 acres’.

Henry Broadley, and indeed the Broadley family, are well known. He was an M.P. for the County and it was said that one could travel across the East Riding without stepping off his land. Conservative in nature, and conscious of his position, he was a strange mix.

He owned tenements in Leadenhall Square that were so dire that the Corporation and the Church railed against them. Many of them were brothels or worse.

Foster, in Living and Dying, cites one instance where a policeman, entering one of these premises, disturbed a lady plying her trade with customers. In the ensuing struggle, the policeman’s presence caused a rotten window frame to be dislodged and broken. When this episode was reported in the press and debated in the Council Chamber the landlord was excoriated. Sir Henry, rather than be embarrassed, sued the Corporation for damage to his property.

Yet, he donated time and some money to helping young people away from crime. And he was very interested in treating the dead with dignity.

By the 28th May C.S.Todd was instructed to proceed with the necessary arrangements to buy Mr Broadley’s land. Of course nothing was that simple. Broadley instructed C.S.Todd to deal with his land agent. His land agent said he did not have the leeway to deal with the Committee. Broadley then said that he could not contemplate any discussion about the land until Parliament went into recess. As such the Committee were left in limbo.

The drainage report and public disquiet

A report as to the drainage of this site, and of Dr Webster’s, was drawn up Mr Francis Tadman. He informed the Committee that the drainage of the Spring Bank site was about 4 feet 6 inches whilst the drainage from Dr Webster’s site was only 3 feet. This report finalised the Committee’s determination to acquire the site.

However, to the general public, things had gone suspiciously quiet once again, as this letter to the Hull Packet showed.

The first AGM

The following month the Committee, probably reacting to this pressure, felt they should inform their subscribers of the situation. They called a General Meeting of the subscribers for the 29th October. The Chair, J.S.Thompson, outlined what the Committee had attempted to achieve. He then set out the difficulties they had met in acquiring a site. Finally, he outlined both of the sites points. Below is the record from the meeting related to the Spring Bank site.

As you can probably guess, the Committee recommended to the subscribers the purchase of the site on Spring Bank. Henry Broadley offered the site on Spring Bank for £300 an acre. This land was to be the site of the creation of the Hull General Cemetery.

The formation of the Company

At this same AGM the Committee felt that a resolution should be put forward to form the Hull General Cemetery Company. Needless to say, the resolution to buy the Spring Bank site, ‘at such price and upon such terms as they deem advisable’ was passed. As was the resolution to form the Company.

On the 31^st October this news from the AGM was reported in the press. The news was what many people had been hoping to hear. It was reported that the Committee had held an introductory shareholder’s meeting to lay before them the progress they had made and that they desired the power from the shareholders, ‘for the purchase of Mr Broadley’s ground near the old Waterworks on the Spring Bank.’

This power was given to them under the resolution, ‘That the Company be formed and that immediate steps be taken for securing the purchase of a very suitable site near the Old Waterworks, offered to the Provisional Committee by Henry Broadley, Esq, M.P.’

General means general

The newspaper item went on to state that all denominations were to be allowed burial on the site. No doubt a view to both enhancing good will and maximising profit. Stating this was ensuring no shortage of future customers due to any short sightedness in terms of religious observances. In essence, the directors were adhering to the principles of a General Cemetery.

The map above was drawn in 1854 for the Hull General Cemetery Act. As you can see the proposed enlargement of the cemetery would have taken it to what would become Chanterlands Avenue. It would have engulfed the future sites of both Newstead and Welbeck Streets. An article on how this proposed plan to enlarge the Cemetery will be published later this year.

The map shows both the reservoir at what was the end of Bank Street, now entirely subsumed under William Jackson’s’ factories, and also the beginnings of Princes Avenue but known then as Newland Tofts Lane. The cemetery was in the parish of Cottingham and was well out in the country and therefore met the criteria as laid down by the 1843 statute mentioned in the previous part of this article.

A grand boulevard

Tying neatly with other civic aspirations as to a grand boulevard or promenade being developed, the Committee also stated that if they took up the option to buy Mr Broadley’s land they would also seek help and apply for a grant from the government, “for making a Promenade on the Spring Bank, as had already been proposed.”

This proposal stemmed more from the proprietors of the Zoological Gardens than it did the Hull General Cemetery Company as the zoo attempted to encourage more business for their venture. Indeed, although this isn’t clear from the documents, I believe it was the Zoological Gardens that made the appeal for the grant. The idea for a “promenade” along the Spring Ditch had been mooted in 1830 by Charles Frost and associates but had never been acted upon due to financial issues.

Cheap is best!

Civic pride being what it is, and the Victorians being the way they were, an article in the Hull Packet of the 21^st of November positively crowed that Hull had not only spent less on procuring a cemetery than other significant towns in the country but that it was bigger than those others too. This before the site was actually bought and well before a body was buried there!

The structure of the Company

On the 17th November, the bare bones of the Company and how it would work was laid out to the subscribers and passed unanimously. The voting at AGMs would be determined on how many shares a subscriber held. No one could have more than five votes no matter how many shares they held. There would be seven directors and no one with less than five shares could become one. The first directors were as follows: William Irving junior, John S Thompson, George Milner, Benjamin A.Tapp, John Malam, Charles Stewart and John Robinson.

Auditors would have to hold three shares at least. These first auditors were Thomas Abbey and Thomas Dalton Hammond. The bankers, Pease and Liddell, were chosen and the directors and auditor’s remuneration for their work was accepted.

Two further resolutions

Two further resolutions were passed at this meeting. Both would be problematic for the Company in later years. The first effectively restricted it’s capital to £10,000. A goodly sum in the ‘hungry 1840s’ but this would prove not be enough to finance their enlargement plans a decade later. To do that they would need to issue a further tranche of ‘half-shares’. Just another further complication.

The second resolution would prove more disastrous.

On the face of it an eminently sensible action. To create a Reserve Fund from the annual profits was sound business principles. If it had been used like this, for example, ‘extending operations of the company’ the Cemetery could even now be a going concern. Where it failed was in the first point of the Reserve Fund. ‘For equalising Dividends’.

This was fine during the good times but this Reserve Fund was used throughout most of the Cemetery’s life in the 20th century to prop up the dividends to the shareholders. But by then it was surrounded and could not expand anyway. It had frittered away its life blood keeping its dividends at inflated levels and failed to plan long term. And it was this resolution, made in November 1845, that allowed that to happen.

This is the second part of the story of the creation of Hull General Cemetery. The third part will appear next month.

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 Eleanor Crosses

May 1, 2021May 1, 2021 by Pete Lowdenin Books, General, History, Public Graves, Workhouse Graves, Catacombs and Crosses1 Comment

The catacombs of Hull General Cemetery are now long gone. Nothing remains of them. (see the link below)

Unlike the Eleanor Crosses. Let us examine their history here.

Thompson and Stather

We’re fortunate in having a reasonable idea of who built the crosses. The firm of Thompson and Stather were an engineering firm in Victorian Hull. This firm had a long relationship with the Cemetery in its early days. The Stather in this firm was Thomas Stather. His brother John was equally as successful in his business enterprise. Their stories will be published on the website at a later date. Suffice to say here that, in terms of Hull General Cemetery, both brothers and their families are buried there.

As an example of Thompson and Stather’s relationship with the Cemetery Company, in August 1852 the firm were approached by the Company. They were asked to make some new gates for the Cemetery. These listed gates still survive and may be seen on Spring Bank West. They also completed a number of other contracts for the Company. Thompson and Stather were one of the foremost engineering firms of the Victorian Hull. So it stands to reason that the Cemetery Company would have dealings with them.

Family tragedy

In 1863, Thomas Stather’s wife, Elizabeth, died. She is buried in the Cemetery. The grave is a brick lined vault. Luckily it still has the headstone. Or should I say it has a large Eleanor cross on a plinth erected upon a sandstone kerb set. The cross is made of cast iron. It was the first one erected in the Cemetery and was made by her husband’s firm of Thompson and Stather.[1]

How do we know this? Local resources are scarce on these matters. We do have a newspaper report that quite clearly speaks of the erection of the cross in the cemetery. This newspaper report is shown below.[2] Thomas Stather’s wife of over 25 years, Elizabeth, died on the 1^st April 1863. On the 11^th September that year the cross had been erected on the grave where Elizabeth lay. I would suggest this is as concrete a proof as one may wish for.

Fig 1: 11^th September 1863, Hull Packet.

Fig 2: Thomas Stather’s grave. The site of the first Eleanor Cross erected in Hull General Cemetery

The second Eleanor Cross

The second Eleanor Cross is situated about 50 yards west of the main gates of the Cemetery. It celebrates the grave of the Mason family. The plot was initially bought by Benjamin Burnett Mason. He was born on 16 Feb 1822 in Hull. The son of master mariner Samuel and Martha Mason (nee Green), he was baptised at Holy Trinity on the 9^th April 1822.

Benjamin married Anne Green on 19^th June 1844 and they had 2 sons, Benjamin William, born in 1846, and Samuel Burnett born in 1850. In the 1851 census Benjamin and his family were living at Northgate in Cottingham and he is listed as a wine merchant and ship owner. He was successful in his business enterprises and established a large wine and spirit business in Lowgate. Its premises eventually extended close to the quays of the Queen’s Dock, now the site of Queen’s Gardens. He also was successful in the community. He became a JP and a Guardian of the Poor. Not content with that he turned his hand to history and was the author of a book entitled The Brief History of The Dock Company. Throughout his life was also an active member at the Minerva Lodge of Freemasons.

The move to Hull

The family moved from Cottingham to a new home at 3, Grosvenor Terrace on the Beverley Road, which is now numbered 113 Beverley Rd. A grand address in its day. It was then on the outskirts of Hull and was situated just outside the village of Stepney.

However, like all Victorian families whatever their circumstances, tragedy was never far away. On the 2^nd December 1863, the eldest son, Benjamin William died at the family home from scarlet fever. He was only 18 years old. It is believed that this is when the second elaborate cast iron ‘Eleanor Cross’ was erected in Hull General Cemetery. This would have been some three months after the first cross was mentioned in the press.

There is no record in the newspapers of this new cross being erected. Nor any record in the Company’s minute books or any other documentation to confirm this. However, it appears to fit the bare facts as outlined above.

When was it erected?

We know the original cross was erected in or before the September of that year. The death of Benjamin William Mason took place in December. During the consequent sorrow that almost certainly gripped the family, it is conceivable that the family seized upon making a significant gesture to mark the passing of their son. I would suggest that they commissioned the cross on their family tomb at this time. The erection of this cross was probably appropriate and timely. Grief was something that the Victorians often felt needed to be reflected in ostentatious display and the erection of this cross certainly does do that.

Fig 3: The site of the family home on Beverley Road, 2018. Just out of the picture to the left is ‘Welly Club’.

Benjamin’s wife, Anne, was buried in the family grave, dying from bronchitis on the 7th February in 1874 aged 57. Benjamin’s younger son, Samuel, eventually joined the family company, and continued to work in the business.

Benjamin died of bronchitis on the 12^th January 1888 aged 65. Samuel died in Cairo, Egypt on 19^th Jan 1894 and was buried there. Samuel’s widow, Mary Ellen, was buried as cremated remains in the family tomb, the final interment under this Eleanor Cross.

Fig 4: Mason’s Eleanor Cross.

The saddest story of all?

The final Eleanor Cross is perhaps the most poignant story of all. It is the smallest of the three crosses and it stands on top of a grave dug for just one person. Yet it is a public grave. A strange occurrence and the only instance known in Hull General Cemetery. As the reader knows, public graves rarely have any kind of memorial upon them. To have a cast iron monument on it is unheard of. Let’s examine the facts of the story.

We need to go back in time a little to fully explain the Crosses’ story. In the East Riding a farmer by the name of George Peacock Harrison, 1808-1885, and his wife Ann, 1807-1872, lived in the village of Gembling, near Driffield. He farmed approximately 400 acres and employed over a dozen farm workers, so he was an influential man in that neighbourhood. Throughout their married lives, he and his wife had eight children. The two we need to focus on are his third child and second son, George Peacock, 1839-1916, and his seventh child and sixth son, Jonathan, 1846-1887.

The 1851 census

As can be seen in Fig 21, G.P. Harrison’s family is gathered around him. Jonathan being four years old, but there is no sign of George Peacock junior. This was because he was absent at school in Hampshire. There is no record of any other of the children being so favoured.

By the 1861 census, George Peacock senior and his wife have moved to another farm at Wharram of 1000 acres. Their two daughters and William Christopher, the third son, went with them. His previous holding was now being run by his son George Peacock junior. No other family member resides at this time at the Gembling farm.

A George Peacock Harrison had appeared at the Assizes on a charge of rape but, according to the Barnsley Chronicle of 15^th December 1858, the Grand Jury, ‘ignored the Bill’ and he was allowed to go free. We have no way of knowing which George Peacock this was but the offence was against a woman in Wharram, so it may well have been George Peacock senior who was in the dock.

Fig 5: 1851 Census record for George Peacock Harrison and family.

The death of George Peacock senior

The younger George Peacock was unmarried. This personal situation continues through the 1871 and 1881 censuses and his father continues to work the Wharram farm. In October 1885 George Peacock senior died.

Fig 6: Probate of G.P Harrison senior.

As the sole executor George Peacock Harrison junior could administer his father’s estate as he chose and this is what he proceeded to do.

Let’s just take a look back at Jonathan. He was born in 1846 and baptized that same year in the local church.

Fig 7: Jonathan Harrison’s baptismal record, May 1846.

Other than the entry on the 1851 census we lose track of Jonathan. He doesn’t surface in any of the censuses of 1861,71 or 81. Yes, there are characters who could conceivable be him but they are far removed from the family settings.

In the dock

The next we hear of Jonathan is in a court case. Reported in the Driffield Times in the July 1887. As can be seen in below, Jonathan appears to have had an altercation with his brother George Peacock Harrison junior. During this altercation he committed criminal damage to his brother’s house. The problem appeared to revolve around the will of their father, and money that Jonathan thought was his due. Being legally summoned by his brother must have been difficult for both sides. It was further exacerbated by Jonathan refusing, or being unable, to pay the fine. This resulted in a custodial sentence of one month for him.

The final straw

This appears to have been the final straw for Jonathan. He obviously removed himself to Hull for the next and final part of this sad story. We find Jonathan next having died aged just 40. Only four months after his release from prison.

Fig 8: 2^nd July 1887, Driffield Times report of Jonathan’s offending.

Jonathan’s death

Fig 9: Jonathan Harrison’s Death Certificate.

Jonathan died four days before Christmas Day 1887 and of Cystitis which was a disease that he could easily have contracted whilst in prison. As can be seen, he was earning his living as a cotton spinner at the time of his death and his place of work was the Royal Infirmary in Prospect Street. This was work that he would have been detailed to do as his place of residence was the Hull Workhouse. He would have been an out-worker for that institution, paying for his placement and meals by this form of work. He would, therefore, have been accorded a pauper grave.

The final gesture

Jonathan, surprisingly, lies in a grave that was purchased for one burial. Exceptional and unique for a public grave. The purchaser was a certain George Peacock Harrison. Jonathan was buried on the 23^rd December 1887. The rest is conjecture. Was this purchase by George a belated gesture to his dead brother? Had he done his brother wrong? We don’t know. What we do know is that after the burial and the purchase of the private grave for one person only, the grave was surmounted by an iron Eleanor cross.

Fig 10: Grave space of Jonathan Harrison, purchased by G.P. Harrison. It is the third row from the left, fourth space down. No. 6610, Compartment 48.

Not by Thompson and Stather

A smaller version and less detailed than the Thompson and Stather ones true, but a good monument. Thompson and Stather were both dead by this time and the firm dissolved. George would have probably ordered a similar cross for his brother from someone who said they could do the job.

Fig 11: Grave number and the purchaser’s name, how many burials and for how many. In this case there is one burial and the grave is stated to be full.

The purchase of the iron monument appears to go beyond grief, and perhaps touches upon a deeper remorse, maybe even fuelled by guilt. We shall never know. George Peacock Harrison continued working the farm at Gembling but in the early part of the 20^th century he emigrated and spent his remaining years in New Zealand. He died at Cartertown on the 9^th March 1916. We don’t know what was going on in George’s mind. We can only guess. My guess is that this purchase of Eleanor Cross is due to remorse. The only indication of this may be found in the burial register of the Cemetery where he was listed as the informant,

Fig 12: Hull General Cemetery burial register, December 1887.

Melancholia or remorse?

As you can see, George Peacock Harrison cites his brother as being a ‘gentleman’ and his cause of death as ‘melancholia’. Hardly a cause of death then as now. Much more probably a symptom of how George was feeling at registering his brother’s death with the Cemetery, and at the same time purchasing the burial plot for his younger brother. The brother whom he had taken to court. who had gone to prison as a result of these court proceedings. The brother who eventually ended up in the workhouse where he died.

Yes, I would think there was a lot of melancholia, but I think it was George who was suffering from that, rather than Jonathan.

And that is the end of this short journey examining the Eleanor crosses of Hull General Cemetery.

Fig 13: Jonathan Harrison’s grave with its monument.

Acknowledgements:

Fig 1: Hull Packet.

Figs 2, 3, 4, 13: Authors’ collection.

Figs 5, 6, 7: The National Archives.

Fig 8: Driffield Times.

Fig 9: General Record Office.

Figs 10, 11, 12: Hull History Centre.

The Catacombs of Hull General Cemetery

[1] Not Young and Pool as Historic England maintain on their website for Hull General Cemetery.

[2] See Fig 1.

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

May 1, 2021May 1, 2021 by Pete Lowdenin General, History, Volunteers1 Comment

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 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.

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

National Federation of Cemetery Friends

December 1, 2020December 4, 2020 by Pete Lowdenin General, News, Volunteers

The NFCF

The National Federation of Cemetery Friends (NFCF) is a national grouping. It was set up in 1986 to ‘promote the understanding and appreciation of cemeteries and actively to encourage their preservation and conservation.’ The FOHGC joined the National Federation of Cemetery Friends in 2018 as an associate member.

The NFCF sent an email in which it wondered how such groups as ours were responding to the Covid-19 crisis. They requested any information that could be shared within their national newsletter. So we decided to share with them how the Friends of Hull General Cemetery were and are dealing with the pandemic.

The core of volunteers working in Hull General Cemetery is small, and the area to be reclaimed is large, so social distancing was never a problem. We’re sure the same is true for all groups similar to ours.

The Shops

An area that had been earmarked for reclamation from the neglect of the last 30 years or so was sited at the back of a line of shops. These shops front onto a popular shopping district called Princes Avenue. The land that the shops occupied had originally been part of the Cemetery. The Cemetery Company had sold it off in 1907. It had realised that, with the expansion of Hull, the rural lane of Newland Tofts Lane had now become a much more salubrious area including the Avenues. As such this land could be sold to help with the Company’s cash flow problems.

The shops have had numerous occupants over the years. Now the area is second only to the city centre for its bars, cafes and restaurants. A boon for the café culture but such enterprises often come with a surfeit of rubbish. Unfortunately, some of that ends up in the cemetery by design or accident.

The other problem issue with this area is the sycamore seedlings that have occupied any vacant space over the last 20 years or so. That coupled with rampant ivy growth and the ubiquitous blackberry bushes gives the reader a flavour of the area. The piled-up rubbish is just the icing on the cake.

The Friends knew that they could only take on this area during the period when birds were not nesting and laying their eggs. Effectively, at least in our area, this period is the middle of October to the beginning of February.

The Task in Hand

To gain an appreciation of the work to be done here’s a ‘Before’ photograph taken in 1993 and a ‘During’ one taken last week. The same building is in the background to both of these photographs. As you can see the theory of ‘managed neglect’, espoused by some, was not a success.

During the period of the first lock down, the volunteers continued with their efforts to reclaim the paths of the cemetery. This was achieved mainly through the use of the chipping machine. This machine was bought through the aid of a grant from a local charity. The copious wood cuttings are now turned into chippings. These could be spread onto the paths and allow more access to the site by the public including enhancing disabled access.

A bulb planting exercise in August and September took place. This appeared to attract more volunteers as the task was undertaken by the side of a very busy roadside.

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust

Upon the advice of the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, two areas were earmarked for the creation of wild flower meadows to attract invertebrates, especially moths and butterflies. These areas were cleared in early October. Part of the cemetery ground that contained over 10,000 workhouse burials was also cleared A granite memorial was purchased. Inscribed with a suitable inscription, it commemorates the unfortunate people buried there. These people were buried there and were denied any token of remembrance at their burials. Further planting of native trees and shrubs was also undertaken in this area.

By the time Hull had achieved (?) Tier Two level, and just prior to the second national lockdown, the work outlined above to the area behind the Princes Avenue began in earnest. It still continues and will until it has to halt for the birds beginning their nesting again.

Here are two images that show what can be done. They are a ‘before’ and an ‘after’ of the burial place of John Gravill, a listed monument with Historic England. John Gravill, died on December 26^th 1866, whilst his whaler was entombed in ice in the Davis strait.

His body was brought back for burial in Hull. His funeral was attended by over 20,000 people. This figure was probably about a third of the entire population of the town at that time.

Now, I sent some of these photographs along to the National Federation of Cemetery Friends, along with some text and they replied saying that this was ideal and that it would be included in their next national newsletter. So, the work that the volunteers are doing will be seen on a much wider platform. In a sense it’s putting Hull General Cemetery on the national map, and for that all of us who care about the cemetery should be extremely grateful. Thank you Bill and all of his merry helpers.

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 Workhouse Graves of Hull General Cemetery

August 24, 2020August 24, 2020 by Adminin Books, Public Graves, Workhouse Graves, Catacombs and Crosses1 Comment

Part 2 of the *serialisation of ‘Public Graves, Workhouse Graves, Catacombs and Crosses‘ by Friends of Hull General Cemetery members Pete Lowden and Bill Longbone. See our Books page for more information on buying this and other books written by Bill and Pete.

Fear

Many older people used to have a morbid fear of entering the Western General Hospital, or, as it later became, the Hull Royal Infirmary, after its move in 1972, from Prospect Street to Anlaby Road. Kingston General Hospital on Beverley Road suffered a similar fate. It’s quite unaccountable.

My grandmother Jane, on my maternal side, was born in 1883 and died in 1956, so I barely knew her. She had an accident, a fall, not long before her death, and had to go into Western General.

My mother always recounted the story that Jane was beside herself with fear and begged with the ambulance people not to take her. On the whole it seems irrational. Why would someone feel fear of a place where people were hopefully going to make you well again?

The Workhouse

This reaction becomes more understandable, however, if one remembers that both of these buildings served as Workhouses for the parishes in which they stood, and that this fear was twofold. Most everyone of my grandmother’s generation would have wanted to avoid having to reside in the Workhouse.

This is not the place to give a detailed account of the workings of the New Poor Law of 1834, suffice to say that it made the sick, poor and the unemployed who could no longer fend for themselves, and who previously would have sued for outdoor relief, no longer eligible for that kind of support. They now must present themselves at the workhouse and reside there if they wanted support.

There were many more ramifications and additions to the above but put simply the New Poor Law created institutions that the disadvantaged of early Victorian society must have recourse to. The choice was simple but stark. Go to the Workhouse or starve.

So, one can see how an antipathy to a building that, until only recently, had been an object of fear, could cloud one’s judgement. My grandmother’s generation would never forget the fear of such institutions.

However, a more troubling fear for her generation in relation to the Workhouse was the fear of dying in there. Let’s examine how and why that fear was created.

Grave Robbing

Firstly, we need to examine what appears to be a totally different subject: grave robbing. On the face of it such an act of desecration lacks reason. Without taking into account the moral aspect, why would anyone want to steal such a thing? What could be the value in such an act?

Well, of course, to us today, a corpse is something that, quite frankly, we wouldn’t want to keep around the house. Apart from the obvious legal problems, the health issues would be something that we perhaps shouldn’t dwell on. To us a corpse, even of a loved relative, is something that we would want to dispense with quickly to the appropriate authorities. In the past however such ‘items’ were seen in a very different light.

Ruth Richardson has a title chapter in one of her books that perhaps exemplifies that specific difference. This title states, ‘the Corpse as a Commodity’ and that is the clearest explanation of the rise of grave robbing. Again, we are left with a question. Yes, O.K., people robbed graves and stole the bodies but who bought them and why? The answer to this question is a little clearer. The buyers of dead bodies were the medical profession.

Let’s explain how this strange state of affairs came about.

Once again, we have to turn to religion for the beginnings of this foul state of affairs.

The Romans, pagan Saxons, Vikings and many other peoples practised cremation as a form of disposal of bodies. With the rise of Christianity, which had appropriated the burial practices of the Jews, the body had to be buried whole.

Resurrection

The idea behind this was that upon resurrection the body would rise to face the Lord. So burial in the ground became the norm, especially in the Old World. Running alongside this idea was that bodily remains of the dead were to some extent sacrosanct and could not be examined

In pre-Christian Roman times there had been no such strictures and anatomical examinations had taken place, most notably by Galen in the first century CE. Along with Aristotle’s teachings these two men provided the basis of much of medical knowledge throughout the medieval period and only with the Renaissance in the 15^th century did it begin to be questioned.

However, by this time the idea of challenging such orthodoxy, which had by now the blessing and backing of the Papacy, could quite easily lead to being accused of heresy and burning at the stake. Such conditions did not encourage original thought.

Still, the pursuit of knowledge pushed the darkness back. Harvey in England, by using some of his own dead family, showed that blood circulated throughout the body and others too worked to understand the bodies that they stood up in.

However, there was a bottle neck in this voyage of discovery and that lay in the basic material with which they could work with: the human body itself.

The Murder Act

Anatomy of pigs, sheep and horses could only carry the explorer so far. So, the basis of the value of a human body began to become apparent. In 1752 the Murder Act allowed all who had committed murder and been found guilty to be executed and their bodies to be given to medical schools for dissection.

Unsurprisingly, this limited addition to the small number of legally acquired bodies failed to supply the medical schools with the ever-increasing demands of their over-subscribed anatomical dissecting lectures.

Hull Advertiser, 1830, body snatchers — *Fig 1: May 25^th, 1830, Hull Advertiser. A regular occurrence in Hull from the mid 1820’s onwa*rds

One of the things that our society has recognised for a long time, even without Adam Smith’s help, was the mechanism of supply and demand of commodities. Be it crack cocaine, bootleg liquor or organ transplants, if there is demand for such things, someone will step forward to supply the product.

Enter the grave-robber.

It’s not the point of this piece to relate the story of grave robbing although it is particularly interesting and my family has a small part in it. Suffice to say that it was a thriving industry and met a need.

There were some legal niceties that it showed up as well, not least of which was that, was a corpse anyone’s property?

As such their activities demanded legal changes and the result of this was the Anatomy Act. This Act was passed in 1832, and such was the popular feeling against, not only the graverobbers, but members of the medical profession, that this Act took precedence over other matters in Parliament.

The Anatomy Act

The Great Reform Act of that year took second place to the Anatomy Act’s passage. The Act historians point out was effectively the beginning of parliamentary representation by the people. Yet it was elbowed out of the way due to the increasing fear of the grave robber.

With the passage of the Anatomy Act the bottom fell out of the market in dead bodies and many were the wails of grief from the grave robbers accompanied by sighs of relief from the relatives of the recently deceased.

The medical profession did not join in these waves of conflicting emotions as they now had what they wanted: a legal method of obtaining corpses to practice on.

Where was this fund of dead people going to come from?

Why the poor of course.

Fig 2: A tomb in Nunhead Cemetery, 2019, still having its protective grill-work to stop the corpses being stolen by grave robbers. Nunhead was opened in 1840 so the risk was still present then.

One of the clauses of the Anatomy Act, implemented on the 1^st August 1832, was that the poor of the workhouses who had the misfortune to die whilst in those grim Bastilles could supplement the murderers as victims of the dissectors.

This idea, first put forward by William Mackenzie, an ophthalmologist, of Glasgow went like this:-

Mackenzie’s suggestion was capacious: the body of anyone who died in an hospital, workhouse, poorhouse, house of correction or foundling hospital in any designated large cities, or, if supply was short , in any town or countryparish should be available for dissection as long as they were “unclaimed by immediate relatives” or who had “declined to defray the expenses of burial”.
the work of the dead, thomas w. laqueur

These ideas struck a chord. Not least with two influential people. One, Edwin Chadwick was the ‘brains’ behind the New Poor Law and also someone who took an interest in, amongst many things, the sanitary issues affecting the growth of towns in this industrial age. One of those sanitary issues was the disposal of the dead.

The other person, less well known but just as influential was Thomas Southwood Smith, a doctor and public health reformer who had already published a paper entitled, Use Of The Dead To The Living in 1827.

When he read Mackenzie contributions, he was mildly supportive but was moved to comment:-

Those who are supported by the public die in its debt’ and that they should be ‘converted to public use.
ibid

Where he differed from Mackenzie was that he thought that only the unclaimed bodies should be used and eventually this is how the Act was formulated.

The Act also had to satisfy the legality of acquiring bodies. Upon dying in the Workhouse, the body was, in effect, in the lawful possession of the Workhouse. If unclaimed within 48 hours then the Workhouse could see fit to seek whether the neighbouring medical schools would like to take the body. For a fee of course.

And this is where problems lay.

The Workhouse Poor

All one needed was a combination of an unscrupulous Workhouse master and an equally unethical medical student or school and the system could be exploited. In this situation we probably see the root of the fear that my grandmother’s generation and the generation before her so profoundly feared.

The slab of the Mortuary could beckon so easily. However, if relatives dissented from allowing their relative from being used in this way then the law allowed the body to be buried ‘on the parish’ without going through the rigours of dissection.

The problem with this was that the dissent had to be in writing and the levels of literacy within the population of the average Workhouse was depressingly poor. One wonders how may grieving relatives would have been spared by the use of a cross on the bottom of the form.

Once again, it’s not the work of this piece to examine the workings of the Anatomy Act here, suffice to say it was one of the most brazen Acts of Parliament that was specifically aimed at one group of people to their detriment.

Its justification was that the Act advanced science but it also showed what society felt about the poor amongst them. Both Richardson and Laqueur see the passing of the Anatomy Act and the passing of the New Poor Law Act two years later as twin attacks upon the poor.

As Laqueur pointedly states:-

‘The Anatomy Act of 1832 was the corporeal correlative of the despised 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act.’
P.360, Laqueur op. cit. also Richardson, op. cit. and her article ‘Why Was Death So Big in Victorian Britain?’ in Ralph Houlbrooke, Death, Ritual and Bereavement.

So now we come to the Workhouse and its burial places, to the ‘pauper grave’, so beloved of the Victorian novelist, the shame to be avoided at all costs. This is not to be confused with the ‘Public grave’.

Any inhabitant of the workhouse could be buried in a public grave. As long as the burial fees were paid by whomsoever, a pauper could be the occupant of a public grave.

A pauper’s grave, on the other hand, was one that was paid for by the parish via the Workhouse administration. It had similar aspects to a public grave in that it could not be bricked nor was it usual to allow memorials upon them, though of course that was dependent upon the cemetery rules.

Where it differed was mainly in the way the funeral was dealt with, the burial rites etc, which would have been minimal. There are stories of coffins being taken from the workhouse on carts in batches to the cemeteries.

Hull General Cemetery

This did not happen in Hull to my knowledge once Hull General Cemetery was opened. I’ll explain about this later.

The first interaction between the Hull General Cemetery and the workhouses situated in the Hull area took place in the December of 1847. This was some two months after the consecration of the cemetery took place.

At a special meeting of the Sculcoates Guardians held at the workhouse on Beverley Road on the 9^th December a resolution was passed, the wording of which, with its lack of punctuation, was this:-

The practice of crowded interments within the precincts of large towns having by the evidence of the most talented medical men and chemists of the day, taken before Parliament, been clearly shown to be most injurious to the health of the living as well as tending to the spreading of disease, pestilence and death amongst the inhabitants surrounding the districts wherein such crowded interments take place. That it is the imperative duty of this Board toput an end so far as they can to the countenancing of any future interments with the existing fearfully crowded graveyards of this Borough; and therefore from and after the first day of January next all future burials under the control of this Board shall take place within the grounds of the Hull General Cemetery Company and that the Governor of this house is hereby instructed and authorised to take the necessary steps for carrying this resolution into effect. – a note was also read from the Governor inviting the Directors to meet the Finance Committee of the workhouse in reference to the Interments of the dead at the Cemetery.
Hull General cemetery minute book 1845-1854

This was a more successful arrangement. However, there was a twist in the tail.

Part of the conditions on which the burials will take place in the cemetery is that the Company only charge 1/- to the workhouse authorities or to the friends of the deceased paupers for a search for a burial for any length of time back and certificate thereof and that the cemetery Company convey the bodies in a hearse at their own expense from the Workhouse and also from the residences of the out poor to the cemetery and remove the bodies within 3 hours after notice of death being left at their offices in Bowlalley lane.
ibid

Victorian melodrama

This arrangement created some problems for the Company in the future, and in the interim it cost the Cemetery Company £37 3s 4d for the purchase of a hearse. Due to this agreement I can say with some assurance that the pauper funerals of the Victorian melodramas were not the norm in Hull.

In March of the following year at the AGM of the Company the chairman stated;

Your directors have, as stated in the public newspapers, concluded arrangements with the Governor and guardians of the poor of Hull and with the Guardians of Sculcoates Union by which the whole of the paupers from the Hull and Sculcoates workhouses are now interred in the cemetery.’
ibid

This went down well with the shareholders but was not strictly accurate because, as we have seen, an arrangement was made with Hull, but no firm arrangement had been made with the Sculcoates board as yet. Indeed, there never was a formal arrangement with this Poor Law Union. The Sculcoates Guardians could still call upon the southern cemetery in Sculcoates Lane to cater for their burials, an option that the Hull Workhouse were denied.

In the same speech the chairman went on to say;

In making this arrangement your directors have not been actuated by any mere feeling of profit to the Cemetery but from a sincere desire (so far as in them lay) to aid the authorities of the town in their laudable efforts for sanitary reform by removing from the overcrowded grave yards of this place all such funerals as those referred to and thereby unedifying to that extent an evil so often complained of in local journals.
Hull General Cemetery minute book, 1845-1854

Good Business

These altruistic sentiments, not motivated by this ‘mere feeling of profit’, may be taken with a pinch of salt. If the Company really were so moved by the town’s problems, they would no doubt have donated the land freely so it would be wise to dispense with taking too much notice of this speech. It was business that led the two sides together. It was good business for the Workhouses in that it removed an issue that inconvenienced their working routine, and for the Company it guaranteed a steady custom at a time when it needed such a reliable income stream.

Both Workhouses and the Company appeared to be happy with these arrangements until, as seemed almost inevitable in the Company’s dealings, a disagreement arose over, of all things, a change in the times of when paupers’ funerals took place. Reverend James Sibree, the nonconformist chaplain of the Cemetery Company, requested, in the September of 1854, that such kinds of funerals take place at 3.00 p.m. rather that the previously arranged 4.00 p.m. An innocuous request the Company obviously thought but, being them, they decided to raise the stakes and the fee that they wanted for the interment. So, they informed both sets of Poor Law Guardians of these changes in early September.

The Hull Board agreed, no doubt reluctantly, to these new changes, as it was their principal job to keep the poor law rate down for the rate payers. The Sculcoates Board reacted in a very different manner and,

declined to concur in the alteration but should consider themselves at liberty to bury paupers dying chargeable to the union in any burying ground they might think proper.
HULL GENERAL CEMETERY MINUTE BOOK, 1854-1889

The superintendent, John Shields, informed the board that the Sculcoates Board had sent no paupers for burial since the Company had sent them the initial letter, and the Sculcoates Board continued in this way for the rest of the life of the Cemetery. Where the Company misjudged the situation was, as mentioned earlier, the Sculcoates Board had other options for burial places and in being high handed the Company lost a reliable source of revenue.

At the AGM in March 1856 the chairman informed the shareholders that they were in negotiations with the Hull Board of Guardians. By the September of that year those negotiations had reached the point where a plot of land was being inspected.

However, both sets of negotiators must have been hard to please for no deal was struck for another three years. This covenant signed by the Hull Board and the Company was celebrated at the following year’s AGM with the chairman stating,

Your directors have pleasure in informing the shareholders that the pending arrangements with the Governor and Guardians of the poor have been brought to a successful conclusion and that the necessary deeds for carrying out the same have been engrossed and are now waiting completion by the governor and guardians here, your board and the poor law board in London who have signified their assent to the arrangement between the parties
Hull general cemetery minute book, 1854-1889

The details were that the Workhouse authorities were to pay £35 rental per annum for one acre where the poor of the united parishes of Holy Trinity and St Mary’s would be buried. The Cemetery Company accepted that they would drain and plant the site and the Poor Law Guardians would continue paying the same fees as they had done since the Cemetery opened.

And there we have the origins of the workhouse area in Hull General Cemetery, with its obelisk to John Fountain, the chairman of the Poor Law Guardians, and the chief negotiator with the Company back in the 1850’s, who was buried, at his request, amongst the paupers, which sits there still.

1902

In 1902 the area was increased with the area to the north of it being used for workhouse burials, both consecrated and unconsecrated. Kelly said that the area had been raised by tons of soil being dumped there over the years and that some of it would need to be removed. One of the directors suggested that he would enquire of the Education authorities to see whether it could be used in the construction of some of the Board Schools.

Hull Genetral Cemetery workhouse ground 2017 — Fig 3: Workhouse ground, Hull General Cemetery, 2017 looking north.

In 1911 and in 1917 inspections of the Workhouse area by the Guardians were not successful and complaints arrived in the board room. In 1911, the Guardians,

suggested that an attempt might be made to remedy the inequalities of the surface of the burial ground by levelling it as far as practicable. The secretary having promised to do the best he could do to the ground in that regard, the sub-committee declared they would be satisfied
hull general cemetery minute book, 1889-1924

Kelly, the secretary, did what he could, and in 1917 the Company refuted any complaint from the Guardians about the state of the workhouse ground. Kelly, however, conducted a survey of the ground, relaying this back to the board in 1918.

The secretary made a report on the Workhouse Burial Ground. The position as regards room for further interments and the financial aspect of the company’s working of the ground. It was pointed out that the yearly sum for the use of the ground and its upkeep and the sums received for the services and labour involved in conveying the dead and their burial in the ground are under the present conditions of greatly increased costs of horse keep. The company practically keep the horse for the single purpose of fetching pauper dead for burial and labour which is quite inadequate and unsuitable. RESOLVED that the secretary to write a letter to the Governor and Guardians of the Poor pointing out the facts and that he submits a draft of such letter to the Company’s chairman for approval before sending it to the Board of Guardians.
ibid

A letter from the Board to the Guardians was approved and sent in October 1918, and the reply, just before the Christmas that year, appeared to accede to the Company’s request and agreed,

an increase of 50% in the charges for the conveyance to the Cemetery and burial of deceased paupers in the workhouse burial ground for a period of six months from the 20^th November ultimo.
hull general cemetery minute book, 1889-1924

However, the area designated for workhouse burials could not be increased still further and the Company,

approved a letter drafted by the sec. to be sent to the Hull Board of Guardians giving them an intimation of the nearness (about 3 months hence) of the time when the workhouse burial ground will no longer be capable of receiving bodies for interment.
ibid

By the October of 1920 a new agreement was in place, relating to the workhouse area being full in the near future and the minutes of the Board, with their lack of punctuation. recorded this.

Adverting to the visit of the committee of the Board of Guardians previously reported and to the letter of the 9^th June last in answer to the committee’s request containing the offer of the company when the present arrangement ends, namely to provide the necessary graves, dig and fill in the same and give the necessary attention at each burial for a fee of 10/- per body plus the minister’s fees which is at present 2/6d leaving the Guardians to arrange for the conveyance of the bodies to the cemetery and for bearers as is the general custom, the company being at liberty to say where each grave shall be made and not to be obliged to set apart any particular part of the cemetery for the exclusive burial of these bodies and that these terms subsist for 12 months and then be subject to revision. The secretary reported that the offer had beenaccepted by the Guardians with the single modification that it should be for 6 months only.
hull general cemetery minute book, 1889-1924

This modification should have given an inkling to the Company of how the Poor Law Guardians’ thoughts were moving.

The Last Internment

The last interment in what is now known as the workhouse area took place on the 26^th November 1920. From now on the Company would try to slot in workhouse graves as and where it could in the steadily diminishing area left to the Cemetery Company.

That this situation was not, for whatever reason, something the Guardians were completely happy with must have been obvious to the Company. It therefore probably came as no surprise, in the April of 1921, with the letter stating that the agreement would be terminated,

on the 26^th May, the Guardians having arranged with the Hull Corporation for such burials at the Corporation’s Northern Cemetery.
ibid

From this date the Cemetery Company had no further workhouse burials. It was the end of an era.

And now we come to the question often asked. How many people were buried in this area?

Without scanning the burial records of the Cemetery Company and counting each individual interment it is difficult to be precise.

But let’s get a related issue out of the way here that could conceivably cause some confusion. This is that some workhouse interments would, due to the relatives or friends of the deceased claiming their body, have been buried in public graves.

So not all workhouse interments were in the area designated as the workhouse burial plot.

Also remember that prior to the agreement of 1859 workhouse burials would have taken place across the cemetery in the aforesaid public graves but these would have been pauper funerals.

Therefore, a precise tally of workhouse burials throughout the cemetery would necessitate a strict tallying from the burial records.

The Final Mystery

Another issue which would again cloud these calculations is how many people were buried in each grave?

This is a very debateable issue. C.S. Todd, the Company solicitor, gave evidence to a government inspector, that when the cemetery was initially laid out there had been one or two ‘test’ graves dug to ascertain the drainage.

He said these had been dug to a depth of 14 feet. This is a considerable depth.

From my own experience working as a gravedigger, this would have allowed up to seven adults to be buried in one plot. If one then brings in the prospect of young or still born children, into this equation, who, by their very nature take up less space than an adult, we may have up to 20 plus corpses in a single grave.

So just counting the grave spaces doesn’t really get us much further in this endeavour. So, we again come back to the fact that to gain any precision in this venture an accurate, line by line, accounting of the burials has to be undertaken.

I have not taken this route. I have used the approximation method, and for that matter, Michael Kelly used a similar method when the workhouse area was close to being full. We have no real idea why he computed this equation, although he did appear to enjoy making calculations sometimes for their own sake.

In 1900 Michael Kelly calculated that there were 150 workhouse burials per annum.

I presume that he computed this figure from the burial records although whether this was on the basis of the previous year or a running average of so many years, we have no way of knowing.

If we take this figure, and knowing that workhouse burials stopped in April 1921 I believe we can make some reasonable guesses.

Knowing also that the Cemetery, serendipitously opened its gates in April 1847, this allows 74 years for workhouse burials to have taken place in the Cemetery.

Remember, this is for the full cemetery not just the workhouse area. The multiplication of 150 workhouse burials per annum by the 74 years that the burials took place gives us an impressive 11,100 workhouse burials out of the 54,000 plus burials that took place in the Cemetery during its life time.

Is this a reasonable figure?

It would equate to close to 20% of all burials in the Cemetery were workhouse burials, be that in public graves or parish ones.

If we accept that the poor were probably more likely to die than the affluent, or even the ‘just about managing’, this figure reflects this.

Another factor to take into account is that we have seen that the Sculcoates Board of Guardians withdrew from using the cemetery in the 1850’s.

How many more workhouse interments would there have been if they had continued to contribute for the next 60 years or so? I think we can safely say that it would have compared well with the Hull Board’s mortality figures.

Which means that the cemetery could have been up to 40% full of workhouse burials and this figure should surely bring home graphically the inequitably of Victorian society.

However, that last part is conjecture. Michael Kelly, as mentioned earlier, was intrigued by this computation and returned to it in 1914.

Here are his calculations in Fig 4: As you can see, he was trying to see how much space was left, as by this time, space was at a premium in the cemetery. That is why his calculations are predominantly in square yards. His base figure here is 4,840 square yards which is one acre and thereafter he is attempting to take area from this base figure to account for roads, tree and used grave spaces. However, he has done some of the heavy lifting here in that he appears to have counted up the workhouse interments in this area. He states that at the end of 1914 there were 9716 interments.

He also computed the grave spaces used and came to the conclusion that there had been five interments in each grave. That would be 10 feet deep which is a good depth on a site that is prone to waterlogging due to the proximity of both the vestigial remains of the Spring Ditch and the Derringham Dyke. I know that 10 feet was the maximum depth that municipal graves were dug so the likelihood of this figure being accurate is reasonable.

Michael Kelly written notes — *Fig 4: Michael Kelly’s written notes and calculations regarding the workhouse ground in Hull General Cemetery. Not dated but the ‘end of 1914’ is written.*

However, as can be seen in his notes, Kelly can’t make the figures fit his original estimate of 4,840 square yards. With 20 trees, and a space, ‘rd mont’, which I take to a space around John Fountain’s obelisk he comes to the figure 44 grave spaces. He feels this equates to 310 square yards.

The roads in this part of the site he had already felt covered 420 square yards. He then took this figure from his base figure, leaving him 4,110 square yards.

Where the difficulty seems to have appeared is that, after working out the interments, and allocating them the grave spaces, this figure comes to more than an acre, 4,857 square yards, never mind his reduced figure of 4,110 square yards.

And again, if we look at the note Kelly originally wrote,

Therefore, a greater average than 5 must have been put in grave.
see fig. 4

Later he crossed out ‘a greater’ and substituted ‘of’ for ‘than’ changing the meaning of this note. Strange behaviour you may think. These were after all rough notes, written on the back of part of the Cemetery’s stone masonry work books. Why did he make these changes?

Of course, we may never really know the answer to that question, but I would suggest that, during this period the Company was trying to sell the Cemetery to the municipal authorities.

As a result of this, at least twice in the first decades of the 20^th century and possibly more often, the Company had to open its books to the Corporation’s inspection, no doubt including all paperwork.

The inspections were undertaken by Mr Witty, the Cemetery superintendent at Western Cemetery, so there was no way of pulling the wool over an inexperienced eye, even if Kelly had wanted to.

Why he ‘doctored’ the note on the Workhouse area in the way outlined above seems pointless as, if necessary, Mr Witty, could take his time and count up the burials as Kelly had done.

I may well be wrong and there could be another explanation for his actions in this way, but it is difficult to get to the bottom of it.

So, with this final mystery, the story of the Workhouse burial area in Hull General Cemetery comes to an end. The area stands now as mute testimony to a time in British society when being poor, destitute and helpless was viewed as a bigger crime than many others on the statute books.

It highlights what the outcome is when we talk of Victorian values today, and perhaps can make us think of the people who were the victims of a society that judged people by how much money they had, rather than what they were worth as human beings.

In this way, this acre of ground, with its approximate 10,000 plus burials in it, gives us an opportunity to stand back and take stock of what is important in our society today. They may be mute but their silence still shouts loudly to us.

Admin

Photographer, web designer, wanderer, wonderer

krudeforth.co.uk

Public Grave, Public Shame?

July 6, 2020August 7, 2020 by Adminin Books, Public Graves, Workhouse Graves, Catacombs and Crosses

Part 1 of the *serialisation of ‘Public Graves, Workhouse Graves, Catacombs and Crosses‘ by Friends of Hull General Cemetery members Pete Lowden and Bill Longbone. See our Books page for more information on buying this and other books written by Bill and Pete.

If like me, you acquire, almost by default, the printed word in many forms, there comes a time when, to avoid negotiating moving to the living room from the kitchen without knocking into towering piles of books or newspapers, something has to be done.

About six months ago whilst leafing through a number of magazines before they went to the charity shops, I came across an article from the 2018 Heritage Open Days brochure. I’d missed it before so I sat down to have a quick read.

The article talked about public graves in Hull General Cemetery and by mentioning ‘communal coffin’ it implied that poverty was the deciding factor in their place of rest. Still later in the article the phrase used was, ‘Some 20,000 of them (burials) were probably buried in public/pauper or workhouse graves.’

The conflation of ‘public’ and ‘pauper’ caused me to blink.

This is factually incorrect I thought. As it was, I had already been preparing an article on this very subject and this gave me a delicate kick up the backside to get it done. Here it is.

Communal Coffin

Let’s dispense with this idea of a ‘communal coffin’ immediately. In the middle ages you would have been fairly wealthy to merit a coffin although recent archaeological work in Hull at the Blackfriargate site found the use of coffins quite common. Still that could have been untypical of the population at large. By the time of the Restoration in the 1660’s, and it is common knowledge that Charles II did his utmost to help the woollen industry by decreeing that all bodies should be buried in a shroud, it was beginning to be normal for people to be buried in a coffin.

There is still a communal coffin that resides at Easingwold but experts say this is probably of Tudor or maybe early Stuart make. There were no records of this coffin ever having being used in the parish records and it may simply have been kept as a historical artefact. Richardson cited, that it was seen as an oddity in 1820.

By the time of the opening of Hull General Cemetery everyone was buried in a coffin. It may have been poorly made, simply of unfinished boards, but no one had to suffer the indignity of simply a shroud burial. Even the people who died from the Cholera epidemic in 1849 in Hull were not subjected to that.

Workhouse coffins were a fact. Indeed Dickens remarked upon a workhouse funeral in Oliver Twist and, even though he was wanting to use his artistic licence to show how degrading the funeral was, for example the bearers having to trot to the grave side and the funeral dress that was lent to the relatives being taken back by the undertaker at the grave side, the body was still given a coffin. I hope that clarifies that particular issue.

One of the other common misconceptions that people jump to when investigating their family history is that they believe that if the burial record states the person being investigated was buried in a public grave then they were poor. Apart from the problem of assigning an absolute definition of the term ‘poor’, or even a relative one, and I’m not getting into that, there is little evidence to suggest that the choice made to be buried in a public grave was in any way something to deplore.

Uncle Tom and Antie Elsie

When investigating burial practice before the modern era we must be careful that we don’t take our modern values with us. One of those modern values is that a family will be buried together in the family grave. We would look askance if Uncle Tom was buried some years later after Aunt Elsie’s funeral in another part of the cemetery. How can that be? Surely there’s been some mistake? Well, yes, now there probably would be some administrative error. But in the past, it would have been the norm.

Let me explain that. Simply put family graves were the province of the rich and wealthy from the middle ages onwards. Of interest here is that prior to 1100 even the rich and famous were buried in public graves. Yes, they may well have been placed in vaults in an abbey or parish church but those vaults were, under the ledger stone, communal.

And of course, history can play tricks on even the best laid plans. For instance, there is no exact spot known of where the remains of King Richard I, or his father Henry II are buried. William the Conqueror’s grave was destroyed in the French Revolution leaving a leg bone and that is of dubious provenance.

Of course, the burial of a family member was still just as important to the people left as it is now. The desire to be buried within the same grave as a loved one is, and was, natural and to the best of their ability the church would attempt to meet that need, and their attempts to succeed would probably match how high up the social scale the advocate was.

Disposal

However, the disposal of the body, once sanctified and cleansed by the rites of the church, was, in the final analysis, a secondary thing in medieval times. The body was seen as the vessel of the soul, an entity much more important that the mere body. And it was this entity that occupied the thoughts, feelings and hopes of the living. For they too would meet such an end. This led to the cult and imagery of Memento Mori but that’s another story.

In the medieval period, especially after the Black Death, the notion of purgatory began to take precedence. This notion, put simply, was that upon death, the soul would be weighed. If no sin was found, something thought to be highly unlikely in most cases, then heaven beckoned. If the soul was sinful then it was cast down into eternal damnation. The vast majority of souls however would be found wanting, in that they were not pure nor were they entirely evil, and therefore they were placed into purgatory. This was believed to be a kind of limbo.

The theory was that a soul in purgatory however could be helped by intercessions from the living. So, a family could pay for prayers to be said, candles burnt and chants to be sung that would help the soul eventually reach heaven. In some senses during this period, until the Reformation, it could be said that the dead and the living were constantly in touch with each other.

Wills often stipulated that so many prayers etc, should be sung for the dead soul departed. Entire sections of buildings were erected and attached to churches to enable such ‘chants’ to be exercised. Thus, were born the chantries, one of which still exists attached to the south side of the Minster.

The church also profited from this, so encouraged this practice. Monks and friars to sing, candles to burn, all had to be paid for and the church reaped the benefit. This was one of the many issues that lead to the Reformation in Northern Europe including England.

The Reformation

With the Reformation, the idea of purgatory was stamped out. The essence of Protestant belief was that no amount of intercession on the part of the living could affect the departed soul’s brush with God. The only way for the soul to go to heaven was to do good in the present world whilst alive. The bond between the living and dead was broken.

Of course, after nearly a millennium of Christian teaching, it was always going to be difficult to change such embedded beliefs. Unsurprisingly the threat of death at the stake or worse can ‘encourage’ a change in viewpoint. And so, it did. The idea of praying for a soul to escape purgatory vanished quite quickly. The funeral now became the focal point of grief and sorrow. The protestant faith frowned upon lavish funerals. It felt that a simple burial was enough because the corpse was simply the refuse left behind.

But human nature being what it is, the family began to want ‘extras’ at the funeral to demonstrate their grief. So began the undertaking business. The first adverts for undertakers are usually cited as beginning after the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 and they are definitely quite numerous by 1680.

In this way the disposal of the body became, perhaps, more important than the soul, as the family left on earth could not influence the soul’s date with destiny, but they sure could influence how the corpse was disposed of! And if it made Mr & Mrs Jones next door sit up, well, all to the good.

However, this ostentatious display, and I’m again really talking here of the wealthy and the newly emerging merchant class, was just that. To be seen and marvelled at. Once the body was in the ground, well, the observers couldn’t marvel at that, so it was ignored. The very wealthy of course could take the next step and devise lavish family mausoleums but often these were in their own grounds. However, this is not to miss the beginning of memorialisation that started to take hold at the very top of the apex of society around this time.

By the beginning of the 18^th century, memorials began to become more common, although still restricted to the top 2 or 3 % of the population. Often, they became flooring for the inside of churches whilst the body commemorated shared a communal vault space in the crypt below the church or chapel.

The Charnel House

For the common people, they still retained their inalienable right to be buried in their parish church yard. Of course, space in them was always at a premium. Which leads us nicely to the concept of the charnel house. Charnel houses were common throughout the medieval period and perhaps even earlier in more populated areas. Sometimes known as ossuaries, they were, in essence, where the overspill of the cemetery around the church was removed to. Their use enabled the church yard to continue without having to continually expand.

It was the role of the sexton, when another burial was to take place, to seek a space to bury this body. And he did this by using a large rod, possibly metal but more usually oak, and thrust it into the soil until he located …. nothing.

Knowing that a burial would have taken place there in the past, he knew that the coffin had decayed and thus the body would have had time to become disarticulated. He then dug down to the required depth, probably no more than 3 feet, and removed the bones of the body and took them to the charnel house and eventually to storage in the crypt of the church. By this method the church yard could continue to function.

Let’s just take a minute to examine what we have here. This method obviously helped the community. The people still had their inalienable right of burial in the parish. The community was fully aware of the removal of bones from the graveyard, and indeed knew that they could have been of a distant relative or ancestor yet this ‘sacrilege’ was not only tolerated but accepted as a necessary part of the functioning of the church yard.

It is obvious that this community did not place more reverence than was necessary on a pile of bones. This practice was common until the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution in the 1740/50’s when church yards in urban areas began to break down under the massive increase in population that began in this period.

Memorialisation

Another factor that began to fracture this system was the rise of memorialisation. If a stone was placed upon a grave then it was felt, probably quite rightly by the buyers of the stone, that Uncle Tom should continue to stay in the grave if the stone above the grave said he was there. Remember we are still talking of something like 10 to 15% of the population at most and probably less.

Unfortunately, with the increase in population and the increase of memorialisation the system that had allowed the church yard to function began to collapse. With this radical change began the advent of the cemetery, divorced from the church yard. Examples in Hull and Sculcoates of this are Castle Street for Holy Trinity, Trippet Street for St Mary’s and Sculcoates South Side for St Mary’s, Sculcoates. This innovation eventually led to the establishment of Hull General Cemetery and the municipal cemeteries in the city.

Christianity

From the beginning of Christianity until the 20^th century, the vast amount of people who died were buried in graves that were essentially public ones. The entire churchyards of the Minster and St Mary’s would have been public graves until their closure to further burials in 1855. Yes, there may well have been memorials erected to family members, but owing to the confined space, the space beneath may well have had interlopers.

That the Hull General Cemetery Company sold both public and private graves upon its opening is quite clearly stated in its pricing. And that approximately half of the ones sold were public shouldn’t surprise us as this was the norm. Yes, it was a cheaper option for the distressed family than the purchase of a family plot, and this factor cannot be ignored and such a factor is still relevant in choosing a funeral and grave today.

However, it was still a decorous burial as opposed to the much cheaper, but more grotesque, option of a burial in the churchyards that were still open, or in Castle and Trippet Street’s burial grounds that were just as over filled and noxious.

That people chose the option of a public grave in Hull General Cemetery therefore shows that they were not so much counting the pennies but actively choosing another better option for their loved ones.

Below are two examples of family grave headstones. One is from Hull General Cemetery and one is from Nunhead Cemetery in London.

They are examples of their kind. They advertise that they are family graves by having it inscribed upon the stone. It is and was a status symbol, and as the grave costs more than the average grave, the owners wanted to make people aware of that fact. In much the same way that someone would leave their ‘super-duper’ phone lying around or leave their Porsche keys ‘casually’ on the coffee table these days. It was meant to make you stare and be jealous and maybe aspire.

Fig 1: Image of a Family Grave in Hull General Cemetery.

Fig 2: Image of Family grave, Nunhead Cemetery. This one even gives the address of the family

The decline of the public grave was essentially a 20^th century phenomenon, and even there, economics had a trump card to play.

1970s

I worked in cemeteries in the 1970’s and I was often intrigued by the concept of ‘perpetuity’ when applied to graves. It was explained to me that these people had bought a grave but that only applied for 85 years and after that, if the council wanted to, further bodies could be buried in it if there was space. These further bodies would not necessarily have been related to the other occupants.

So, the ‘public’ grave continued but under another name and probably, in time, will make a comeback, as land for burials becomes more difficult for local authorities to utilise. Now, about the ‘pauper’s’ grave. Well that’s a whole other story. Maybe when I’m next clearing stuff out I might remember to tell that one.

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