tree Archives - Friends Of Hull General Cemetery

Cemetery Wildlife – July 2022

July 28, 2022 by Helen Bovillin General, News, Volunteers, Wildlife1 Comment

July has been another dry month, with hardly any rain. In the middle of the month there were some extremely high temperatures, reaching the mid-30s on some days and breaking the record set in 1990 for the hottest ever day in Hull. Potentially challenging conditions for the cemetery wildlife!

Plants

As a result of the hot and dry conditions some of the plants, especially along the grass verge, are not looking very good. I hope at least some of the new ones the volunteers planted last month will survive, but it has been an uphill struggle trying to keep them watered. There is no running water supply in this cemetery – the nearest supply is in the adjoining Western Cemetery but at the Chanterlands Avenue end.

Some of the trees are looking slightly autumnal as a result of this weather.

But there is some traditional summer colour in the Quaker Burial Ground, such as the Meadow Cranesbill at the start of this report, and some Crocosmia. I realise this isn’t a wild flower, but it has been there for many years and deserves a mention. Even flowers and shrubs that are not native wild ones still have value to the cemetery wildlife.

Birds

An evening walk in the cemetery just before sunset is a great place to cool down and enjoy nature. The birds are still singing including this Song Thrush perched right at the top of its tree. A regular visitor to the cemetery has seen Tawny Owls and an Owlet on several occasions. It’s very reassuring to know that although the nest box had not been used by the Owls this year, they are still visiting the cemetery.

Blackbirds are another species that sing loudly in the evening. Quite often the evening chorus is just as loud and beautiful as the dawn chorus.

There are lots of the smaller birds around, including plenty of fledgelings. Blue Tits, Great Tits and Robins all have successfully raised their young. Wood Pigeons are still mating high up in the trees. They nest until October and can have young in the nest a lot longer than the smaller birds because they are not dependent on insects as a food supply. They make their own type of “milk” in their crop to feed their young.

Other birds seen regularly this month were Goldfinches, Chaffinches, Dunnocks and Stock Doves.

Butterflies

I’ve seen plenty of white butterflies in the cemetery, flying fast and quite low to the ground as they look for suitable places to lay their eggs. This Large White stopped just long enough to lay a couple of eggs and then she was off in search of other suitable sites to lay the rest of them.

I also saw a Meadow Brown flying along the grass verge, stopping just long enough for me to confirm what it was. This is the first time I’ve seen one in this location, but it doesn’t mean this species has never been seen in the cemetery.

I’ve also seen Speckled Woods this month but generally it has been rather quiet for butterflies.

Conclusion

This is a shorter report than usual because the lack of rain has meant less growth of new plants and less species of insect around. Let’s hope August sees a decent amount of rain to stir the dormant seeds in the ground and produce fresh growth for the late summer cemetery wildlife! Cemetery Wildlife – June 2022

Helen Bovill

Helen is a keen photographer and nature lover. She spent a large part of her working life at the Land Registry. She is a member of the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and various other similar organisations. Living close to the Cemetery for over 30 years she has seen the fortunes of the site fluctuate and has joined the FOHGC to make a positive difference.

Cemetery wildlife – May 2022

May 24, 2022 by Helen Bovillin Volunteers, Wildlife1 Comment

CEMETERY WILDLIFE – MAY 2022

Weather-wise May has been a month of contrasts, with plenty of warm sunny days and some cooler days too. But in the last half of the month, we had quite a few rainy days. The rain wasn’t particularly heavy or persistent but there was enough of it to leave a few small puddles behind. This will have been a most welcome sight to the cemetery wildlife, especially the birds and mammals.

Cemetery Wildlife April 2022

Trees and Plants

The leaves on the trees are now fully open. The last to undergo this process is the Ash – at the beginning of the month the flowers appeared and the leaves started to open. The leaves are now fully open and those flowers have started to develop into seeds, known as keys.

The above photo was taken at the beginning of the month.

The Laburnum the volunteers planted in the Quaker Burial Ground last year is thriving, and it produced lots of flowers, starting at the beginning of the month.

May is the best month to see the swathes of Wild Garlic growing throughout the cemetery. It is also known as Ramsons and looks and smells wonderful!

The Bluebells looked at their best this month. The vast majority of them are the non-native, Spanish variety planted many years ago and appear in pink and white varieties too.

There is also lots of Cow Parsley growing in the cemetery and on the grass verge. Some Hogweed has started to appear too. I was surprised to find an Oilseed Rape plant growing next to a tree on the grass verge!

I’ve noticed plenty of Garlic Mustard growing in the cemetery and on the grass verge – a lot more than last year. This is good news for the Orange-tip butterfly as this is one of its main larval food plants.

The Red Campion is now flowering – there is more of it than last year, on the grass verge and inside the cemetery in the grassy central area. Herb Robert is in flower too along the southern footpath.

There are not so many Dandelions in flower at the moment but there are plenty of other yellow wildflowers to be seen, including Buttercups, Smooth Sow-thistle, Hawks-beard, Wood Avens and Hedge Mustard.

Insects

It’s nice to be writing about something different because here’s an insect I saw for the first time ever, and it was the cemetery too! It’s a Scarce Fungus Weevil or Cramp-ball Fungus Weevil and I saw four of them.

You might recall back in December last year I wrote about this strange-looking fungus, called King Alfred’s Cakes or Cramp Balls, which at the time were quite solid. The Weevil lays its eggs inside the fungus and some of the fungi are now quite hollow from having been eaten by the larvae.

There are lots of Ladybirds around – native species and Harlequins too. There are plenty of Bees around, and hoverflies. I also saw another Bee-fly.

There are still Orange-tip butterflies in flight along the grass verge and inside the cemetery. It’s been a very good year for these butterflies, not just here but in other parts of the county according to other people I’ve spoken to.

I’ve also seen Holly Blues, Speckled Woods, Green-veined Whites and Small Whites. The white butterflies are very difficult to identify in flight but when they come to rest it’s much easier to confirm what they are.

Birds

Staying with the cemetery wildlife of the air, I got up very early on the first Sunday of the month for International Dawn Chorus Day. There were so many birds singing, including Robins, Chaffinches, Blackbirds, Blue Tits, Great Tits, Thrushes, Wrens, Dunnocks and Blackcaps. But as the leaves on the trees were almost fully open by then, it was very much a case of heard but (rarely) seen! These are the best photos I could manage –

I also caught a brief glimpse of a Fox during my Dawn Chorus walk – it darted across the footpath ahead of me but was gone before I could get my camera out.

Later in the month I saw a female Blackcap in the same area as a male I saw a couple of times. I hope they’re a pair and will successfully raise some young.

The Chiffchaffs were still singing during the first half of the month but I haven’t heard any recently. I’ve also seen Long-tailed Tits and Goldfinches, and I caught a very brief glimpse of a Goldcrest.

There are plenty of the larger birds around, such as Carrion Crows, Magpies and Wood Pigeons. I’ve seen four Stock Doves now – this is a species that used to be a rare sight in the cemetery a few years ago but now I see them every day.

Conclusion

Just like last month, May has also been a month of abundance in terms of plant growth. The leaves on the trees are fully open, providing a cool canopy to walk under on a hot sunny day. And despite the rain the footpaths are still easy to walk on, but are a lot softer as I write this. The perfect conditions for a relaxing stroll to admire our wonderful cemetery wildlife!

Helen Bovill

The Sycamore

May 21, 2022 by Pete Lowdenin Volunteers, Wildlife

A few years ago I found this article about Sycamores. I remembered it when there was some argument about the balance between environmental concerns and heritage aspects of the site. I was constantly being told that only native plants should be in the cemetery. Non-native species would harm the delicate eco-balance.

When I pointed out to those people that the Sycamore was not a native tree, was a poor habitat for insects and birds and was effectively smothering out the remaining native trees I was met with silence and dismissed. Par for the course I suppose. It was probably deemed ‘Fake News’ in the parlance of today. Anyway I let it pass but the information in the article is too relevant to the present state of the cemetery to forget about so here’s the piece. See what you think.

Council recognition of the problem

When discussing this issue with the Council officers I said that 85% of the trees on the site were Sycamore to which they agreed and they also thought it was a problem. I asked whether a ‘cut and replace’ system could be instigated. This would be that a sycamore could be cut down and replaced with a native tree. They were honest and said the Council could not afford it and they were glad that the FOHGC were doing what they could in this area.

‘Controlling the Invader’

CONTROLLING THE INVADER by Pierre Binggeli published in Tree News Autumn 1994, 14-15.

In Britain sycamore has been the source of much debate based chiefly on people’s personal biases for or against the species rather than on factual evidence. This is not restricted to sycamore but applies to many invasive plant species (e.g. rhododendron) and often result from a poor understanding of ecology and more importantly, from the transfer of human values to plants (Binggeli 1994). In Tree News (summer 1993) Morton Boyd wrote about the pros and cons of sycamore in nature conservation and, having investigated the biology and ecology of sycamore over the past 15 years, I have reached similar conclusions (Binggeli 1992, 1993a). However, my own research and an extensive literature search has brought to light many references and relevant information not available to Morton Boyd.

Origin

Although some people believe sycamore to be native (eg, Harris 1987), both ecological and historical evidence support the view that the species was introduced around the fifteenth century, although a Roman introduction cannot be excluded (wood said to be sycamore has been found at Langton Villa). The native range of sycamore does not extend as far as the Channel, the North Sea or Atlantic coast, but its introduction and spread has been recorded throughout the coastal areas from Brittany to Norway.

The first British records of sycamore originate from Scotland. In 1842 a tree near Dunblane was described as 440 years old. In The Protocol Book of James Young a reference is made to a plane tree growing in the Garden of Sir Andrew Wood of Largo in 1497. Although the tree could have been an Oriental Plane, there is strong circumstantial evidence to suggest that it was a sycamore. Trees called Siccamour or sicamour, which can be seen in illustrations to be sycamore, grew near Paris. Sir Andrew Wood, who was an important Leith sea captain, frequently traded along the same estuary near Paris and it would have been easy for him to bring a siccamour home to Leith. (S. Mowat 1993, pers. comm.).

PERCEPTION

In Britain people’s attitude towards sycamore has always been ambivalent. In the fifteenth century Evelyn (in Johns 1847) stated that sycamore should be banished from gardens and avenues because its honeydew-coated leaves which, after their fall, turned to mucilage and putrefied, whereas Johns (1847) considered sycamore to be “somewhat of a favourite”. In the late nineteenth century sycamore, because of its non-durable wood, was “often regarded as a weed among forest-trees and rigorously cut down” although its timber was highly valued (Simpson 1905). The prevalence of sycamore around farmsteads in the western parts of the British Isles indicate that during the nineteenth century farmers favoured the species, which is poorly recorded in the literature, but a certain amount of plant lore has been documented (Binggeli 1993b).

During the present century sycamore drew little attention until around the 1960s when the people’s attitude became at first negative, and more recently positive. Its low associated insect species-richness, invasive potential, prolific regeneration in urban areas and heavy honeydew production gave sycamore a poor reputation. Lately, sycamore has been extensively praised.

FORESTRY

In forestry sycamore will probably become an important timber tree in lowland Britain as agricultural land is converted to timber production. Trials are presently being carried out to assess sycamore in agroforestry systems. The Forestry Authority is currently selecting and propagating sycamore but their selection procedure is mainly based on general tree morphology, particularly of the trunk and large branches.

Because variation in sycamore is extensive the potential for selection and breeding is very high but not fully appreciated by researchers. The following traits are known to be very variable: budding time, age of first flowering, sex expression, seed production, susceptibility to aphids, and wood quality (eg, wavy-grain), all of which significantly affect tree morphology and/or growth rates. By carefully selecting these variable it should be possible to produce clones of fast growing and high quality timber sycamore.

INVASIVENESS

Sycamore invades different types of woodlands in the British Isles including birch, ash, alder and oak woods and many disturbed sites. However, the speed of invasion is usually slow because the conditions suitable for sycamore regeneration only occur at irregular intervals despite a regular seed production. Rootlet penetration following germination is prevented by compacted and dry soils. Young individuals are intolerant of grass competition and are susceptible to fungal attack and to grazing either by slugs and/or small rodents, whilst saplings are grazed by large herbivores.

The respective importance of these controlling factors is affected by light availability, soil nutrients and weather (chiefly rainfall). In fact, sycamore can be described as a gap species, which becomes established in treefall gaps, heavily disturbed areas, or under the canopy of low shade-casting species such as birch, sea buckthorn and alder.

CONSERVATION VALUE

Sycamore is known to have few associated insect species and an average number of epiphytic lichens. For short periods of time it is an important food source for some species of invertebrates (eg, bees) and vertebrates (eg, rodents). Observations by Frankis (1993 pers. comm.) suggest that insects in the flaking bark of old sycamore on the eastern coast of England are an important source of food for some migrating birds.

A high number of breeding birds are found in sycamore stands as long as the stand consist of a mosaic of isolated trees and shrubs but not of a continuous canopy. A complete sycamore canopy markedly reduces light levels and ground species-richness in the woodlands it invades. There is no substantiated evidence that sycamore improves the soil. In case of climate warming the sooty bark disease could become a health hazard to humans. People object to their honeydew-covered cars or park benches, as well as to weeding seedlings from their gardens.

In terms of the number of animal and plant species which are known to be associated with sycamore it can be concluded that sycamore is typical of most native trees. However, to evaluate the conservation value of sycamore or of any invasive species it is essential to answer the following questions. Are any of the animal and plant species associated with it not found on any other tree species? Would species associated with sycamore become extinct, or at least their populations decrease to dangerously low levels, if sycamore was eradicated from a particular site?

If the answers to one of these questions is a clear yes then sycamore must be conserved. Otherwise, from a conservation value point of view, it can be said that sycamore merely displaces native tree species or increases productivity. For instance, aphids falling into streams from overhanging trees are important food source for young salmon and trout (Gray 1993), but obviously not essential to their survival since these fish have thrived in British waters long before the introduction of sycamore and are presently found in rivers not lined with sycamore.

Since the amount of work, manpower and money necessary to remove sycamore and carry out detailed scientific surveys of sites or regions to determine the conservation value of sycamore is too great, an alternative management strategy must be sought. This strategy entails the careful management of the countryside including selective planting and eradication of seed producing trees from conservation and amenity areas.

THE FUTURE

Using the reproductive behaviour of sycamore it is possible to devise a management strategy which can accommodate the different, if not opposite, interests of conservation, horticulture and forestry. The reason why an exotic becomes the subject of much debate is because the species becomes invasive. Invasiveness results chiefly from a prolific and regular production of viable seeds. Although in plants most species are hermaphrodite, not all individuals will carry viable seeds because of the wide spectrum of sex expressions observed. As a result of careful observations it is possible to identify individuals which do not set viable seeds. This is the case in sycamore where about one percent of the trees are male flowering and another 20-50 per cent of the hermaphrodite individuals do not set viable seeds, although they do produce fruits (samaras). These individuals, which function as males, can be identified in the field by the distinctively empty nutlets (see Binggeli 1990 for methodology).

In areas where the regeneration of sycamore is unwelcome, as in nature reserves, parks and residential areas, its control can be achieved by removal of seed producers. Planting of sycamore need not be banned as the establishment of male flowering trees will not create any problem of natural regeneration. In nature reserves where sycamore is thought to be provide an important source of food or substrate for a particular group of animals or plants, male flowering individuals may be retained.

In forestry and agroforestry the planting of male individuals only has two advantages. Firstly it removes the problem of seed production and unwanted natural regeneration, and secondly, more important from a timber point of view, male flowering trees grow faster (as much as 10 per cent) than seed producing individuals.

The selection and propagation of male flowering individuals is essential to the successful implementation of such a strategy. Propagation must be vegetative as we do not (yet?) have a method to identify male flowering individuals at the seedling stage. The propagation of hardwood cuttings has been achieved with a reasonable degree of success (eg, Williams et al. 1991). Although vegetative propagation is more expensive than direct sowing, this should be clearly offset by the reduction in the costs of control and weeding, and by the benefits from higher growth rates and timber quality.

For sycamore, as opposed to most other invasive species, we do have a solution which can control its invasiveness as well as enhance its commercial and amenity values. The development and implementation of a management plan based on our detailed knowledge of the biology and ecology of sycamore should see the end of the controversy usually associated it. If a consensus arises in Britain among all interested parties, Reverend Johns’ (1847) statement that sycamore “will continue to sow its own seeds and nurse its own offspring, as long as England exists” may be proved wrong.

References

Binggeli, P. (1990) Detection of protandry and protogyny in sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus L.) from infructescences. Watsonia 18, 17-20.

Binggeli, P. (1992) Patterns of invasion of sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus L.) in relation to species and ecosystem attributes. D.Phil. thesis, The University of Ulster.

Binggeli, P. (1993a) Conservation value of sycamore. Quarterly Journal of Forestry 87, 143-146.

Binggeli, P. (1993b) Sycamore lore. Plant-Lore Notes & News 29, 131-133.

Binggeli, P. (1994) The misuse of terminology and anthropomorphic concepts in the description of introduced species. The Bulletin of the British Ecological Society 25, 10-13.

Gray, C. (1993) The conservation value of sycamore. Quarterly Journal of Forestry 87, 235.

Harris, E. (1987) The case for sycamore. Quarterly Journal of Forestry 81, 32-36.

Johns, C.A. (1847) The forest trees of Britain. Vol 1. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London.

Simpson, J. (1905) The great trees of the northern forest. No 28. The sycamore maple (Acer pseudo-platanus). Flora Silva 3, 178-183.

Williams, A., Mayhead, G.J. and Good, J.E.G. (1991) Vegetative propagation of sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus L.). Quarterly Journal of Forestry 85, 179-182.

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

Cemetery Wildlife April 2022

April 26, 2022 by Helen Bovillin Volunteers3 Comments

CEMETERY WILDLIFE APRIL 2022

We have not had many of those famous April showers! The total rainfall has been much lower than average for the month and the footpaths are therefore dry and easy to walk on. There have been plenty of warm sunny days and the leaves on the trees have started to open. That fresh, bright pale green so characteristic of Spring is everywhere now.

Trees and Plants

The English Oak trees planted by the volunteers last year are doing well, especially the larger of the two.

Alongside the green foliage of most of the trees is the copper colouring of the new leaves on the large Beech tree in the centre of the cemetery. This tree is also known locally as the “Money Tree” and can be seen in my first photo.

Lower down, the Quince is flowering and nearby is some Yellow Archangel, which seems to do quite well in the shade.

The Lesser Celandines growing on the grass verge have almost finished flowering but they are still going strong inside the cemetery. The tiny blue flowers of the Forget-me-nots and Speedwell can now be seen if you look carefully amongst the other foliage.

Along the grass verge there is an abundance of Dandelions providing nectar for the Bees, Butterflies and other small insects. The similar-looking Hawks-beard can also be seen.

I also found some Ribwort Plantain – the first time I’d noticed any along here.

The Bluebells are now starting to flower but I will say more about them next month. It was good to see plenty of Garlic Mustard in flower – another valuable food source for Butterflies, especially the Orange-tip.

Butterflies and insects

This month I saw quite a few Small and Large White butterflies, and also Comma and Brimstone. I saw my first Orange-tips of the year this month. I also caught a few brief glimpses of my first Green-veined White of the year.

The underside of the Orange-tip’s wings looks green but this is an optical illusion caused by the black and yellow patterning.

This month also saw the first Holly Blues and Speckled Woods of the year appearing in good numbers along the verge and also inside the cemetery.

Holly Blues usually rest with their wings not fully open. These photos don’t really do them justice as they’re a much brighter blue than this but blink and you’ll miss them because they’re tiny and fast-flying. Males and females have similar underwings.

Other insects in abundance were Bees, Ladybirds and various flies including the Bee-fly.

Birds

There are still some berries on the Ivy, providing food for Wood Pigeons, Blackcaps and Blackbirds.

The birds are still busy gathering nesting material. I’ve seen quite a bit of activity around some of the bird boxes with Blue Tits in particular flying in and out of them. The larger birds will make nests of their own in the trees and bushes.

The Chiffchaffs have now arrived but are usually high up in the trees and not very easy to photograph. Their call is loud and distinctive though!

Conclusion

April has been a month of abundance, with an explosion of colour and growth in most of the plants. The number and variety of Butterflies I’ve seen is very encouraging – I’ve seen a total of 10 different species so far this year. Now is the perfect time for a stroll in the cemetery to enjoy the sights and sounds of the cemetery wildlife. You might also enjoy the many monuments too – it seems like the wildlife does! Cemetery Wildlife March 2022

Helen Bovill

Cemetery Wildlife February 2022

February 27, 2022 by Helen Bovillin General, Volunteers, Wildlife4 Comments

Cemetery Wildlife February 2022

This is my 12^th report for the newsletter. My first one was in March 2021 and I have therefore spent this last 12-month period observing the flora and fauna of the cemetery in much greater detail than ever before. The time has simply flown by!

February started with plenty of very cold but sunny days. Then from mid-month onwards three named storms – Dudley, Eunice and Franklin – hit the UK. Hull was not as severely affected as other parts of the country and the cemetery suffered no major damage. A large branch came off a tree near the western boundary but no headstones were damaged.

Unfortunately, the heavy rainfall has left some of the footpaths in a very muddy condition. There was even a brief snowfall but it only gave a thin covering that soon melted away. The rain, sleet and snow didn’t seem to adversely affect the cemetery wildlife though, and the birds were around as usual.

Birds

The birds have started to sing and were in fine voice all around the cemetery. The singing serves to mark out their territories and attract mates. You can often hear them before you see them! This Song Thrush was particularly loud and apart from its song, it can also be distinguished from the larger Mistle Thrush by the markings on its chest. The Song Thrush has regular shaped markings akin to an arrowhead or a heart, whereas the markings on the Mistle Thrush are more irregular.

Robins and Wrens also have fine singing voices and I saw and heard several of them in the cemetery this month. The Dunnock also has a fine and melodious song.

The nesting process seems to have started already, as I saw a pair of Long-tailed Tits flying in and out of a dense patch of Brambles – and ideal nesting site for this species. I also observed this Great Tit gathering moss – an ideal nesting material which is in abundance throughout the cemetery.

Also seen this month – Coal Tits, Wood Pigeons, Stock Doves, Carrion Crows, Magpies, Blackbirds and Goldfinches. And you can also hear, and then see, Greylag and Canada Geese flying overhead, most likely on their way to Pearson Park.

In October last year the volunteers carried out a check of the nest boxes and found an occupancy rate of 63.41%. Since then, a few more have been located and checked. Only one further box was found to have been used, giving an occupancy rate of 61.36%. One box was found to be damaged and was replaced earlier this month.

Plants

The bulbs planted by the volunteers in the Quaker Burial Ground in Autumn have now started to flower, creating some nice splashes of colour in there. The Crocus plants even attracted a visiting Hoverfly!

The miniature Tete-a-Tete Daffodils are starting to create a nice border around the feature stones.

The main focus of my reports will always be the cemetery wildlife. But I’ll also include the plants that the volunteers have set because these have such a beneficial effect on both residents and visitors alike.

It is now peak Snowdrop time and there are lots of them all over the cemetery – some single varieties, some double. There are around 20 different species native to Europe and the Middle East, although they might not actually be native to the UK. But they have been recorded as growing wild here since the late 18^th century.

Tiny green shoots are now visible on some of the trees and shrubs. Flowers have just started to open on the Forsythia near the cemetery gates but I’ll talk about that next month. The Blackthorn is now in flower – the flowers appear on the plant before the leaves do.

The Lesser Celandines I mentioned last month have not increased in significant numbers like I expected. Looking back on this time last year the grass verge along Spring Bank West was covered in them. There were even some Butterflies around during the last few days of that February. The wet weather and lack of sunshine in the middle of the month has obviously affected their flowering.

Mushrooms

Even in the middle of Winter there are still some mushrooms to be found, including this Jelly Ear on a fallen branch. I was lucky to find them when I did. A few days later they had started to shrivel and the plants around it had started to grow over what remained of them.

Conclusion

Weather-wise February has been a month of contrasts. Some of the plants are a little behind in their development compared to last year. But the month ended with some fine sunny days. I now have a whole year’s-worth of data, mainly in photographic form, for comparison. It will be interesting to see how March this year compares to March last year. Wonderful Wildlife

Helen Bovill

Cemetery Wildlife January 2022

January 26, 2022January 26, 2022 by Helen Bovillin Volunteers3 Comments

Cemetery Wildlife January 2022 Cemetery Wildlife December

The year started with a very mild and sunny New Year’s Day – quite possibly the warmest on record for Hull. There was only a small amount of rain and some fog at the start of the month. It turned colder in the middle of the month and there was some frost, but it was generally very sunny and dry during the middle two weeks. The month ended on a duller but still dry note, helping the footpaths to become easier to walk on.

I noticed how the sunlight was able to penetrate right into the heart of the cemetery. It was actually getting more sunlight than the grass verge due to the position of the sun in the sky, having to rise above the tops of the houses on Spring Bank West.

Plants

I found a Lesser Celandine in flower on New Year’s Day, plus a few Brambles with flowers on them! Later in the month a few more Lesser Celandines were in flower, and I also found a Dandelion and some Groundsel on the grass verge.

There are lots of Snowdrops now starting to appear, helped no doubt by the fine sunshine, and they seem to be about a week earlier than last year. Very tiny buds are starting to appear on some of the trees, and there are a few catkins on one of the Hazels.

Insects

I noticed a few small insects in the air, and I also saw a Marmalade Hoverfly. Not surprisingly I didn’t see any butterflies, but I did see a report (from a reliable source) of a Small Tortoiseshell being seen in another part of Hull.

Birds

It’s been a quiet month for bird sightings in that there have not been any unusual or rare visitors to report. There are still plenty of the regular resident species around, such as Blue Tits, Great Tits and the much less abundant Coal Tit.

I managed to catch a glimpse of a Treecreeper. It started low down on the trunk of the tree and then quickly worked its way upwards, circling around the tree as it climbed. They feed on insects found under the bark.

A walk through the cemetery wouldn’t be complete without seeing one of our most easily recognised birds, the Blackbird. There are several of them around, raking through the leaves looking for food. The females are dark brown with a darker bill.

Much of the cemetery wildlife can be seen on the ground, including Wood Pigeons. There are lots of them searching for food amongst the leaves and shrubs. They can also be seen in the trees, eating Ivy berries.

The resident Robins are now in full song, marking out their territories and trying to attract a mate. They’re very early risers, often starting to sing a couple of hours before sunrise.

Also seen this month – Chaffinches, Dunnocks, Stock Doves and Wrens.

Fungi

There are still fungi to be found in the Cemetery even in January. The small and colourful Velvet Shank can even withstand freezing temperatures.

I also found some similar sized mushrooms growing on a fallen log and I believe these are known as Turkey Tail. Mushrooms can often be quite difficult to identify as their appearance can vary enormously over their sometimes quite short life spans.

When we look at mushrooms we only see the fruiting body of the organism. The rest is hidden below the surface of whatever it’s growing on. Some are so small it’s easy to miss them. The Coral Spot is tiny but its bright colour makes it easy to see.

From the tiny to the large, I found a mushroom the size of the palm of my hand mid-January. This is a type of Blewit.

I can’t say for definite if it was a Field Blewit or a Wood Blewit due to its poor condition but it was still a nice find.

Conclusion

January was a dry month with extremes of temperature ranging from extremely mild to the frosts you’d expect at this time of year. There was plenty of cemetery wildlife around as usual of course. But I couldn’t help but look back to this time last year though, when many of the volunteers and visitors to the cemetery enjoyed some excellent views of a Buzzard. I wonder what our surprise wildlife of 2022 will be? Will it be a bird or an animal or even an insect? We have another 11 months to find out!

Helen Bovill

Cemetery Wildlife November

November 27, 2021November 27, 2021 by Helen Bovillin General, Volunteers, Wildlife

Cemetery Wildlife November

November was a mild but damp month, and rather dull too with less sunshine than the previous month. But when the sun came out it highlighted the stunning beauty of the Autumn colours in a way that took one’s breath away. Many people I spoke to during my frequent walks around the cemetery also expressed their appreciation of this colourful sight.

Plants

This seems the ideal subject to talk about first, with the emphasis on trees as they are looking so good at the moment.

The main tree in the first photo is a Hornbeam – it is one of the species where the leaves turn yellow in Autumn. It seems to be a good year for leaf colour because I don’t recall seeing this tree looking so vibrant last year. This is located on the southern footpath not far from the main gates.

Another species where the leaves turn yellow in Autumn is the Norway Maple. These trees are also looking very vibrant and colourful, providing a carpet of yellow and gold along the southern footpath.

There are a number of Turkey Oaks in the cemetery and their leaves have now turned brown and lie on the ground in abundance. Earlier in the year the volunteers planted two English Oak trees but these are only saplings with many years’ growth ahead of them.

This shows the difference between the two species of Oak. Please note the English Oak leaf is only smaller because it came from a much smaller tree.

The impressive Beech tree in the centre of the cemetery (also known as the “money tree”) has now dropped all its leaves, creating a carpet of copper around it. But many of the deciduous trees still have plenty of green leaves on them.

There are still plenty of berries on the Pyracantha and Berberis bushes. I make no distinction between native and introduced species because to the cemetery wildlife they are simply just good sources of food.

Mushrooms

From the largest structures in the cemetery, I now move on to some of the smallest. And if you spot them when they’ve only just started to grow, they really are small! They can be particularly hard to find amongst all the fallen leaves which often tower above them.

Mushrooms and other Fungi are often difficult to identify because their appearances can change very quickly.

See what I mean? They are another good food source for the cemetery wildlife hence the presence of what looks like bite marks on the second photo. I have seen several other small mushrooms but I’ve been unable to identify them with any certainty. But I can report that one of the volunteers found some Haresfoot Inkcaps recently, and also some King Alfred’s Cakes. Yes, that really is the name of a fungus!

Another fungus that can be seen at the moment, usually on fallen trees and logs, is the Silverleaf Fungus. It starts off flat and then develops into rows of frills and other protuberances.

Birds

There are no unusual visitors to report this month. There are plenty of the usual resident species around such as Wood Pigeons, Robins, Wrens, Blackbirds, Chaffinches and Blue Tits. Stock Doves, Goldfinches, Coal Tits, Long-Tailed Tits and Dunnocks are also around.

There are also a number of Great Tits living in the cemetery. These are bigger than Blue Tits and slightly bigger than Goldfinches.

Adult birds in full breeding plumage usually have chests that are a much brighter yellow than this one. They can look stunning when the sun shines on them.

Insects

It seems strange not to be talking about butterflies but it is November after all. However, one of the volunteers DID find a Small Tortoiseshell in her house a couple of weeks ago! But it was nowhere near the cemetery.

There are still lots of Ladybirds around and wasps and hoverflies too. There are also plenty of tiny insects around for the birds to find up high in the trees.

Conclusion

November has been a good month for the cemetery, with the trees being the real stars this time. Birds are around in good numbers and it is always a delight to see new types of fungi. It’s the perfect time for a leisurely stroll to marvel at all the lovely cemetery wildlife! Cemetery Wildlife October

Helen Bovill

Cemetery Wildlife October

October 29, 2021 by Helen Bovillin General, Volunteers, Wildlife2 Comments

The “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” is how John Keats described Autumn in his famous 1820 ode to this season. The cemetery has not seen any mists this month but there has been the usual Autumnal mix of rain and cold days and sunshine and warm days.Cemetery Wildlife September

Plants

Many of the plants are now bearing that fruitfulness, including the Guelder Rose shown at the start of this report. This is the season when it now becomes obvious why the Snowberry is so named, and its white berries are a good source of food for the cemetery wildlife. Please note however that they are poisonous to humans!

The Pyracantha bushes are now full of their distinctive reddish-orange berries and they look particularly striking along the grass verge on Spring Bank West. They are an excellent source of food for the many birds living in and around the cemetery.

Last month seems to have been the best one for Elderberries and Brambles, with very few ripe fruits left on the bushes. But there are still a few Brambles left, some of which are not quite ripe enough for the cemetery wildlife to eat.

The Blackthorn bushes still have a few of their dark purple Sloe berries on them, although only in small numbers as you can see here.

The Yew trees still have some of their small red berries on them. The Berberis bushes growing in various places have started to show some nice autumn colour on their leaves. They have small oval dark berries growing along the branches.

There are not many traditional-looking flowers to be seen this month other than a few Dandelions on the grass verge and small patch of Feverfew.

But the most abundant flowers to be seen this month are on the Ivy. Initially the flower heads don’t look much like a traditional flower. But when you look at them in closer detail you can see all the usual elements you’d expect to see in a flower, but just positioned differently. If in the course of writing future editions of this column I have a “slow news month” then I may use that opportunity to talk about Ivy in greater detail.

Butterflies and other insects

The only Butterflies I saw this month were a few Speckled Wood in the central grassy area of the cemetery during a warm spell earlier in the month.

There is an abundance of Ladybirds though – they can be seen just about everywhere. Some are the native British ones and some, like the one on the Feverfew photo, are non-native Harlequins.

Birds

Nesting season is now over. Some dry sunny days in the middle of October provided the ideal conditions for the volunteers to check the nest boxes to see which ones had been used. This is the second year of doing this so it was interesting to compare this year’s findings with last year’s.

A total of 41 boxes were checked and 26 of them had been used, giving an occupancy rate of 63.41%. (Last year a total of 40 boxes were checked and 24 had been used, giving an occupancy rate of 60%).

These figures suggest that this year was more successful than last year. But three of the original boxes were either no longer present or were not located. There are also 5 new boxes that were put in place too late to be included in last year’s check.

I could split the above figures according to nest box design and even down to the size of the hole in the front of the box. This would generate more statistics, some of them quite impressive, but this is intended to be just a brief overview of the volunteers’ work relating to the cemetery wildlife.

Nest hygiene

For reasons of hygiene nest boxes are always cleaned out and left empty ready for the birds to start all over again in the Spring. This is in accordance with guidelines from the relevant wildlife organisations. The nests we found were like miniature works of art, carefully built from dried hogweed stems, twigs, feathers and leaves. Most if not all of the nests contained moss which the birds can easily find on the trees and headstones.

I can’t say for definite who the occupants of the nests were but the first one was from a nest box with a 25mm hole. This would suggest it had been occupied by either a Blue Tit or a Coal Tit.

The second nest looks a lot cosier, doesn’t it? The white material appears to be artificial filling of some kind and I think the small amounts of red material are wool are from the Poppies that are attached to the small wooden crosses dotted around the cemetery. These are to commemorate the graves of soldiers from WWI and WWII.

I can’t say for definite which species of bird built this nest. But it came from a box with a 32mm hole which would allow for a slightly larger bird such as a Great Tit or even a Nuthatch. It was occupied last year too.

As mentioned earlier, the checking of the nests is not quite complete and needs a bit more work. A few additions and clarifications to our existing data could make future checking easier and the results more meaningful. Perhaps this time next year, after 3 years of checking the boxes, we will be able to publish a full report of our findings on the website.

Conclusion

October has been a quiet but colourful month for the cemetery wildlife, and the birds are becoming easier to see as the leaves start to fall. The daylight hours may be less but there is still plenty of time for a leisurely stroll. I’m sure you’ll manage to see at least one of these endearing little characters during your time here!

Helen Bovill

Tree hugging

September 1, 2021September 9, 2021 by Pete Lowdenin General, Volunteers, Walks, Wildlife

Tree hugging gets a bad name. It’s used as pejorative term to denote people who are not on speaking terms with reality. As my mother would have said, ‘away with the fairies’. This was usually when she was talking about me.

Moving on.

However, in some cases, it can be a useful tool to estimate the age of a tree. The item below is taken from a book, ‘Hidden Histories: A Spotter’s Guide to the British Landscape’ by Mary-Ann Ochota. It was published in 2016. It’s worth buying.

As Mary-Ann says in her introduction,

‘When you look at the British landscape, you don’t just see the new, the now: you also see the traces of what came before – in the shape of a field, the wall of a cottage, a standing stone or churchyard.’

In essence, history is all around us and its up to us to read it. In terms of the cemetery the easy bits to read are the headstones.

Tree hugging

Other things are a little more tricky. And here we come to the trees. Some of the trees in the cemetery are probably remnants of the original plantings when the cemetery was laid out in 1847. Now that’s close on 200 years old. That’s a decent age. Only long lived species will have survived that length of time. So Oaks, Limes, Ash, Horse Chestnut and maybe Whitebeams are the likely survivors of the original planting.

The ubiquitous Sycamore that swamps the cemetery now is almost certainly not an original planting. Indeed it’s doubtful it was planted at all but invaded from outside. The Silver Birches that were originally planted will have died by now as their life spans are almost comparable to humans. The Yew in the Quaker Burial Ground would not have been planted until 1855 at the earliest. So that one’s easy to date.

But here’s a fun way to gauge the age of some of the trees in the cemetery.

As Mary-Ann says, this could be fun, especially with children. Once the foliage dies down and it gets easier to get to some of the trees, why not try it? Half term might be a good time.

Here’s a handy chart to help you with an Oak. You won’t be far off with other trees using this guide. Good hunting.

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

Stonemason of the Cemetery; part two.

July 24, 2021July 29, 2021 by Pete Lowdenin General, History2 Comments

This is the concluding part of the story of the Hodsman family. The family that provided the two master stonemasons for the Cemetery. The first part of the story dealt with Peter Hodsman. Stonemason of the Cemetery This second part deals with his son William and the ups and downs of his life.

William Hodsman was born in 1853 in Longton, Staffordshire. We will never know why his family were there but we can have some shrewd guesses. Peter, his father, was a journeyman stonemason. As a journeywoman he would have gone to where the work was no matter the distance. And at this time the Potteries was a booming place for such men as Peter.

The Potteries

Longton is now a part of Stoke-on-Trent. When William was born it was one of the Five Towns made famous by Arnold Bennet’s works. On the Potteries website it is noted that Arnold Bennet compared Longton itself to Hell. That may well have been true but it was a place where Peter’s skills would have been in demand. Skills such as brick-making and stone dressing.

So, William was born in Longton as this parish record shows. He was baptised on the 21st August 1853.

His childhood may have been spent amongst the brick kilns of the Potteries. We have no way of knowing. What we do know is that by the time of the 1861 census the family were back in Hull. The next we know of William after the 1861 census is his introduction to the life of the Hull General Cemetery.

Stonemason’s apprentice

William Hodsman learnt his trade in the Cemetery. We know that his entire working life was spent with the Company. On the 6th August 1868, shortly before his 15th birthday, William was taken on as an apprentice stonemason upon the request of his father Peter. Peter, as we know, was the master foreman of the stonemasons in the cemetery. The Board were dependent upon his skills and valued his opinion. In this case his advice was tinged with nepotism but it was still good advice.

By the time of the 1871 census William is still living with his parents in Albion Terrace, Walmsley Street. He is titled a stonemason.

The Cole family

We now encounter a mystery. Those of you who have dabbled in genealogical waters know what I mean. An aberration that cannot be easily explained. We know that William was employed by the Cemetery Company and had been since 1868. It is extremely unlikely that he would have given up this job.

So, him turning up in the announcement of his wedding banns in Great Yarmouth in 1875 is surprising. Of course, it’s not impossible that he travelled to Norfolk and the rail network then was much better than now. Still it is interesting

One wonders how William met his future wife, Emma Maria Cole. She was the daughter of John Pilo Cole. Below is the 1861 census on which she appears for the first time.

As can be seen John Cole was self-employed as a house painter. Indeed he employed others, nine men and one apprentice.. He would have been one of the lower middle class of the time. By the time of the 1871 census his circumstances appear to have changed. He was still an employer. The workforce was smaller, now only three men.

His trade appeared to have changed too. The enumerator put down on the census form that he was now a plumber and glazier. All of these trades would have been essential during the house building boom of the mid Victorian period. John Cole was probably riding the crest of this wave and was capable of turning his hand to whatever was needed.

That he was also reasonably well off can be deduced by his neighbours in 1871. These were school teachers, publicans, master coopers and foremen. John died in December 1880.

Still a mystery

However we still have no idea how Emma, a Norfolk girl, met with William Hodsman, a lad from Sculcoates. Allow me to romanticise a little. Notice on the above census the address at the bottom of the page. Indeed the premises right next door to the Cole family. ‘Stones Yard’. Now this could be a name derived from someone’s name in the past or it could be a descriptive term for a stone yard.

What about the idea that William, sent by his father as part of his apprenticeship to another stone yard on some errand, met and fell in love with the ‘girl next door’.

I know, I am ‘romancing the stone’ so to speak but we are left with no information as to how this couple met.

Suffice to say that it was a love match. They did not separate until death intervened.

In 1875 the wedding banns were proclaimed. Harriet, Emma’s sister, served notice of them in November 1875

I’d like you to note that William had originally said that his father was a stonemason. It was later changed to ‘manager’. Its also interesting to note that William himself has had ‘stonemason’ crossed out and ‘monumental carver’ place instead. We will see further evidence that William saw himself as more than a stonemason.

The banns were completed by the end of the year and Emma and William were married in 1876.

Back to Hull

We know the young couple made their home in Hull. The couple lived at 6, Norwood Street for as long as they both lived. The map below shows the right hand side of Norwood Street with St Jude’s Church at the top facing on to Spring Bank. The house at the very bottom of the map is number 6. It was demolished in the late 1970s. The house would have been conveniently situated for them. William was close to his workplace, the Hull General Cemetery, and also close to his father and mother who lived further down Spring Bank in Stanley Street.

A tragedy

That they lived at this address from such an early date is confirmed by a sad piece of news. The small newspaper item below, of October 1876, imparts a tragedy.

And another mystery

And once again we encounter a mystery. The date given of the tragedy is October 18th yet the newspaper item is dated the 27th of that month. A period of grieving perhaps? Yet, as we know, the family would have wanted this news to be shared with well-wishers and friends.

So why the delay? On top of that is the fact that the stillborn children are not buried in Hull. Their burial did not take place in either Hull General Cemetery, Western Cemetery or Hedon Road Cemetery. Yes, they may have been buried in Sculcoates Cemetery but that is extremely unlikely to say the least.

Did Emma go home to her parents for the latter stage of her pregnancy? It’s a possibility. If so could the children have been born, died and buried in Great Yarmouth? That is a possibility too but as the Great Yarmouth cemetery records are not accessible we cannot check this. No, this is a mystery we will never solve at the moment.

Professional life

We have followed up on William’s personal life without taking into account his professional one. Let’s backtrack a little. In December 1872 the Cemetery Company Board increased his father’s wage and at the same time also increased William’s from 30/- to 35/-.

This was a significant amount for a young man to be earning. Remember he had only joined the Company in the August of 1868, just over three years earlier. Using the ‘measuring worth’ website it’s reasonable to suggest that at its lowest comparative value to today it would be in the region of £136 per week. More likely it would be around £800 per week. As I said a significant sum. Around about £38,000 per annum today.. More than enough to start a family, as William did later on.

On another tangent it must be mentioned that Peter had two sons that survived. The second one, John, was born in 1863. In the August of 1877 Peter applied once again to the Board for this son to become an apprentice and this application was also accepted by the Board.

As we found out last month Peter died in 1879. We don’t know if William took his place immediately at the Cemetery but it is likely. William would now be time-served and skilled at the work.

Letter to the Board

In June 1881 William wrote to the Board. His letter was discussed at the following Board meeting.

And that memorial stone still stands in Western Cemetery.

More tragedies

William’s personal life during this period was traumatic.

Another son, Herbert, was born in the June1881, the month William was asking for the contribution to his father’s headstone from the Company. Herbert lived just over 4 months and died in the October 1881. The cause of death was listed as mesenteric disease which is a cardio-vascular disease. It is caused by the arteries hardening in the abdomen with a consequent restriction of blood flow. The disease causes severs stomach pains and may come on slowly or rapidly. Even today it can only be diagnosed via ultra-sound What chance of diagnosing it in 1881?

Herbert was buried in the grave next to his grandfather Peter in Western Cemetery. This grave contained Louisa, his aunt, who had committed suicide in 1873, by poisoning herself.

Please note that in the burial record below William is cited as the foreman of the monumental works.

Tragedy struck again in 1886 when the daughter of William and Emma died. Beatrice May had been born in 1880. She died in January 1886 of diphtheria.

She was the first occupant in what was to become the family grave in Hull General Cemetery.

1881

By this time The family of William and Emma consisted of themselves, Lillian Emma born late in 1877, William Harold born in 1879, Albert Ernest, born in 1882 and his brother Frederick Peter Hodsman born the year that Beatrice had died. Let’s look at the 1881 census return for the Hodsman family. William is listed as the manager of the monumental works.

Kingstonia

Towards the end of the decade William Hodsman is mentioned in prose. Some of you may be familiar with John Symons. An eminent Hull antiquarian and also a civic leader. He penned many interesting books throughout the latter part of the 19th century. One of these was Kingstonia, a collection of essays, some of which had been published earlier in the Eastern Morning News. One of these essays was entitled ‘ A Visit to the Spring Bank Cemetery’.

Two of my colleagues have recently posted their re-enactment of this ‘visit’ on our Facebook site. It will feature on this site next month. When Mr Symons was undertaking his ramble around the Hull General Cemetery his guide was none other than William Hodsman. As Symons stated,

‘Mr Hodsman, the monumental manager of the Cemetery, who accompanied me in my peregrination, pointed out to me, amongst others, the grave – parallel with the monument erected to Dr Gordon – of a man who did useful work for the town.’

As the book was published in 1889, this guided tour would have been earlier, probably 1888.

Financial cut backs

This would have been the same year that finances began to bite the Company even harder and wage cuts were introduced, even to skilled men like William. His wage was reduced from 60/- a week to 52/-.

A considerable reduction. especially as at the next year’s AGM in February 1889 the shareholders voted themselves a dividend on their shares of 16/- in the pound PLUS a 2/6d bonus. By the August of 1889 further reductions in wages were introduced. William’s wage was reduced from 52/- to 45/- in summer and 40/- in the winter!

This was problematic for William as by the 1891 census his family had grown.

He now had four sons and one daughter. Times were challenging. And tragedy was never far way too. John Cole died that spring.

More cut backs

William was not the only one affected by these changing times. At the AGM in February 1892, after voting themselves another 14/- dividend, the directors informed their fellow shareholders that,

‘The directors would remark that they continue to bear in mind the necessity for every possible economy in the working of the company and they have lost no opportunity of urging this on the company’s employees. They are therefore glad to report that by the appointment of Mr Kelly at a salary of £120 per annum a substantial saving to the company will be effected.’

Michael Kelly had become the new cemetery superintendent plus also the Company secretary. I’m pretty sure that one of his first jobs assigned to him was to look for places where expenditure could be trimmed. By the April he had found something.

One of the features of the Company’s stone working had been to have an amount of stone on stock that could be worked from scratch. Kelly put forward the idea that this way of working could be dispensed with. Instead of working the stone to different designs he suggested buying in designs and simply lettering them. Needless to say, the directors thought this was a great plan. They directed him to enquire of stone masons in the area if they could supply these ‘off the peg’ stones.

The next month Kelly informed the Board that,

The end of the work of the stone mason

With this decision the Company turned its back upon its stone working business. The very business that the Company had insisted keeping when in serious discussion over the sale of the Cemetery to the Corporation in the 1850s. It’s adherence to a ‘strong’ line on this point meant that those negotiations collapsed.

And now it threw it away in its desire to keep paying over the odds to its shareholders. Whilst desperately seeking cutbacks in expenditure from any and every source other than that. I’ve said this before in talks about the Cemetery but the Board were dreadful managers of this business. Tt is a wonder that it survived as long as it did.

Whilst researching the Cemetery I came across a number of headstone design images, numbered as if from a catalogue. Michael Kelly had used the backs of them to make notes. these images had survived strangely enough when more important material was lost.

Here’s a few of them and understand that you are looking at evidence of what probably destroyed the Hull General Cemetery memorial business.

Meanwhile William Hodsman was not a fool. He would not have been foolish enough to recognise which way the wind was blowing and how it could effect him. We have no evidence that he took any steps to secure his own position except for one, which we’ll come to later.

Changes to the workforce

In case you are wondering it was not only the stone work side of the Cemetery business that was being curtailed.

In February 1895 George Ingleby, the gardener and the foreman of the gravediggers gave in his notice. What Ingleby did not know when he resigned was that at the previous Board meeting it was decided to dispense with his services. At the same meeting it was decide to reduce Hodsman’s wages once again. This time the reduction proposed would be from 45/- a week in the summer and 40/- in the winter to 40/- all year round. In the space of six years William was expected to take a drop in wages of 33% whilst he would have known that the shareholders were effectively taking money straight out of the till.

William countered the offer from the Board. He,

had asked that the directors might kindly consider whether they could not give him 2 guineas a week for say a year and see how it things went on and consider the matter again at the end of that time’

They agreed.

Wages versus dividends

At the AGM later that month the wages of all the staff of the Cemetery was just under £622. The amount paid out in dividends was £550.

Later that year the greenhouse was to be sold to the Corporation who offered £20 for it. Due to the bad feeling between the two parties this deal fell though. Eventually the greenhouse was sold at auction and netted just over £16. Yet another loss for the company.

In the April of 1897 the Company decided to dispense with William Hodsman. William was ready for this. He asked for a reference.

We, of course, do not know whether he managed to get one. It’s unlikely the Company would have refused However, if he did not get one I’m certain that his good name had gone before him.

1901 and beyond

By the time of the 1901 census we see William apparently in good heart. He was cited as a ‘retired manager of granite, marble and stone monumental works’. A young age to retire at in those times but the 1911 census shows the same inscription. Maybe, when times were good William was careful with his money. Maybe he saw the writing on the wall in the 1890s and kept on being careful. I also suspect that he worked occasionally as a freelance worker. His work was well known in the town and there were many monumental masonries than today.

Of note in the 1901 census return is the occupation of his daughter Lillian Emma.

She was now a school board teacher. Some 50 years earlier her grandfather had attended a public meeting to vote on the rapid introduction of secular education into Hull. One gets the feeling that he would have been proud of her choice of occupation. The other members of the family are all in secure, white collar jobs. Not for them the wet mornings in the Cemetery trying to erect a headstone that constantly slipped from the wet harness around it or the horse moved at the wrong time.

In 1902 there was more joy. Lillian married. The boy she married strangely had the grave just behind her grandfather’s. Did they meet whilst tending their respective family members’ graves. I’ll leave that to your imagination but that plot could surely have come out of a Charles Dickens’ novel.

By 1911 these two were living comfortably at 136, De La Pole Avenue. He was now a solicitor’s clerk and sadly, she had left the teaching profession. There were no children.

William Harold

In 1903 William’s eldest son, William Harold, married a lady called Hannah Mary Cook. William Harold had been born in 1879 and was baptised at St. Jude’s, the church on Spring bank at the top of Norwood Street.

This entry caused some confusion. Not only for me but for the recorder. The occupation and the address are transposed and placed in the wrong columns to all the rest on the page! It’s telling isn’t it that William called himself a sculptor rather than a stonemason.

The wedding took place at St John’s in Newland

By 1911 William Harold had moved to Scunthorpe and was a Milk Dealer. Self-employed he now had four children. Once again William probably could be proud that another of his children was not freezing in the Cemetery trying to make a living.

1911 and Frederick

The 1911 census shows us that William and Emma Maria were living at 6, Norwood Street and that the other occupant was Frederick Peter.

As you can see he was a checker at a shipping company. William still basked in the glory of retirement and his last employer listed was the Cemetery Company. Two years later this happy situation was to change dramatically.

In 1913 William and Emma lost this child.

He died from congestion of the lungs. He was 28 years old. His grieving parents placed a notice in the newspaper. One wonders what emotion and hurt this simple notice hid.

The end of William and Emma

In 1928 Emma Maria passed away. The cause of death was a mixture of thrombosis of the the left femoral artery and gangrene of her left foot. She was buried in the family plot in Hull General Cemetery.

Two years later William himself died. The cause of death was syncope, or an episode of fainting due to a loss of blood pressure. One has to wonder whether he felt that life was not worth considering after Emma had died.

John Hodsman

John, his younger bother who was also taken as an apprentice stonemason by the Company, died in 1945. He had worked at the cemetery but this relationship, like his brother’s, had ended in the 1890s. After leaving the Cemetery he had become a gas fitter and he does not play any part in the story of the Cemetery.

William’s burial and memorial

William’s burial record is below.

Now, one would expect a monumental stone mason to have a monument on his family’s grave. And yes, there was one once. And yes, you know where I’m going with this don’t you? Strangely you’d be wrong.

My research has shown that it survived the disaster that was the 1977 / 78 clearance. What it didn’t survive was the neglect of recent years.

Here’s a copy of the memorial recording team in the 70’s As you can see the stone was sound and in good order.

And here’s the record of the inscriptions that were on the stone.

That was then. Here’s the stone today. Well at least the only part that can be seen.

And here’s what destroyed it.

So, the monument to a monumental mason, who probably carved some of the beautiful pieces of art in the cemetery, has almost gone. Lost beneath what, in my uncharitable moments, I would designate a weed. A sycamore. The curse of all Victorian cemeteries.

Its too late for the Hodsman monument but surely this is food for thought. We neglect these things for a short time and when we turn around to find them again they’re gone. Just like William’s monument A lesson there for us all. Hodsman’s monument won’t come back. It’s gone forever. A valuable heritage asset of the history of Hull destroyed. The sycamore, on the other hand, no doubt has spread its progeny far and wide. So, it is not irreplaceable like the monument. In fact it is very common and quite replaceable. And yet….

The other monuments in the cemetery must be better protected. And that protection has to start now. And with you and me and all of us.

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