The powers and duties of the Master

  "... thirteen poor men and thirteen poor women, of whom one should preside over the others and be named the Master... "  So says the license in mortmain granted by the King to Michael de la Pole in 1383.  The foundation deed of the following year goes into a lot more detail.  The Master had to be a priest over the age of 30.  He would have his own house and be responsible for the management of the hospital, the brethren and sisters (including paying their allowances), and the administration of the estates.  He also had to lead daily prayers and say mass two or three times a week.  He would be answerable to the representatives of the de la Pole family, to the Prior of the neighbouring Carthusian priory and to the Mayor of the town.

Little changed until 1525 when the last of the de la Poles, Edmund Duke of Suffolk, died.  Fourteen years later another layer of oversight was removed when the priory was "dissolved" under Henry VIII.  In 1552 King Edward gave the patronage of the hospital to the Corporation of the town.  That consolidated the power of the Mayor and the "Bench" of Aldermen.  But they showed little interest at first, and that meant the Master was left to his own devices.  The temptation was obvious; run down the number of inmates, do as little maintenance as possible, collect all the rents and pocket the surplus money. In 1558 Thomas Turner was appointed Master, and also had to assist at Holy Trinity Church, saying mass at least once a week. This dual role was to become the norm for centuries, but for the first time we see the view that the Mastership of the hospital was not a full-time job.

In 1571 the Bench at last showed an interest in what was happening. They came up with a long list of corrupt practices and petitioned the Archbishop of York to act against Turner. Turner pointed out that the Mayor and Aldermen had the power to deal with him themselves; so they did. The Master was made to swear adherence to a long list of rules, mainly financial (including an annual audit of the accounts), which would put the hospital back on track. In the process the Bench assumed powers it did not legitimately possess. But the next Master, Griffith Briskin, failed to comply and had to resign, owing £50 to the hospital. The problem of how to get rid of a Master was to recur for many years. The Bench could sack him; but what happened when he would not leave? In 1644 they thought that William Stiles had resigned and appointed a replacement. Stiles insisted he was going nowhere. There was a long legal wrangle and Stiles stayed put. It was Cromwell’s Council of State which solved the problem in 1651 by removing him for his politics, and at last John Shaw, who had been waiting impatiently for 7 years, replaced him. That didn’t end well either. Shaw was an extreme Puritan who was eventually sacked by Holy Trinity but refused to leave the hospital. He used it as his base for preaching his inflammatory sermons to his large following before agreeing to move elsewhere.

One power which seems to have been taken out of the hands of the Master for good in the 18th century was that of deciding who was to be admitted to the hospital. The Master received the applications but the Corporation selected the “winners”. This lead to a suspiciously high number of inmates who had connections to the Corporation. A practice grew up of the Aldermen taking it in turn to nominate someone to fill a vacancy, and, unsurprisingly, they rewarded people they knew personally. It was a scandal which was no secret but was only publicised in the 1830s. The newly-constituted Corporation acted to make the process more transparent. In 1847 a committee of Advisers to the Charterhouse was formed – a kind of sub-committee of Aldermen – to deal with admissions and other matters, such as the maintenance of the buildings.

One power, or responsibility, which seems to have been left with the Master for longer was that of collecting rents and organising leases on the lands which gave the Charterhouse its income. By the 1860s the Advisers thought they had control, but John Healey Bromby was not one to leave matters to others. He proposed that, in order to pay for new rooms, part of the land at Hessle be developed as “villa residences”, leased out at £20 per acre per annum. Bromby already had the lessees signed up and the plans drawn. The Committee members were not best pleased at his presumption but were obliged to go ahead. They would not allow this to happen in the future.

By this stage the City Council was becoming determined to diminish the powers of the Master drastically. The role, they argued, was not a full-time job. The Master should become a part-time chaplain, on half his current salary, and he should find and pay for his own lodgings. The matron (a role created in the early 19^th century) would run the place on a day-to-day basis. But the Council did not now have the final word. That lay with the recently formed Charity Commissioners, and they refused to countenance the plan. In 1872 they produced a set of rules based on the foundation document. The Council tried to ignore this and go ahead with their own plan but they lost the battle. In 1901 the Charity Commission’s scheme was imposed. There were to be 9 trustees, 5 of them to be nominated by the Council. The duties of the trustees were spelled out, as were those of the Master. He had to take services on Sundays and three other days; visit inmates and enforce discipline among them and the staff; pay the inmates their allowances; arrange for the special needs of infirm inmates and the removal of the insane; and “to appoint and remove the doctor, matron, nurse and porter of the Hospital”. There were few actual powers there, and one wonders whether he could, in reality, appoint staff without the approval of the trustees.

In the wake of World War 2 the question of downgrading the Master's role re-emerged. His house had been badly damaged by a bomb in 1941 and fell into ruin. The hospital itself was closed, and the Master, Arthur Kent Chignell, lived in temporary accommodation and had little to do. The Charterhouse was reopened in 1948 but the Master's House was a bone of contention for several years after. Some people reverted to the idea of the Master as chaplain, with the House being demolished or rebuilt as rooms for inmates. Chignell was naturally alarmed. He wanted a pay rise, not a cut. He asked for an assistant because he couldn’t afford to retire (there was no pension) but was too old to do the work. The Charity Commission was adamant; no assistant. In a letter which is startlingly blunt in its language it insisted that there was no provision or money for an assistant and if the Master was too old for the job he should retire. It seems that an assistant was appointed. Chignell died in 1951 and his assistant, Ronald Helm, succeeded to the Master’s job. In 1956 the House, rebuilt as closely as possible to the original, was reopened.

What few powers remained to the Master were weakened by the holder of the post of Clerk to the Trustees. He was also the Town Clerk, and he tightened the grip of the Council on the Charterhouse. One long-serving clerk took to pre-empting or ignoring any decisions by the trustees. At one stage he told the Master of the time that he should not be handling money. The Master responded that he couldn’t not handle money and he pleaded for a written job description. It is not clear if he got one. (The clerk to the Trustees is no longer a Council officer.)

The scheme of governance has been updated several times in the last 120 years, but the clauses on the duties of the Master remain almost the same, except that he (or she) no longer appoints staff without reference to the trustees and, of course, no longer pays allowances to residents. The emphasis is on duties rather than powers. No doubt the situation will continue to evolve, but the position of Master of the Charterhouse survives after 637 years.

  

The life and death of Robert Brock

 I wrote about Robert Brock's death in an earlier post.  He was the first person in our database of Charterhouse residents whose death was worth investigating.  Now I have researched more about his life; and it's a fascinating story.

Robert was born in Stainforth near Doncaster in 1813 and baptised in nearby Hatfield.  His parents were George and Elizabeth.  Stainforth was (and still is) a canal town, on the Stainforth and Keadby Canal which connects the River Don Navigation at Bramwith to the River Trent at Keadby, by way of Stainforth, Thorne and Ealand, near Crowle.  The waterways in this part of the country are part of a system which dates back to Roman times, connecting the Humber Estuary with the rivers to the west and south.  For centuries sailing vessels called Humber keels plied these waters, and the Brocks may well have come from generations of keelmen.  Whole families spent their lives on board, transporting goods to and from the Humber ports to the towns of Lincolnshire and South Yorkshire.  Many birth certificates showed the place of birth as "on water".  

Stainforth

On 30 October 1839 Robert Brock married Mary Richardson in Hull.  Mary came from Beverley.  In August 1840 Robert's name appears briefly in  the Hull Packet when two boys were charged with stealing a rope from his boat.  Evidently the Brocks were based in Hull from now on.  They are not to be found on the 1841 census but their son George Thomas was born in that year.   The 1851 census misses them, but Robert's older brother Thomas is there, with his family at 100 High St, Hull, and describing himself as a shipowner.  Perhaps he owned a keel which was crewed by someone else.

Robert and his family were moored in Hull's Old Harbour on census day 1861.

The "keel of river trade" called the Carrier had Robert as its Master, son George as mate and Mary as Master's wife.

Four months later Robert got his name in the papers again.  On 3 August the Hull Advertiser and Exchange Gazette reported:  

The incident didn't put Robert off a life on the canals.  Such mishaps were not unusual.  In 1871 he was on the Stainforth canal with Mary and a 14-year-old boy as "servant".  But Robert was perhaps finding the work increasingly hard as he got older.  By 1881 he and Mary had settled at 20, High St, Hull.  Robert described himself as a general labourer.  He was 68 and probably just picking up whatever work he could find.

On 3 May 1887 Robert and Mary Brock were admitted to the Charterhouse.  Five years later Mary died.  

Our register records that Robert Brock, aged 81, died on 7 January 1895.  But a note adds: "Presumably; body having been found in the Queen's Dock".  This prompted me to send for his death certificate, and I then found a letter in the archives.  Together they tell us more of the sad story.  7 January was the date he went missing from the Charterhouse.  Presumably there was a search; if there was, it was unsuccessful.  On 26 January, and again on 30 January, it seems that the Master assumed he was dead and was writing to the the council's Charterhouse Applicants Committee asking them to fill Brock's vacant room.  A letter survives from the Town Clerk in reply on 31 January saying that they were deferring a decision "in the hope that some news may be heard of Brock".  His body was not found for more than two months; it was recovered from the dock on 15 March.  There was an inquest, and the verdict was that he had drowned.  It leaves so many questions unanswered.  How did he come to fall in the dock?  Why did the body not surface for two months?

Can one say that it was an appropriate death for someone who had spent so much of his life on the water?

The confusing years

 There is a short period in the history of the Charterhouse which has confused everyone who has researched it.  That period covers the years 1539 to 1553.

On 9 November 1539 the Carthusian Priory next door to the almshouse was closed.  The closure came late in the countrywide dissolution of religious houses, probably because it was relatively poor.  The Prior, Ralph Mauleverer, and his 6 remaining monks were given their pensions and sent on their way.  The lands which the de la Pole family had bestowed on the Priory reverted to the Crown.  The rest of the de la Pole lands in the manor of Myton had been under the lordship of Sir William Sidney since 1514.  So much is more or less clear.  But how did this affect the almshouse which later took on the name of the priory, the Charterhouse?

A timeline is useful:

• 1503/4 Edmund de la Pole attainted and his lands seized by the Crown
• 1514 Sir William Sidney granted the lordship of the manor of Myton
• 1535 William Mann becomes Master of the Charterhouse
• 1539 Priory dissolved
• 1547 Death of King Henry VIII
• 1548 Act seizing for the Crown all religious foundations which paid priests to say mass in perpetuity
• 1551 or 1552 Simon Kemsey becomes Master of the Charterhouse
• 1552 King Edward VI granted lordship of the manor of Myton to the town of Hull
• 1552 Edward VI succeeded by Queen Mary I
• 1553 Charter of Mary I confirms Edward's grants

Some early historians believed that when the Priory was closed in 1539 the almshouse was also closed.  John Cook, in his The History of God's House of Hull of 1882, argued against that.  He cites a certificate which, he says, was probably produced for the Commissioners under the 1548 Act and which gives details of the hospital. It was founded for 13 men and 13 women, but at that point had only 6 inmates. Although it was in a decayed state, it had not been dissolved and did not need to be re-founded.  The dissolution of the Priory would have meant that the Mayor and Aldermen were the last backstop of authority under the founding charter.  They seem to have done nothing to promote the almshouse's interests.  Or was it the case that there had been no income in this period from the lands which had (or had not) been confiscated?  However, the Mayor and Aldermen would have appointed the new Master, Simon Kemsey, in 1551 or 1552 (sources vary).  It was a curious appointment.  Kemsey had been the bailiff of the Yorkshire lands of Sir William Sidney, and in 1555 he was to become Hull's Town Clerk. In his brief four-year period as Master Kemsey is thought to have built himself a house, perhaps the first Master's house. The Bench Books record, in October 1555, that the Mayor and Burgesses granted Kemsey and his heirs in fee farm (a form of rent) “the capital mansion house and garden of the hospital near unto Hull” with various lands. But a number of documents from September and October 1556 show that he was persuaded to hand it over to his successor, Laurence Allen for £20. He was bound in the sum of 200 marks “to abide by the award of the Mayor and others as to the mastership” and a feoffment was issued in the consideration of £20 with a letter of attorney to deliver the property to Allen.

In 1552 the young King Edward VI granted the lordship of the manor of Myton to the town, along with part of the dissolved monastery.  Edward died in July of the same year and his successor, his half-sister Mary, granted a charter in December 1553 which confirmed those grants.

1553 Charter of Mary I, in the collection of the Hull History Centre

From then on the position was clear.  The lands which provided the income for the almshouse were secure and the Mayor and Aldermen were in charge.  It wasn't to be plain sailing - but that's another story.

Growth and change - the evolution of the Charterhouse buildings

 In six and half centuries the almshouse which became the Charterhouse has inevitably seen many changes, from the major upheavals of the Reformation and the Civil War to the gradual adaptations to the society in which it is set.  The most obvious changes have been to the buildings.  But there are huge gaps in our knowledge.

The earliest image is from 1640, just two years before the first demolition.  The writers of the Conservation Area report labelled it to show the hospital buildings on the eastern side, nearest the river, with the remains of the old priory to the west.  It's hard to make out the detail (or to be confident of the image's accuracy) but this places the almshouse in much the same spot as now.  We can see the path down to the river where, later, a roadway would be built.

All the buildings were demolished in 1642, and new ones were erected after the Civil War.  It seems that this happened in two phases, the first from 1649 with further development, including a chapel, from about 1673.  This detail from a map of 1715 , with its label "Charterhouse" on the southern side of the complex, leads to the conclusion that the orientation of the buildings had been changed.  However, it is believed that the Master's House (which still stands, albeit much reconstructed) was built during this period, which would mean that the label was misplaced.

The only image of the buildings in this period comes from John Cook's 1882 history of the Charterhouse.  It's a bit of a puzzle since the perspective is odd.  We can't tell how many inmates it would have housed.  The number of residents certainly fluctuated through the years.  The original charter stipulated that there should be 13 poor men and 13 poor women, but that was the only clause in the charter which was routinely ignored.  There were often far fewer than 26 inmates, especially during the post-Reformation years when the Masters were left to their own devices and were sometimes either lazy or corrupt.  There is no record of whether the 17th century rebuild was an opportunity to expand the hospital's capacity.

The rebuilding in 1780 provided rooms for 44 inmates.  The greater the number of inmates, the higher the cost to the charity, of course, but there was soon a move to build more accommodation.  In 1804 a new wing was built on the eastern side of the main building at the rear.  Named the Bourne Wing after the Master, it housed 14 residents (some sources say 16, but this seems unlikely).  

The rooms in Bourne Wing followed the style of those in the main block.  They were architecturally of their time but took no account of the fact that their occupants were all elderly and many were infirm.  Their very high ceilings, with windows to match, made such matters as window-cleaning and hanging curtains impossible without help.  Half of the accommodation was on the first floor, with their residents often trapped, in their later years, by their inability to negotiate stairs.  There were few handrails.  Unfortunately, all the subsequent extensions followed the same pattern.

There was plenty of room to expand further.  On the south side was a huge garden behind the Master's house, but this was, apparently, sacrosanct.  There was space to the north but no money, until, in 1840, a chunk of the Hessle lands was sold to the Hull and Selby Railway Company for over £506 (c. £30.5k today).  With nearly £1,060 in the bank (£64k) the Master, Thomas Dikes, got permission for a new block of 12 rooms, each measuring 15ft x 12 ft, which were ready for occupation in 1845.  Six of these were intended for widows of of deceased residents, but in the end only three of them were needed for that purpose.

This 1853 map shows the boundaries of the property had been reached and no more accommodation could be built (without using the garden).  In 1863 the plot shown on the map as Clappison's Square was bought for £1,510 and plans drawn up to build 32 rooms and two washrooms on the site, in stages.  To fund this, part of the lands at Hessle was developed; eight "villas" were built and leased out.  By July 1867 twelve new rooms at the Charterhouse were ready for occupation.  There were various proposals for more rooms, and it is not clear which were actually built.  

This drawing by T T Wildridge shows the complex in the 1880s.  

This drawing by F S Smith is from the same period, 1884.

However, plans had been under way since 1881 to expand further.  William Thomas Dibb, the local brewer, had offered the money but wanted to be anonymous, and it was several years before his name was revealed.  Numerous proposals were put forward, including building in the Master's garden, and at the same time concerns were raised at the poor state of the existing buildings.  It was August 1885 when plans were finally approved for 14 new rooms.  They were completed in 1886.

The 1891 map shows the new boundaries and layout.  During the next 40 years the corner of land in the south west was also acquired, and after a great deal of discussion a "recreation room" was built there.  It was the first facility, apart from the chapel, where all the residents could meet, and it closely resembles an old school hall.  It was completed in 1939, and narrowly escaped being commandeered by the RAF for the war effort.  

The whole complex was left empty in 1941 as some bomb damage prompted the evacuation of the residents.  It deteriorated as time went by, and was not made habitable again until 1948.  But the patching up had laid bare how poor the accommodation was.  The conditions became scandalous and in 1960 there was an effort at modernisation.  Most rooms were merged into 2-room flatlets and electric sockets were fitted.  However, it was clear that this was inadequate, and a complete redevelopment was needed.

In the 1970s money for housing was becoming available.  The first use of it for the Charterhouse was the construction of a "new house" in the south west corner.  The records are sparse on this, but it appears to have been built in 1975.   There are two flats and, as always, it is a 2-storey building with no provision for a lift or even a stair lift.  Government money was available only to Housing Associations, so the Charterhouse became an HA, a move which made little difference to the day-to-day running but which enabled it to secure the grants for a complete redevelopment.  The 1780 building could not be demolished because of its listed status, and local planners decided that the 1804 Bourne Wing should also be given that status and spared - a mistake in the view of many.  All the Victorian buildings, however, were reduced to rubble in 1978 and, in their place, modern flats erected.

At the same time, in what we now call Old House and Bourne House, one- and two-bedroomed flats were created out of the existing single rooms.  These have kitchens, bathrooms and modern facilities.  But the buildings have no insulation so heating costs are high.  The western wing of the Master's house, designed originally as servants' quarters and for utilities, was also converted into 4 flats for residents.

All this reconstruction could have been an opportunity for a long-lasting solution to the problems inherent in 2-storey buildings, but it was not taken.  Maintenance of the old buildings is, of course, expensive.

The Charterhouse has been in existence for well over 6 centuries.  The future may well see further evolution of its buildings.

Fighting corruption in the charity sector.

I have been re-reading Anthony Trollope's novel The Warden after many years, and realised that it is based on real events.  Following up on those real events has thrown light on what happened to the Charterhouse.
It was common for centuries for those with money to found almshouses or schools (or both) in their wills for the benefit of people in their local areas.  They would bequeath land, the rents from which would fund the institution, and they would specify details such as numbers to be accommodated, what provision was to be made for them, and who would be in charge.  Someone had to oversee the execution of these provisions, and it was often the church.
Many of the almshouses founded before the Reformation were attached to abbeys or monasteries and were closed when those establishments were dissolved.  The Charterhouse survived because it was a separate foundation with its own income, but it passed into the supervision of the local bench, the town's governing body.  The bench appears to have taken little interest in it until 1571, when Robert Armyn blew the whistle on what had been happening.  Unsure what their role was, the Aldermen decided to refer the matter to the Archbishop of York in a petition quoted by Tickell:

"That whereas one Thomas Turner, clerk, has been by the space of thirteen years now past, and yet is master of the hospital of the late dissolved Charterhouse near Kingston-upon-Hull, in all which time the said Thomas Turner has done, and yet openly doth, by divers and sundry ways, misuse the said hospital, contrary to the foundation thereof; not only in receiving and admitting thither, such as be neither halt, lame nor blind; but such as are well to live in the world, and have plenty of money, so as to let it out for usury.  As also in letting out of leases of such lands and tenements as belong to the hospital; as well in reversion as by surrender of the old leases, and that for many years, and taking great fines, and incomes for the same.  And also doth misuse the same by divers other means; as to your Grace shall manifestly and plainly appear.  We beseech your Grace (the premises considered) the said Thomas Turner may be examined and sworn upon his oath truely and distinctly to answer to all such articles, and to every branch and member of the same, as are herewithall exhibited; whereby not only the truth of the premises may appear, but also the same may be restored to the right and true foundation.  And your said orators shall duly pray to God, long to preserve your Grace in health and wealth, with much increase of virtue and gladness.

Christ. Stockdale, mayor"

The Archbishop replied to the effect that it was nothing to do with him, and they should sort it out themselves.

The petition expresses the problem that was building up in many charitable foundations. Without adequate supervision and regulation those in charge were able to siphon off the money for themselves and for people who were far from being the intended recipients. The Hull Bench responded by summoning Turner and confronting him with a long list of rules which he was made to sign up to, including submitting annual accounts. That worked for a while, but in the rather patchy records we have we can see the problem recurring time after time. 1671 the Master Richard Kitson was made to sign articles of agreement with the Bench but there were continual disputes over the finances in his time. In 1716 John Clarke began his 52-year Mastership. His struggles with the Bench over that time are well documented. What powers did the Master have and what should his pay be? Eventually the Bench was driven to take their case to the Court of Chancery in London in 1764, paying a total of £1,053 of the charity's money to achieve a settlement.
The Court of Chancery was the only recourse for anyone disputing the conduct of charities in this period, and it could take years to get a settlement. This allowed bad practice and corruption to flourish. There were grammar schools without scholars, the money going into the pockets of the trustees. There were almshouses where the trustees themselves leased the lands which formed the endowment at a fraction of their value, or borrowed money from the charity's funds. The impulse for change came from the MP Henry Brougham, who, after a struggle, got a Select Commission on Public Charities formed in 1831. It conducted a survey of nearly 30,000 charities and produced a massive report between 1837 and 1840.

Henry Brougham

This fits with the records we have about the Charterhouse. A commission looking into local government finances came to Hull in 1834 but asked only one question about the local hospitals i.e. almshouses. The answer came back to the effect "I thought you weren't going to ask about that". A separate enquiry was clearly in the offing. A document which we can date to 1836 is a meticulous hand-written booklet listing all the inmates of the Charterhouse, the date of admittance, age at admittance, whose "gift" they were, i.e. which Alderman had nominated them and notes about their circumstances. A final column in the table is in a different handwriting by someone who has checked by means of personal interviews if the information is correct. What is revealed in the document is corruption in the awarding of rooms. What we don't know is whether there was financial mismanagement going on. Certainly the number of beneficiaries was being maintained, and increased well beyond the 26 stipulated in the founding charter. But the revelations prompted the Aldermen to clean up their act, and a register of new inmates was started.
Brougham fought for the establishment of a permanent Charities Commission, but for many years Parliament would not back it. Meanwhile, huge social changes saw the need for almshouses and many other charities grow. The Hull Charterhouse more than doubled in capacity by building new rooms while the value of its endowment grew. In 1847 the councillors decided to be as transparent as possible by publishing the names on the waiting list and setting up a sub-committee to decide on admissions. But genuine reform of charities and a permanent Commission was opposed by the Church, by the courts and by municipal corporations, which were said to be among the most corrupt institutions. A permanent Charity Commission was finally established in 1853, but with watered-down powers, and blatant corruption among charities continued.
The Charterhouse did have run-ins with the Commission over changes it wanted to make, particularly in respect of the role of the Master. The councillors wanted to change the job to that of a chaplain on lower pay. The Commissioners held fast to the terms of the original foundation and the 1764 settlement. Terse responses from the Commission to the councillors' arguments are in the archives, and the anger is clear when the Commissioners eventually insisted on a new scheme of governance in 1901.
The modern Charity Commission is a much larger body with many more charities to regulate. No doubt corruption still exists so it is more important than ever.

Remarkable Residents 2: John Merriman

To get a room in the Charterhouse in the 19th century it certainly helped to have the right political connections.  One who did was John Merriman.
He was born in Durham on 17 August 1804.  Nothing is known of his early years, but by 1836 he was in Hull and in partnership with a man whose surname was Hansell*.  Together they set up a business at 13 Silver St as high class drapers.  The Charterhouse owned much of Silver St, but this may well be a coincidence.

Silver St, Hull

Hull Packet, April 1837

It is well worth googling the unfamiliar fabrics, and the accessories are fascinating.  They were clearly aiming at a fairly affluent clientele.  In 1846 John married Hannah and they appear to have lived above the shop.

Ten years later fashions had changed and furs were added to the stock.  This is from April 1847.

But by 1853 they had decided to get out of the drapery business.

It's interesting that the firm to which they sold their stock, Edwin Davis & Co, were still in business in Hull up to the 1960s.

Merriman & Hansell now went into ship-owning and insurance (the two often went together in this period), with offices at 11 Parliament St.  By 1876 Hansell was out of the picture and John had an office at 33 Pemberton St. in East Hull - a distinct step down from Parliament St.  But by then the couple were living at 6 Hornsea Parade, Holderness Rd.

We know of two ships owned by the partnership.  One was the barque Guiding Star, built in Sunderland in 1853 and registered to Merriman & Hansell from 1865 to 1872.  This was abandoned while carrying coal in 1872.  The second was the Kathleen, a German-built barque which was six years old when John acquired it in 1870.  This was detained after an inspection in 1875 in Hull and found to be rotten and unseaworthy.  It was broken up.  It appears that ship-owning had not been a success.

After leaving the drapery business John also entered into civic life.  In 1858 he was elected as a commissioner in the Humber Pilot office.  In 1860 he was a church warden at St Peter's, Drypool.  And in August 1861 he became a City Councillor.

It's interesting that he beat a Reckitt.  By 1866 he was a member of the Board of Health.

By 1881 John and Hannah were living in Argyle Terrace; we are uncertain which of two possible streets this was, but neither suggest that the elderly couple had much money, and they may well have been in poor health.  On 15 January 1885 they were awarded a room in the Charterhouse but died within a month of each other in October and November of the same year.

* This may have been Thomas T Hansell, who was a Hull merchant but this is a guess.