The puzzle of the Cluderay family

 It is not uncommon to find people following one or both of their parents in becoming residents of the Charterhouse.  Researching one family, however, leaves us with a particular puzzle.

Ruth Ives married James Cluderay in Wortley, Leeds, in 1865.  Their 3rd child George William was born there on 6 August 1871.  By 1879 they were in Hull where their 4th child was born.  James was an engine fitter, and the family had settled at 57 Reform St.  Sadly, James died in 1883.  By 1891 Ruth was head of a household which consisted of herself and her 4 children, her mother-in-law and 2 boarders.  She was working as a machinist and son George was a clerk.  One of the boarders was Sarah M Wilkinson, at 19 the same age as George Cluderay.  5 years later George and Sarah married.

In 1901 Ruth was still living at the Reform St address with 2 of her unmarried children, George (who was described as single) and Arthur.  George was a "labourer in gas house".  In June 1910 she was admitted to the Charterhouse and died in June 1925.  And still described as "single", in 1911 George was living alone at 2 Charlotte Terrace, Waterloo St.  He was working for the railway company as a goods porter.  We lose track of him after that until the 1939 electoral register, when he is in the Charterhouse - with Sarah.  We don't know when they were admitted.  George died in 1944.

The puzzle, obviously, surrounds the marriage and apparent separation of George and Sarah.  Sarah is on the 1901 census as Sarah M Cluderay and married but living with the Branton family and described as their daughter.  With her is her baby son Fred M.  Fred then disappears from the records but Sarah is still living with the Branton family in 1911.

So what was going on in the Cluderay marriage?  Married in 1896, were they together, if only temporarily, in 1900, or was the baby not George's?  They were living apart at least as late as 1911.  When did they get together again?  Sarah lived to be 101, dying in 1972.  

Back to Ruth and James and their youngest child, Arthur, born in 1879.  In 1903 he married Maria Halley and by 1911 they were living at 6 Spring Grove, Hull.  No further record of them is available until the 1939 electoral register, when they were living at 12 Park Rd.  At some point after 1948, when the Charterhouse re-opened (we don't have a date) both were admitted to the Charterhouse.  Arthur died in 1953, Maria in 1961.

Two generations ending their days in the Charterhouse is not uncommon.  But a mother followed by 2 of her children seems to be unique.

Picturing the 1780 Charterhouse

 The first pictures we have of the 1789 Charterhouse building are, of course, not photographs but drawings.  

This one seems to commemorate the opening of the new building.

This one appears in Tickell's book on the history of Hull and is dated 1793.  On the western edge is the archway which was the last remaining bit of the priory, and through it can be seen a windmill.  There is no paved road outside the building and no obvious boundary to the property.  The angle from which the drawing has been made is slightly different from what one could achieve today; there are buildings in the way now.

There are very few depictions of the buildings other than the original 1780 structure, including the blocks built behind it.  

This one by F S Smith is the only one which survives, drawn in 1885.  Even when photography was common very few people ventured round the back, so this is a particularly valuable image.

The oldest photo we've found of the Charterhouse is a postcard dated 1904.  This one looks very much like it so is of a similar date.  I wonder if the residents are lined up outside waiting for a funeral procession to go by.  The fascination of this photo is in the external appearance of the building.  It is covered in ivy (or is it virginia creeper?); we know that this didn't survive intact into WW2.  A photo taken in 1941 after an air raid caused blast damage shows most of it has gone from the front wall.  However, the flag pole is still there in the later photo.  Most obviously, the early photo shows the boundary wall and railings.  We don't have the date for when these were installed.

 When the building we now know as Old House was rescued from near-dereliction after the war the brick-work was stripped of all plant life, and the trees were removed.  From then on the photos of the Charterhouse mostly look very similar.  This is one I took about 10 years - but it's out of date.  The very tall chimneys have since been shortened to reduce the risk of them succumbing to high winds.  

People who live and work around the Charterhouse have access to other angles from which to take photographs.  Here are a few.

 

Occasionally photographers have tried manipulating their pictures to produce something out of the ordinary.

I'm not sure how this curved image was done.

And this one owes much to Photoshop.

There are many ways of looking at the Charterhouse.

[Thanks to, among others, Carol Osgerby, Adam Randall, Ken Hines and UniqueImagesof Hull.]

Just ordinary people

 Most of the people who ended their days in the Charterhouse will remain unknown or be just names on a list.  Public records may tell us the bare facts, but even then the most common names offer no clues to enable us to pin down those facts.  Online searches sometimes reveal more.  Ordinary people had extraordinary things happen to them.  I have tended in this blog to pick those people out simply because they are interesting.  But those who left no traces, the unremarkable lives, would be just as interesting if we knew more.  Here are some of them.

William and Maria Abba (who come first alphabetically in our database) celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in the Charterhouse in October 1902.  

This snippet in the Hull Daily Mail was the only time they got their names in the papers.  William was born in Scarborough in 1823 but soon came to Hull to pursue a career as a shipwright.  He married Maria Bradley in 1847 and by 1861 the couple were living in Grimsby Lane with their 3 children.  Their last child, Gertrude, was born in 1865.  Like many families they moved house quite often.  By 1871 they were on Holderness Rd and William had taken on an additional job as a "fancy goods dealer".  It's possible that this was not a side-line for him but a job for Maria, an attempt to bring in some money in lean spells for William's work as a shipwright. 

By 1881 they had moved to Grotto Square off Mason St and were to remain there until they were admitted to the Charterhouse early in 1897.  They died within a year of each other, Maria in 1904 and William in 1905.

Just ordinary lives, perhaps.  But who knows what dramas, what joys and tragedies, are hidden behind those bare facts.

John Cana was another ordinary man,  He was born in Woodbridge, Suffolk, in 1834.  By the age of 17 he had moved to Staines and was working as a printer's apprentice and living with the printer's family.  He was to follow the printing trade for the rest of his life.  In 1857 he married Betsey Stropher back in Suffolk, and then the couple moved to London, co-incidentally living in Charterhouse Lane there.  He was described on the 1861 census as a printer compositor.  Soon after that the couple came to Hull.  But John's printing business ran into trouble and he went bankrupt in 1869.  It was a common experience for self-employed and small businessmen.  The couple can't be found on the 1871 census but they were in Hull when Betsey died in 1872.  John wasted no time in marrying again, to Elinor Banks who was 20 years his junior.  By 1881 the family were living in Neptune St and John was working as a printer's overseer.  It was safer to work for someone else than to set up on your own.  In 1891 they were still there, with 5 daughters with the surname Banks (Elinor's children by a previous marriage, presumably) and Ada Banks who is "sister-in-law" to John.  It's obviously complicated!  By 1901 they were living in St James St.  (pictured)

John stayed in the printing work as long as he could and. at the age of 72, he was admitted to the Charterhouse in May 1906.  Elinor did not accompany him.  She would have been too young for admission.  But it's possible that the couple had separated before then.  John Cana was a Charterhouse resident for ten years before his death.  Just another ordinary life?

The only claim to fame of William Henry Pepper was that at the age of 18 he was in trouble with the law.  He'd found a way of cheating the blind newspaper on Whitefriargate bridge, and did it several times before he was caught.  He handed over what he said was a sixpenny piece for a penny paper, and the vendor gave him 5d change.  Only later did the vendor discover that Pepper had given him a worthless token of the right size instead of a coin.  So in 1881 Pepper, described as a cloth dealer's labourer, was sentenced to 3 months in Hedon Rd jail followed by 12 months of police supervision - the precursor to probation.  He went straight after that (or was never again caught).  In 1889 he married Annie Manchester and 2 years later he was a Master Grocer at 15 Florence Ave, Queen St.  By 1911 he was a hotel porter, the grocery business presumably not having worked out.  We next pick them up on the 1939 electoral register in the Charterhouse, so the years in between are a blank.  Annie died in 1946 but I don't know when William died.  An ordinary couple with a bit of youthful law-breaking.

Joseph Acum spent much of his life as a grocer and tea dealer in Hull; but he was born and grew up in Sleaford, where he married Susannah Clay in 1821.  By 1851 they were living in New George Street, close by the Charterhouse.  Two years later Joseph was giving evidence to an enquiry into election bribery when Henry Clay had won the Hull seat.  

Joseph said he had been promised 15s. for voting for Clay, and when the money didn't materialise he pointed out that he had done a lot of work for the election.  He never received the money.  (Joseph wasn't the only Charterhouse resident to give evidence to the enquiry.)

In 1861 the couple were still in New George Street (picture below)

But then there is a puzzle.  Joseph was admitted to the Charterhouse in July 1867, without Susannah.  He was 71.  He's here in 1871.  Susannah is living in Spencer St with her daughter and family.  She gives her status as married and her occupation as "agent's wife".  In 1881 we find Joseph in Spencer St with Susannah, as head of the family, though there is no break in his recorded residence at the Charterhouse.  Susannah died 2 months after the census.  Perhaps Joseph had returned to her temporarily  because she was very ill.  He died himself in February 1885, aged 89.  What we can discover about Joseph Acum's life leaves a lot of questions.

There is clearly no such thing as an ordinary person.

John, Mary, William, Ann

 There are just shy of 1,600 names on my database of Charterhouse residents through the centuries.  Inevitably the bulk of them are from the 19th and 20th centuries, but there are many from earlier (and a few from later).  It was obvious that some Christian names cropped up far more than others, so I analysed the data.  The results were interesting.

I am not a statistician, and I acknowledge the limitations of this exercise.  For instance, lots of people have two Christian names, and I have used only the first of these.  Nonetheless, what emerges is sometimes surprising.

Many names crop up only once or twice.  It's clear that the people of Hull had no truck with celebrity culture.  There is not a single Victoria on the list, and only 5 Alberts.  Horatio Nelson didn't inspire any parents of our residents, and Florence Nightingale only 3.  Some people were given a name which is clearly a surname; it was common practice to use the maiden name of the mother or earlier ancestor as a Christian name for a child, and this probably accounts for the Morrison, Bellamy and 3 Smiths on our list.  The more exotic names, like Theophilus and Zadie May, may be the result of their parents' determination to be different.  Around the end of the 19th century fashions in baby names began to change, too late for many to appear on our list.  For instance, among the women there are none of the flower names which would become so popular.  As for the men, changes include the emergence of Stanley (4), Raymond (3) and Leslie (3).

Here are the top men's names.

This is not really surprising, even if it shows a lack of imagination in large numbers of parents.  John and William together make up 53% of the total in the top ten male names.  In 1903 the local paper commented on the fact that on the latest waiting list of 114 applicants for a room, 3 were called John Brown.

There's a similar pattern in the female list, but with some complications:

In addition to the 95 Marys there are 26 Mary Anns (which make the top ten in their own right) and 13 Mary Janes.  It was difficult to know whether to lump Ann, Anne and Annie together; but many an Annie had originally been baptised as Ann.  There is even less imagination here in the naming of girls than of boys, and the top 4 names make up 72% of the total in the top ten.

We can't extrapolate from this very limited data to the population as a whole.  Our residents generally came from the poorer class of society.  And perhaps Hull people named their children differently to other areas of the country.  It's interesting, nonetheless.

Edward Southwick - the Zoo Keeper

 The most exotic occupation of a future Charterhouse resident must be that of Edward Southwick who was a zoo keeper.

The zoo in Hull began as an addition to the Botanic Gardens which had opened in 1812 on the corner of Spring Bank.  By the 1830s zoos were becoming popular around the country, and in 1839 the decision was made to open one in Hull, next to the Botanic Gardens.  It opened in October 1840 and the whole site became known as the Zoological Gardens.  It housed an extraordinary variety of animals, but they were kept in conditions which would outrage us today, and caused concern even then.  

The Superintendent of the Zoological Gardens was John Simpson Seaman, who got the job in 1842.  When Southwick joined is unknown; the 1841 census has been lost.  But he was certainly there as keeper in 1851.  Edward was born c.1792 in Preston near Hedon, Yorkshire; his mother was Dianah and his father was John Southwick. He was baptised on 30th January 1793 and married Ann (nee Mitchel) at Skirlaugh, Yorkshire, on 28th July 1819. Together they had two children: Jane (born 1819 at Preston); and Harriet (born c.1829 at Long Riston, Yorkshire).  What Edward did for a living until joining the Zoo we don't know, but he may have worked at another zoo.  In 1852 there was a second keeper, Robert Wells, who appeared on an advertisement with Southwick but is not heard of again.  The advert was for a "Grand Gala" for the benefit of the two keepers.  

We can see the keeper's house at the top of this map of the Gardens, just above the menagerie.  For 20 years Edward and his family had a home to go with a job which must have been full of excitement.  The Gardens staged fireworks displays, which must have disturbed the animals, as well as galas. equestrian displays and even a balloon ascent.  

But despite their initial success, and continuing popularity, the Zoological Gardens cost huge amounts to run and fell deeper and deeper into debt.  By 1860 it was clear that the problems were intractable and closure was inevitable.  The last ever gala was held on 2 September 1861,  Southwick, who was still there on the census earlier in the year, was now out of a job - and without a home.  We can't pick him up until the 1871 census, when he was living at 5 Mason Terrace with his wife.  He is described as a labourer, although he was 78 years old.  He was admitted to the Charterhouse in June 1873.  Our register does not list his wife so we don't know whether she came in with him.  Edward Southwick died in November 1878.

A huge amount of information about the Gardens can be found in a booklet published by the Hull History Centre, and online at booklet

Song of the Men of Hull

 The Victorians loved a good ceremony.  All sorts of events provided an excuse; visiting royalty, the opening of a new housing scheme, even the start of work on an infrastructure project could occasion a civic party with a band and a choir processing from the station or church or town hall.  So when the Hull Barnsley & West Riding Junction Railway and Dock Company, founded in 1880, cut the first sod to begin a new line between the two towns on 15 July 1881 there had to be an appropriate ceremony.  (It was 4 years before the railway was actually opened and didn't make it quite to Barnsley).

Step forward Henry Kemp, Master of the Charterhouse.  He wrote a poem, Song of the Men of Hull, in 8 stanzas, which was set to music by William Spark.

The medallion of Kemp on the front of the sheet music was, we are told, "executed by Mr Charles Mason, Hull, and presented by him to the Rev H W Kemp B.A."  Kemp was not known as a poet - not surprisingly.  But he did his best to get as much of Hull's history into the work as possible, including Michael de la Pole.  Unfortunately this meant that both the sheet music and the catalogue entry (below) had to go to great lengths to explain that history.  True to the title, it is all about great men.  No women were apparently involved.

I know of only two surviving copies of the song, but perhaps there are more languishing in piano stools or choir cupboards.

The music was the work of William Spark, a Leeds-based organist, composer and music teacher.  How the collaboration came about is not known.  As we see in the lengthy introduction, it starts off in 6:8 time.  Two choirs are then involved, a 3-part and a 4-part.  Perhaps these were intended to be the junior and senior members of a large church choir.  Each verse switches from 3-part to 4-part half way through, and switches rhythm from 6:8 to 2:4 as it does so.  

The event was reported by the Eastern Morning News in mind-numbing detail for those accustomed to watching such occasions on film.  There are two broadsheet pages of very small print unrelieved by pictures.  The full history of the railway company and its plans; the vast numbers of people taking part in the procession representing all aspects of the city's life; who conducted the ceremonies and how; all are described meticulously including the fact that there was a great deal of snowfall.  But one has to plough through to the last column of the first page to find the only mention of the song:  'The "Song of the Men of Hull" was then sung and the vast concourse dispersed"'.  That's it.  Who sang it, who wrote it, the article writer seems not to care.  It would seem that the song was not written especially for the occasion.  And to be fair, it is only the catalogue entry (above) which claims that it was.  The sheet music simply says it was sung then.  Maybe it was the fact that it was sung then which prompted Kemp to get Gough & Davy, Hull's long-lived music shop, to publish it (at the price of 3 shillings - about £10 in today's values, so hardly cheap).  But it was destined to sink into deserved obscurity.

Thanks to Steve Bramley and Andrae Sutherland for their considerable help with the research for this post.

Celebrations

On 5 January 1950, reported the Hull Daily Mail, the Charterhouse held its first ever Christmas party.

The writer is careful; "as far as can be ascertained from records".  But it was probably true.  Early records are patchy and say very little about the residents.  In the earliest phase of the hospital there was plenty of outdoor space for partying, but little, if any, communal space indoors apart from the chapel.  However, it is unlikely that any money would have been forthcoming for celebration meals or the like.  Little changed with the rebuilding of the later 17th century.  

Religious celebrations would have followed the pattern of those in the parish churches.  Before the Reformation, Christmas and Easter could have been exuberant affairs.  Much changed after the religious upheavals after that.  It is said that Cromwell abolished Christmas.  He didn't.  Nor did the Puritans abolish it, or not quite.  What they tried to abolish was the celebration of Christmas; it should be a time of fasting.  When John Shaw became Master of the newly-rebuilt Charterhouse in 1651 we can be sure that there were no unseemly celebrations of any kind.  Shaw was such an ardent Puritan that he was sacked from his job at Holy Trinity and eventually forced out of the Charterhouse.

Another complete rebuild in 1780 again failed to provide a meeting place for residents.  There was (and is) a very large garden behind the Master's house, but it was private and residents could use it only at the invitation of the Master.  

Not all celebrations need to be parties.  Often a gift will do.  The first celebratory gift to the residents that we know about was on 5 November 1608, in commemoration of the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot 3 years earlier.  This may well not have been a one-off, but it is the only time we know about.  Royal occasions were especially popular.  On 3 December 1841 inmates got 2s. each to celebrate the birth of Prince Albert Edward nearly a month earlier.  On 29 January 1858 the Hull Packet reported that the Mayor had “provided an excellent tea for the aged occupants of the Charterhouse” to celebrate the wedding of the Princess Royal to the Crown Prince of Prussia on 25^th January. They also got two shillings each (c.£6 today).  Since there was nowhere to hold such a tea in the Charterhouse it is possible that it was at the Town Hall, a temporary HQ for the Council in what had been the Mayor's own house).  And on 10 March 1863 inmates were each given 2/6 (around £10.50 in today's values) to celebrate the marriage of Prince of Wales and Princess Alexandra.  Again, there may well have been other such occasions which were not recorded.  

There was something special about Christmas 1899.  On 21 December the Hull Daily Mail reported a generous gift from the Sheriff of Hull, amounting to about £780 in today's values.  Where this entertainment was held we don't know.  It's possible that a local church hall was hired.  

The next day the paper reported a more practical gift from the local MP (and there wasn't an election in the offing).  At the time a pound of tea cost about 1/7d, around £6.20 in today's values.

For more personal celebrations, particularly from the mid-19th century, there were always the local pubs.  The Charterhouse was surrounded by pubs; but they were patronised by men much more than by women.

The need for a hall of some kind at the Charterhouse had long been obvious, and was discussed from the early 1930s.  The surveyor, John Watson, had a definite site in mind, a patch of land at the western side of the complex facing the road.  But there was never any money.  Finally, late in 1938, the building of a "recreation room" was agreed and work began.  What was immediately known as the hall was completed in August 1939.  The timing was bad.  The RAF expressed an interest in commandeering it, but didn't go through with this. 

Inside, the hall very much resembles a school hall.  It has plenty of space in which chairs and tables can be set out; a stage with rooms behind it; and, essentially, a small kitchen.  But it was ten years before it could be used.  In 1941 the Charterhouse was evacuated and the buildings fell into disrepair,  It was re-opened after restoration in 1948.  In April 1949 the Chairman of the Trustees “gave a tea to the inmates ..... to commemorate the restoration and re-opening of the Charterhouse” - presumably in the hall, which was given the title of the Watson Hall after the surveyor who had done so much to bring it about.  

Celebrations have changed over the years.  It has been a while since residents put on their own shows, for instance.  But we know that the hall has been the scene of memorable occasions.  In 1977 there was evidently a meal to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of HM the Queen.

This photo is from the Hull Daily Mail.  

Recent social occasions have been rather muted affairs, with Covid 19 much on our minds.  Royal births and marriages no longer attract monetary gifts.  There is room for personal celebrations to be held in our own flats.  But maybe we can have a big "do" on the 73rd anniversary of that first Christmas party.

UPDATE June 2022

Since the end of Covid precautions the hall has been busy.  The latest celebration was to mark the Platinum Jubilee, 45 years after that 1977 photo.

It was a less decorous affair.  Times change.