The Charterhouse Register

Until 2017 a thick, leather-bound volume was locked in a safe in the Charterhouse office.  It was transcribed last year, and is now archived at the Hull History Centre.  It is a precious document, not only for its list of a thousand or so names of residents over nearly a century, but also for its incidental insights into their lives
The register's neat columns are inconsistent in the information they contain.  First comes the entry number, then the date of "appointment".  This is the date on which the inmate was officially awarded a place; not everyone actually moved in.  The room number comes next and the inmate's name follows, with their age.  Next is the "cause of removal", often left empty but occasionally with intriguing comments; then the date of death, again sometimes empty, the age at death and, finally, the date of birth (again often empty).
Anyone looking through this volume from its start is puzzled at the first clutch of entries.  The dates of admission seem random, and the ages at admission out of keeping with the Charterhouse's rules.  These people were admitted far too young in some cases.  Only the dates of death are sequential, and these begin in the 1830s.  My earlier researches shed light on this.  During the late 18th and early 19th centuries the Aldermen of the City of Hull had corrupted the hospital to the extent that they took it in turns to nominate people to a place and disregarded the rules.  They appointed people who were well under 60, or were their retired servants, or to whom they owed a favour.  This was not a secret.  In 1833 Thomas White produced a detailed list of residents showing the facts of their admission and their circumstances.  It was the shake-up of local government in the 1835 Municipal Corporations Act which stopped the worst of the corruption, with a wholly new Corporation elected.  In 1836 some kind of investigation took place.  A list was compiled, very similar to that of White, which inspectors went through and commented on after talking to the inmates.  It is this list which forms the beginning of our register.  Presumably a fresh start was demanded, and the register was to be evidence of it.  It was maintained until the early 1920s, when it seems to have fizzled out.  There is a new register these days.
It takes further research to discover that the original register is not a full list.  The censuses show that wives of male inmates are frequently not recorded.  The room was awarded to the man, and his wife was usually evicted if he died before her.  In one instance we found, the wife of Richard Saxby was living with him in the Charterhouse on the census but is only recorded as admitted in her own right some time after his death; she had probably been living, unrecorded, in what was known as a "widow's room".  Mary Ann Miller was evicted after her husband Thomas died in 1888, having been in the house for only three months.  She had to wait for seven years to be admitted again.
The room numbers are meaningless now.  The 19th century buildings have been replaced and the rest of the accommodation has been converted into flats.  It is impossible to say now even in which building the inmate's room was.
The cause of "removal" was usually death, and there is rarely any information about the death.  We know from newspaper reports of three residents who died in fires, but this is not mentioned.  A very early newspaper item of 1836 recounts the inquest on the death of Elizabeth Brown, a Charterhouse resident and dementia sufferer who was found drowned in a ditch.  She does not appear in the register at all, and was probably the wife of an inmate.  One entry, on the death of Robert Brock on 7 January 1895, demanded further research.  The note says, "Presumably, body having been found in the Queen's Dock".  His death certificate reveals that Brock's body was not found until March, so it was presumed at an inquest that he had died on the day he went missing.
Some removals are for "misconduct".  We can assume that this often means drunkenness, although that is only specified for three evictions.  Towards the end of the 19th century and into the 20th people were removed to the asylum (the mental hospital at Willerby) or to the workhouse infirmary when they could no longer look after themselves.
Several names appear in the list of people who never took up the room they were awarded.  Usually this was because while on the waiting list they had found a place in another hospital.  In 1890, "It was found that Wm Jones when elected had been some time dead"
The register has been a great help to people researching their family history.  It also provides glimpses into the lives of those fortunate enough to be granted a place in the Charterhouse and the allowance that went with it.
NB A recently published transcript of the register was not done under the auspices of the Charterhouse, and contains some errors.  Free information can be had by contacting the Master or via our Facebook page.