Francis Askew and his brother Charles

 

Francis Askew

Francis Askew was one of the great and the good of Hull.  As a trustee of the Charterhouse he is of interest to us.  And his connection goes further than that.

Francis was born in Shoreditch, London, in 1855.  He was one of 6 children, his brother Charles being the oldest.  Both brothers were in Hull by 1881.  Francis went into the printing trade, and he also entered public life, serving in various societies and on charitable projects.  By 1912 he was an Alderman and, in 1916, he became the city's first Labour Lord Mayor.  Like Charles, he was a pillar of the Methodist church.

We don't know when he became a trustee of the Charterhouse but he took that role by 1910.  In December 1910 he caused a stir at a trustees' meeting.  Askew “stated that on a recent Sunday he had occasion to visit a friend of his, who was an inmate of the Charterhouse, in response to a request to do so, and found that on reaching the Charterhouse the front gate was chained and locked, and that he was unable to gain admission until, as he learned some considerable time after, a service was concluded and the gate was unlocked. Mr. Askew said that he understood that it was the regular practice to stop all means of ingress and egress at the Charterhouse during a service in the Chapel.” The Master [William Hay Fea] was to be asked for his observations. Fea replied, in a letter, that it had been the practice for many years. All the inmates were required to attend services unless excused by the Master. The front door of the Hospital and Chapel opened almost directly onto the street, so locking the door was for the “safety and comfort of the sick and infirm” (who were, presumably left alone during the service) and to prevent interruption from outside. “..... boys and youths of the neighbourhood frequently entered the forecourt to do damage, steal the flowers or make a disturbance by hammering loudly on the front door and then running away.” The Trustees decided that the practice of locking up the Charterhouse was undesirable and must stop.  Fea tried to fight the decision but lost.  It might be significant in light of later events that Askew had a personal friend in the Charterhouse.

Charles Aldis Askew was born on 30 January 1853.  He married Maria Burden in Lewisham in 1878 and, like his brother, appears on the 1881 census in Hull, living at 12 Crystal Terrace, Southcoates.  He was a machine fitter's labourer.  By 1891 the couple had moved to Newington St, Hawthorne Ave, and had a son, Henry, who seems to have been their only child.  Charles had become a machine driller.  Twenty years later Henry had moved out but nothing else had changed.  Charles, unlike his brother, stayed out of the limelight.  There is no record of any involvement in politics or in public service except for a report in the Hull Daily Mail on 16 June 1897, where he is listed as present at a half-yearly meeting of the Hull Savings Bank board (though not as a trustee).  At some point in the 1930s he was admitted to the Charterhouse.  He is listed there in the 1939 electoral register, but not in 1926.  

Did his relationship with Francis have anything to do with his admission?  Probably.  Francis died in 1940, but Charles was blessed with longevity.  

The Hull Daily Mail of 24 July 1947 reports on a party at the Charterhouse with 95-year-old Charles as the oldest guest.  But in the next few years he moved out, to Dunbar House, a retirement home on Saltshouse Road.  It's not clear why.  Perhaps it could provide a level of care which was not possible at the Charterhouse.  It was at Dunbar House that he celebrated his 100th birthday, as the Daily Mirror reported on 30 January 1953.

He had moved again by the time of his death on 27 March 1954, to Hugh Webster House on St Luke's St, a nursing home.  

Charles left £262 11s 1d (over £6,000 in today's values) in his will to his son Henry, a retired headmaster.  

Because Charles Askew had moved out of the Charterhouse by the time of his death we cannot claim him as our only known centenarian.  But his story, with that of his brother, sheds light on our 20th century story.

Paupers' Graves

 

Most of the Charterhouse residents who are recorded in our 19th century register, like those who died in earlier centuries, have no marked graves.  Many were laid to rest in the Hull General Cemetery, their graves recorded but with no headstones.  The Sculcoates workhouse had a contract with the cemetery to bury their dead in the pauper's section (left) but almshouses like the Charterhouse had no such contract so their graves are more scattered.  Funerals and burials cost money so were carried out as cheaply as possible.  In 1862 the Master's daughter, Emily Bromby, wrote a begging letter to a contact of Richard Haworth for the £2 it would cost to have this inmate "respectably" and "decently" buried.  Even if an inmate left enough money for the funeral there would rarely be a headstone.

An exception was when there was an existing grave of a family member, and the deceased could be interred in the same grave and an addition carved on the headstone.  That has helped to rescue at least one resident from obscurity.  Jane Foster appears on our register with the bare details.  She was admitted on 9 September 1876 aged 76 and died on 27 December 1878.  We can be sure from that simply that she was either a widow or a single woman or she would not have been given a room in her own right.  But the name is too common to enable us easily to find out more about her.  Until, that is, Bill Longbone of the Friends of Hull General Cemetery turned up a gravestone.

It was hard to photograph but the details are clear.  Jane was the widow of William Foster, who died in 1855.  We have enough information to find out more about her.  She was born Jane Richardson in Hull and married William Foster of Hull on 30 June 1823 in Rise, East Yorkshire.  William was a brewer and by 1841 the couple were living on Vincent St, Hull.  In 1851 William was employing two "hands" and they had a domestic servant.  They also had two daughters.  His small brewing operation was apparently moderately successful.  On 5 March 1852 a court case was reported in the Hull Packet; William had been the victim of a robbery.  The thief had stolen a gold watch, a gold chain and a hat.  

After William's death it seems that Jane did not try to carry on the business.  In 1861 she was living on Shaw St, Drypool, with her daughter Harriet and Harriet's husband, and was described as an annuitant, i.e. a pensioner.  By 1871 she was a lodger, along with another annuitant, in the home of a mariner.  Five years later she got a room in the Charterhouse.

I have compiled a database of 1,179 Charterhouse residents - a small fraction of the total.  All of them, like Jane Foster, were interesting individuals who deserve to be remembered as part of our social history. 

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.

Suffolk Palace

 Every Hull person is familiar with the old post office building in the city centre.  

It's on the corner of Lowgate and Alfred Gelder Street and was opened in 1909.  It survived the war and later enthusiastic developers and was converted for residential and commercial use some years ago.  Less noticed is a blue plaque on the building.

This was the site of the Suffolk Palace, home of our founder Michael de la Pole, 1st Earl of Suffolk.  The 16th century historian John Leland described it as "a goodly house lyke a palace" and states that Michael built three other houses in the town.  Presumably they were not all for his own use.  The "palace" was not the first house on the site.  Richard Oysel built a dwelling there between 1296 and 1307, and it passed to William de la Pole in 1330.  William's son Michael rebuilt it in 1380.

This image of the palace comes from the Cotton MSS.  The gatehouse-gazetteer website tells us: "An inventory of 1388 refers to a hall, summer hall, great chamber, numerous further chambers, a chapel, two wine cellars, a kitchen, a bakehouse, a granary and two dovecotes amongst various other buildings.  Documentary sources from the mid 16th century describe the building as a mansion and depict it as a series of courtyards bounded by a wall and containing a gatehouse, great hall, and chamber blocks. The four storey gatehouse was built of brick and stone, as was the great hall which had a buttery and pantry to the east with a chamber above and a great chamber to the west. A magazine was recorded on the site in 1642. The majority of the buildings were demolished in the late 17th century, though the gatehouse survived until 1771."  

The plaque tells us that the palace was "seized by the Crown" in 1504.  That would be the point when Edmund de la Pole, 3rd Duke of Suffolk, was accused of treason.  Other authorities put the date as 1513 when he was executed.  As with most of such seized properties, it was leased out for a time before Henry VIII bought it back.  He stayed at the palace for a few days in October 1540 and again in 1541 when he held a privy council meeting there.

Inevitably the complex of buildings fell into disrepair and were demolished, and nothing now remains; only the plaque reminds us of this remarkable palace.

Henry Kemp

 When John Healey Bromby died in 1868 he was succeeded as Master of the Charterhouse by Henry William Kemp.  At 47 Kemp was relatively young for the job.  He was born in Thanet, Kent, in 1820 and had married Amy Maria Simons in 1847.  They moved to Hull and Henry bought a house on Park Street which he turned into a "classical and commercial academy" with himself as principal.  When his father Isaac died in 1863 Kemp sold the house, which he had called Thanet House, to the Hull Seamen's and General Orphan Asylum charity.  The charity promptly knocked it down and rebuilt it.  Like most other ambitious men of his time Kemp was an active Freemason.  More importantly, he was the incumbent of St John's Church, the church which one of his predecessors as Master, Thomas Dikes, had built.

One of Henry Kemp's first concerns even before his appointment as Master was the reform of the system by which people applied for rooms in the Charterhouse.  People wanting a room had to lobby each of the 56 councillors individually to get their support, and Kemp had spoken against this.  Following an enquiry in 1869 an "Applicants Committee" of councillors and Aldermen was set up.  The new system required would-be inmates to get a printed application form from the Town Hall.  The committee would short-list 6 names, who would then be voted on in a full Council meeting.

As the waiting list grew so did the problem of evicted widows, and this became an increasing concern for Kemp.  Although a few "widows' rooms" were built they were too few to solve the problem.  Kemp suggested what seems the obvious solution - to let the widow take over her husband's room - but the committee did not even consider it.  Other problems built up, and it is difficult to disentangle from the surviving records what Kemp's part in them was.  The councillors seem to have left everything to him, then refused to get involved when he needed their intervention, until finally blaming him when the problems could not be ignored.  The Applicants Committee functioned well enough but there was no other coherent oversight.

By 1879 there was sufficient disquiet among the councillors to prompt a Special Charities Committee meeting "to investigate various matters connected with the management of the Charter-House".  One issue was so-called "back money".  If someone was admitted to a room which had been vacant for a number of weeks, the new resident was entitled to the weekly allowance for those weeks.  That could be a handsome bonus amount.  But it had been customary for the costs of refurbishing the room to be taken out of that back money.  However, it was asserted that some rooms, which were supposed to be repainted every three years, had not been touched for much longer than that.  Other issues of payments which should have been made to residents but were not were raised, as well as a misuse of funds by Kemp.  Neglect of the buildings were alleged, along with the pressing need for water closets.  The committee was unsure of its powers in these matters and decided to study the documents and interrogate Kemp.

The reaction from Kemp was decisive - he'd had enough.  He tendered his resignation, not only from the Mastership but from the ministry.  His fellow clergy asked him to reconsider and on 25 July 1879 he was invited by the residents to a meeting in the garden (the only place, apart from the chapel, where such a meeting could be held).  It was reported the next day in the Hull Times in such detail that we must suspect that the piece was written by Kemp himself:

"I suppose I have not in my life-time suffered more pain than I have during the last three months. I am quite willing to confess my shortcomings as a master. It may be that I have not seen quite so much of my brethren and sisters as they would have liked.  But you know that I am of a somewhat sensitive and delicate turn of mind. I do not like to intrude upon people. I regard each one of your rooms as if it were your own castle. I take no liberty with you of any kind whatever. I do not interfere with your religious freedom in any way, and therefore I think that to a certain extent it was a fault of mine that you did not see so much of me as you might have wished, but in another point of view it was almost a virtue. It
arose out of my delicacy of feeling that you should have perfect liberty of action with respect to your religious professions. Now, of course, I made some practical mistakes. I am quite willing to confess I made a mistake about those coals. At the same time I did not put any money into my own pocket (cries of “No, no”) ................. For the last four years I have worked very hard for this hospital – (hear, hear) – although I have not worked where you might have wished, that is amongst yourselves in your own rooms – but in the management of the estate – and I may say that I have been very fortunate in the management, so fortunate that I thought I should have been able by this time to have increased your pay by at least 1s per week, and I think if I had done so you would have had no reason to be dissatisfied with my management of the hospital (cheers)." 

The residents begged him to stay, and so Kemp withdrew his resignations.  The Advisers Committee carried out an inspection and made recommendations.  And then in March 1881 came the first hint of what was to be a remarkable act of philanthropy by William Thomas Dibb (see The Benefactor )  and resulted in 14 new rooms.  

In 1886 Kemp was appointed to a canonry in York Minster; but there was a problem in that canons were normally holders of a Masters degree and Kemp was "only" a BA.  So a testimonial was held for him and money raised from local luminaries to buy the degree and the robes needed for the ceremonies.  The testimonial meeting, chaired by Sir Albert Rollitt at the Charterhouse, heaped praise on Kemp.  

Henry Kemp died on 7 March 1888, of diabetes and gangrene of the foot.  Two letters survive from Kemp's son which show one side of an interesting argument about a proposed memorial to him in the chapel.  The family did not want one, insisting that their father would not have wanted the charity's money spent on such a thing.  The councillors must have stated that it was established practice to install such memorials, because the son's response was to give in provided that there was no debate or disagreement about in the committee.  The result is a large brass plaque which we know from later minutes to have cost £45.

A relic of the Priory

 It's not everyone's idea of a little light reading; a scholarly article about the provenance of a medieval manuscript.  But this one gives us a rare glimpse of the Priory which was the original Charterhouse.  

Julian M Luxford is Reader in Art History at the University of St Andrews with a particular interest in monasteries.  This article* tells of a manuscript, MS. 142/192, currently in the library of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.  It dates from the late 14th or early 15th century and there is apparently nothing remarkable about it.  It isn't "illuminated" with beautiful pictures.  The text is a Latin commentary on the Book of Revelation and it is bound with its original hide-covered wooden covers.  There is nothing obvious to say that it has anything to do with the Hull Priory.  

However, some of the parchment had been erased, or scraped, before being re-used; and under ultra-violet light one line was very clear.  The book is ex libris (from the library of) the Charterhouse of Kingston-upon-Hull.  Only one other manuscript is known with the same inscription, and that is in Lincoln Cathedral library.  Luxford thinks the two books are in the same hand.  Further detective work showed how the Gonville and Caius MS had started life in a different format.  It was intended to be in folio, the large size which would have made it suitable for reading from a lectern, perhaps during meals in the refectory.  But after the scribe had written a couple of sheets on folio parchment the instruction came down to scrub that (almost literally) and make it quarto, or exactly half the size.  Rather than put the folio sheets aside he scraped off the writing, folded the sheets in half and started again.  The result is that the first few sheets of the finished work show ghostly vertical stripes where the original writing was.  Again, much of this shows up under ultra-violet light.  This intriguing book turned up as a bequest to Gonville and Caius College in 1659, and there is no knowledge of where it was between the closure of the Priory in 1539 and this bequest by William Moore.

There is a record, apparently, of three manuscripts granted to the Priory by Richard II in 1387, after Michael de la Pole's attainder.  A list of printed books by John Spalding from the London Charterhouse to the Hull Priory survives, from the late 15th or early 16th century; and there is a record of two other books in a letter of 1717.  But where any of these are now, no one knows.  So the only physical remnants of a once thriving Carthusian Priory are two manuscripts.

* A Carthusian Economy: Gonville and Caius College MS. 142/192, Julian M. Luxford

 

The aged poor

According to our foundation document the Maison Dieu was intended to house 13 poor men and 13 poor women who were "feeble or old", as an old translation renders the Latin "debilium sive senum".  Google translate now prefers "elderly or infirm".  The "or" is interesting, suggesting that the infirm need not be old.  However, the interpretation seems always to have been that the institution was to house the aged poor.  Thousands of similar almshouses were founded for the same demographic from at least as early as the 11th century.

Those who could no longer earn their own living were always expected to fall back on savings or on the charity of their relatives.  But the poorest have no savings and their relatives, if they have any, are often not in a position to house and feed them.  Charitable institutions were for centuries the only recourse for those whom society regarded as redundant, who were not economically active and who literally didn't count because they were not included in whatever population statistics were occasionally produced.  The "dissolution of the monasteries" in the 1530s wiped out a major provision of care for those in need.  The almshouses which survived were those which, although attached to religious establishments, were endowed as separate foundations, like the Charterhouse, or were founded by trade guilds (e.g. Trinity House in Hull) or private individuals.  

In the Elizabethan period a new "welfare" system was set up based on the parish as the administrative unit.  Local property owners paid a levy, or rate, which the vestry committees then disbursed to those in need.  Nobody wanted to go "on the parish" (a phrase still occasionally heard in the mid-20th century) but if they were granted "parish relief" they were classed as paupers and granted an allowance at subsistence level.  Workhouses or Charity Halls were set up for those of all ages who could not provide accommodation for themselves; these did not carry quite the stigma they were later to acquire.  At the same time the number of almshouses increased, especially for the aged poor, giving dignity and security to the elderly in need.

For various reasons the welfare system had to be reformed by the 19th century.  The 1834 Poor Law Amendment Acts resulted in an explicitly punitive system under which the aged poor suffered more than most.  Couples who had been together for many years were split up in the workhouses.  What was known as out-relief - the payment of an allowance whilst not having to enter the workhouse - was supposed to be forbidden but was quite common in some areas, as the censuses show.  But it is also common to see men well into their 70s listed as working in various trades.  Clearly many struggled to earn a living far into old age in order to avoid the workhouse.  We have a good example in Richard Haworth, whose begging letters to a Hull acquaintance survive.  Richard, living in London, tried to earn a living as a clerk, apparently on a casual basis, until he was over 80, but couldn't make ends meet and for some years had to borrow money from his better-off friends, money he never repaid.  The long-suffering Samuel Lightfoot reluctantly stumped up the cash until, in December 1861, Richard was awarded a room in the Charterhouse, for the third time of asking, at the age of 82.  He died a year later.

Almshouses provided more than accommodation.  Some, like the London Charterhouse, provided meals as well, as it still does.  The rest gave a weekly allowance of money and fuel.  In our Charterhouse the  fuel was coal and turfs.  The allowances could be varied to take inflation into account, although often there was a lag, a delay in raising the payments, which caused hardship.
The 20th century brought huge social changes which improved the circumstances of the "aged poor".  First came the old age pension in 1909, which was a life-line for many, enabling them to stay in their own homes.  Just as important, the pension was a right, not charity.  The concept of "social security" (not "welfare") gave dignity to millions.  But it caused complications for almshouses, which had to try to take into account what pension income and, later, rent allowances, people were receiving.  They could find themselves paying very different allowances to all their residents.
The early part of the century also saw the beginning of council housing, supplementing the provision by housing trusts and establishing an increasing stock of cheap, decent and secure homes.  This was supplemented from mid-century by council-owned residential care for those who couldn't cope in their own homes.  This enabled almshouses to stop providing nursing care.  But in some cases, including at the Charterhouse, it led to an apparent eagerness to pass time-consuming residents on to the care of councils.  
The financial complications were finally sorted out at the Charterhouse in 1962 with a revision of the Scheme of Governance which ended the payment of allowances; instead, residents would pay 5/- per week “towards the cost of maintaining the Charterhouse”, and pay for their own fuel and lighting. The scheme came into effect on 1 April 1962, and the National Assistance Board was asked to

interview residents to consider their needs. The Board reported back that everyone was catered

for, but the weekly charge for fuel was set at 7/6d a week rather than the full amount.

From the 1962 scheme

The 20th century changes meant an end to the huge waiting lists for almshouse accommodation, although there was always sufficient demand to justify their existence.  And in the 21st century that demand is rising again.  New almshouses are being built in several parts of the country, with charitable organisations again supplying what the state is failing to provide.

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.

Arthur Kent Chignell

The Master of the Charterhouse with the most unusual CV was Arthur Kent Chignell.  He was born in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, in 1870.  His father was William Henry Chignell who described himself on the 1871 census as a professor of music.  This was an exaggeration.  In 1874 in bankruptcy proceedings he was simply an organist and piano tutor.  After university Arthur became a priest in the Church of England.  In 1893 he was in America and then sailed to Sydney, Australia.  On the leg from Honolulu to Samoa on board the Mariposa he had an interesting time with Robert Louis Stevenson, which he described in a letter to his brother Norman in 1938.  He spent much of the voyage in the company of the writer and his wife.  Arthur said that he didn't realise at the time what a privilege that had been, especially as Stevenson died the following year.

Around the turn of the century, Arthur became Rector of Wallaroo in Australia, where his mother was his housekeeper.  From there he went to New Guinea as a missionary, where he spent seven years.  In May 1914 he learned that his mother had been lost in the Empress of Ireland disaster.  On 2 September 1914 he married Elizabeth Rattigan (a nurse who worked in the same mission) at his church in Samarai, Papua.
In 1911 Chignell published a book, An Outpost in Papua, about his experiences.  He writes vividly about the people, and his affection for them is clear.  His attitude was a little too tolerant for some of his readers, although they seem patronising today.

He published a second book, a history of the New Guinea mission before returning to England with Elizabeth in October 1914.  He seems to have spent a few years in the south where his first three children were born, before applying for the job at the Charterhouse in 1919.  Perhaps the fact that his brother Philip was then living in nearby Hessle influenced his decision.  He got the job and was to be Master for 32 years.

He also had a second job.  In June 1924 he was appointed Chaplain for the Board of Guardians, at a salary of £50 a year.  In April 1927 the Board decided he should resign for failing to carry out the duties he was paid for (they had no power to sack him).  The matter rapidly escalated, and in July a Ministry of Health representative came to Hull to carry out an investigation, which was well covered in both the Hull Daily Mail and the Yorkshire Post.  Chignell was accused of ignoring "danger notices"; the job required him to attend on all workhouse inmates who were seriously ill, and he had put in very few appearances.  He argued that some of the proposed visits would have been pointless, and that there should have been a full-time doctor rather than a part-time chaplain.  Chignell got something of a mauling.  The Mail's report ends with "(Proceeding)" but there were no more stories about the case so we don't know the outcome.  It's impossible to know if the case did permanent damage to his reputation.

In November 1924 Chignell sent an intriguing letter to the Hull Daily Mail.  It appears that a group of students from the Art School were in the Charterhouse painting the chapel.  The head of the school, J J Brownsword, had produced grandiose and expensive plans for murals, including a frieze of "angel faces" and decoration around the pulpit and the doorway.  He also wanted an electric light in the dome to highlight his creation, and elaborate hangings.  Chignell knew that he could not ask the trustees to pay for these so he was asking for public contributions.  There is no follow-up to this and nothing in our records, so perhaps the trustees, mercifully, took the view that it was all rather tasteless and none of it materialised.

A photograph taken in 1930 shows Arthur (left) in the garden of the Charterhouse with his brothers Philip and Norman.  Through the 1930s Arthur found himself short of money.  His salary was well below the normal clerical stipend, and the Charity Commission had ruled that the Mastership was a part-time job and denied him a pay rise.  Chignell supplemented his income by writing for the local paper, editing books and taking Sunday duties in local parishes, but the war put an end to many of those opportunities.  He spent the first months of the war battling unsuccessfully with the Surveyor and trustees to get a proper air raid shelter for the residents.

On 7 May 1941 during a heavy raid on the city a bomb fell close to the Master's house, causing considerable damage, and also causing blast damage to the Charterhouse itself.  Chignell was in bed in his own shelter at the time, described by his brother Philip as "an underground dugout where he keeps his books and his wireless".  He was unhurt and so were residents, but it was the beginning of the end.  Chignell (and, presumably, his wife Elizabeth, though she is never mentioned) moved temporarily into rooms in the main building and the evacuation of the residents began.  For the rest of the year the Master compiled and printed a monthly list of the whereabouts of those residents.  But neither the Charterhouse nor the Master's house could be repaired until after the war.  In fact, it was 1948 before the main buildings were restored and reopened, and Chignell ended his days in rooms there, the house not being rebuilt until 1956.

In 1949, nearing 80 years old, Chignell suggested that he would like to retire but couldn't afford to, and would stay on if he had an assistant.  While the trustees were willing to pay for this the Charity Commission would not give permission, saying rather brutally that if he couldn't do the job he should retire and that there would be no salary increase until a new Master was appointed.  The trustees tried at first to add £150 pa to Chignell's £300 salary (£300 is worth about £12,000 in today's values) but when the CC vetoed this as well they apparently ignored them and Rev Ronald Helm was taken on as Chignell's assistant.  

Rev Chignell on left, Rev Helm on right, 1951

This photo, taken early in 1951, is the last we have of Arthur Kent Chignell.  He died on 25 June that year.  His wife, Elizabeth, died two years later.  Chignell's legacy is that the western end of the rebuilt Master's House was later converted into flats for residents and named Chignell House.

Epidemics

It's a frightening time for those of us at the Charterhouse, with the majority of us over 70.  So it seems appropriate to look at how various epidemics affected the hospital through the centuries.  But there's a problem; there is absolutely nothing in the records about it.  Is that because the hospital's inmates escaped unscathed, or simply because no one bothered to record any impacts?
Frequent epidemics of disease were a fact of life.  Thirty years before Michael de la Pole founded his Priory a huge number of people in England had died of the plague, and that disease was to flare up occasionally right through to the 17th century.  There is information in the 16th century Bench Books about its effects in Hull, but no mention of hospitals like the Charterhouse.  In 1575 an outbreak of plague caused the Bench to confine all the poor to their houses, since they were the ones thought to be spreading it.  A tax was levied to pay for their upkeep.  Presumably almshouses were under the same lock-down.
It is possible that there was safety in being relatively isolated and self-sufficient outside the city walls.  But when the plague struck Hull again in 1637-8 the hospital at last gets into the records, because the Master was affected.  Andrew Marvell and his wife were suspected of having caught the disease and were quarantined in the home of Alderman Maccabeus Hollis for 14 days.  They were cleared.  One estimate is that 2,000 people in the town died, a huge part of the total population; at least 2,500 survivors had to apply for financial assistance; and many left the town altogether.  The Charterhouse, which had 18 residents and an income of £133.7s.6d., in 1638 gave a donation of £56 "to the poor in general on account of the pestilence".
An ever-present problem in the city was poor drainage, because the land is so flat.  (This still poses difficulties for modern sewers.)  Complaints about the drains recurred at the Charterhouse.  The situation almost certainly contributed to the numerous outbreaks of diarrhoeal disease; there was a particularly severe epidemic in 1884/5.  However, no spike in deaths of Charterhouse inmates is evident from our register.
This is also true of the two major cholera epidemics.  Cholera is a water-borne disease, but it is

James Alderson

thought that it as brought into England on infected rags, and Hull was particularly badly affected.  Around 300 people died.  Quarantine and other public health measures had been put in place rather reluctantly because the city's rulers didn't want to damage trade.
James Alderson MD wrote a History and Progress of Cholera at Hull, an account of his own experience in the 1832 epidemic.  He mentions the Infirmary, the gaol and the new workhouse, noting that measures had been taken, such as cleaning, to minimise the risks.  He doesn't mention the almshouse-type hospitals.  Alderson's work was vital in understanding the disease.  But lessons were not learned.

The next big epidemic occurred in 1849, and its affects were far worse.  1,834 people died in Hull and Sculcoates.  The outbreak is well documented.  Henry Cooper MD published a paper on it in 1853.  He gives detailed figures for deaths (but not percentages, which seem not to have been used in this period) but this doesn't help us to know what was happening at places like the Charterhouse.  (He also presents an interesting analysis of what was wrong with the drainage system in Hull.)  Our register again gives little indication of a spike in deaths.

In June 1918 Hull experienced its first case of what became known as Spanish flu.  The epidemic lasted almost a year and resulted in 1,261 deaths, across all sectors of the community.  The Charterhouse records don't mention the outbreak, but presumably it was as badly hit as the rest of the population.  The elderly residents would have been particularly susceptible.

We are now in the early stages of an epidemic, covid-19,  which could be the worst yet, and we, of course, don't know what will happen.  If I'm spared, I will try to update this post.

Lady Alice and the Hull foundations

How much involvement did the de la Pole family have in the life of the priory and hospital that Michael de la Pole founded?  Records of the early priory and hospital are sparse.  Michael rarely visited Hull in what remained of his turbulent life.  We know that in 1408 the 2nd Earl of Suffolk, Michael's son, granted further extensive lands to the hospital.  But after his death in 1415 at Harfleur, and his son's a month later at Agincourt, it was the 4th Earl, and 1st Duke, William, who inherited the responsibility for the Hull foundations.  Did he take an interest in them?

The Cloisters at Ewelme

William had as turbulent a life as his forebears.  But he married Alice Chaucer (granddaughter of Geoffrey Chaucer) and the couple made their home at Ewelme in Oxfordshire.  In William's frequent absences it was Alice who oversaw the foundation of an almshouse there for 13 poor men, together with a school.  The almshouses survive to this day.  On 2 December 1439 William himself granted the manor of Rimswell in East Yorkshire to his Carthusian priory near Hull.  William was killed in 1450 and his remains delivered to his widow.  Although Bulmer's Gazeteer of Hull in 1892 states that in his will he desired his "wretched body to be buried in the Charter House at Hull", he was in fact buried at the family estates at Wingfield in Suffolk.  His son John was still a minor and it was Alice who took the reins.
A hugely informative book was published in 2001, God's House at Ewelme by John A A Goodall [pub Ashgate Publishing Ltd].  Among the archives that Goodall studied was a single sheet relating to the Hull priory.  It's amazing that it survived at all; it is water damaged and is a draft of an indenture, written in abbreviated Latin and much corrected.  Goodall states that it is very hard to read and translate, but offers the following translation:

To all the Christian faithful to whom this written indenture shall come, Henry, Prior of the Carthusian house of St Michael beside Kingston upon Hull and the convent of the same, greetings in the Lord.  The late William de la Pole gave to the late Prior, John Gannesfeld, and the convent in perpetuity the manor of Rimswell in the County of Yorkshire with its appurtenances on 2 December 1439, by licence of the King.  Out of consideration of the devout and pious intentions between us and the late Duke and the venerable lady and princess, Alice, Duchess of Suffolk, his wife, we grant that one monk of the house shall, every Friday, during the life of the Duchess, read, and say the Seven Penitential Psalms and a Mass with the office Reministere, celebrated specially for the good estate of the Duchess and her son, the prince John, now Duke of Suffolk.  We grant, moreover, that from this time forward we will celebrate in perpetuity the anniversary of the aforesaid Duke and also the Duchess, when she has died.  Beyond this we agree also that in the near future we will have made two stone images, one in the likeness of the Duke and the other in the likeness of the Duchess, the which shall bear on the right hand a disk, in symbol of bread and fish, and on the left hand an ale pot, in sign of a measure.  These images shall stand in an eminent place in the refectory of the said convent for ever.  In the presence of these images, I, the aforesaid Henry, and my successors as priors of this house, or our procurator or our representatives if we are ill or indisposed, shall distribute two messes of drink, fish and bread in perpetuity to a maximum of two almsfolk, according to our discretion.  That is to say to a man and to a woman, two conventual loaves, each weighing one and a half pounds, and two conventual measures of ale containing two quarts each.  Conventual messes according to this form shall be made on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, except in Lent and on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, when fish shall be provided.  These messes shall now and for ever be the same as those of two monks, except on the days when the Carthusian rule demands abstinence from fish.  On those days the poor shall not be deprived of their messes.  In respect of our distribution of food to the two paupers they are to offer prayers for the souls of the Duke and Duchess, their ancestors, parents and all the faithful departed.  If we fail in the discharge of any of the above duties we will pay £10 to the Duchess and her successors and forfeit the manor of Rimswell and its appurtenances as they have been described.  In testimony of which thing we keep one part of this indenture, sealed by the Duchess, while the other part remains with her, sealed with the conventual seal, given in our chapter on 1 October 1462.

This document contains the only mention of a convent in the records we have; but this was frequently used for an all-male religious establishment.
Alice wanted herself and William to be remembered in statues and in the giving of food and drink to the poor, paid for by the income from the manor of Rimswell in East Yorkshire.

Alice's tomb in Ewelme church

Even more interesting than the information about the priory is what is "scribbled" - Goodall's description - on the back of the sheet.  It's a list of the poor men and women in the "New Hospital", the neighbouring almshouse.  Alice had the right of presentation to this; effectively, she had to give her approval.  Disappointingly, Goodall does not give all the names.  This is part of his transcription:
Names of men are listed with a note of their physical health - "sturdy and powerful" or "young and ill" or "poor and old" - and the name of what appears to be a sponsor.  So "able and powerful" Richard Grawngby was appointed at the "instance" of a certain John Hastmore; two men were appointed "by the will" of the Prior of the Charterhouse, one "by" the late Master Peter of the foundation; and the "powerful" William Malyard at the "instance" of G. Crysto and the present Master.  Two men apparently have no proposers - the "poor and old" John Beanghorn, who heads the list, and John Hadelsey, who ends it.  The women are not individually named - there were eleven, five "debilitated" and six "young and strong".  Beneath is a sentence reading "none of these are tenants of my Lady and one, called Joanna Mayre, was lately received without the licence of my Lady".  A note under this list reads: "memorandum of John Campyon comorante per le North feyre in Hull, faithful tenant of my Lady for 25 years, old and debilitated".
Campyon appears to be someone whose place awaited ratification.
The system appears to be that to get a place in the hospital the applicant needed the support of someone prominent such as the Master or a de la Pole servant.  It helped to be a tenant of de la Pole lands but was not essential.  The Duchess had the last word, signing off the names, but usually after they had been admitted. 
This scrappy document provides a fascinating glimpse of the continuing relationship between the de la Pole family and the foundations of their forebear, the 1st Earl of Suffolk.  And it gives us the names of the earliest inmates to emerge as real people.

In the 19th century news

When a name on our 19th century register is uncommon, a trawl of the local papers on the British Newspaper Archive, together with the usual genealogy sites and search engines, can turn up some interesting potted biographies and social history.

Take Cornelius Kingdom.  He was born in Hull in 1851.  He crops up in the Hull papers first in December 1867.  He was apprenticed to the owner of a Hull fishing smack, but absconded and was caught in Grimsby.  He was sentenced to 7 days in prison.  He must have decided that a life at sea was not for him and on the 1871 census he was a fishmonger.  At some point he went back to fishing.  He next turns up in November 1894 as the skipper of the steam trawler Madras.  The boatswain had a bad accident while they were at sea and Kingdom had to return to Hull.  A journal published in 1900 tells us that the Madras was the first Hull trawler to have a the otter trawl fitted, with great success.  But in 1901 the vessel was involved in two collisions with other trawlers, in the Humber in calm conditions, and after the second the Madras foundered without loss of life.  We can't be sure that Kingdom was still the skipper at this point.  His last mention in the news came in 1904 when he was in command of the steam trawler Jed.  It was involved in what became known as the Russian outrage, when the Russian Navy attacked the British trawler fleet by mistake.  Kingdom and his ship apparently were unscathed.  But he left the fishing life and the 1911 census describes him as a general labourer.  In February 1924 he was admitted to the Charterhouse and died two years later.

An earlier resident, Samuel Mozeen, had a very different life.  Born somewhere in Yorkshire in around 1799, he was apprenticed to gunsmith George Wallis Jnr, the son of a famous gun maker who had taken over the business when his father died in 1803.  When Wallis junior died in 1833 Mozeen advertised that he had taken on the business at the same Mytongate premises.  Shortly afterwards he took over from another famous gunsmith, John Blanch Jnr, at 26 Silver St.  Mozeen did not advertise again until late in 1849, when he announced that he had sold all his stock to William Needler of Scale Lane.  A year later he was awarded a room in the Charterhouse; the register says he was 54, though he was probably a couple of years younger.  Either way, he was too young.  He died in July 1850.

Cornwell Baron didn't appear in the papers very often, but when he did it was for the wrong reasons.  Born in 1785 in Ulrome, he went into business as a timber merchant, with a partner, but went bankrupt in 1810 and 1812.  By 1819 he was insolvent again and imprisoned for debt.  In July 1833 a very small item appeared in the Hull Packet: "Cornwell Baron (47) was charged with embezzling certain sums of money, namely £3 5s.4d. and £2 10s."  On the 1851 census he is described as a merchant's clerk, and lived in Providence Row, Walker St.  His wife Elizabeth died in 1853, and Cornwell was admitted to the Charterhouse in July 1854.  He died on 21 Mar 1862, leaving a will but effects of less than £20.

One of quite a few Charterhouse men in the clothing trade was tailor and draper Robert Bellard.  He was born in 1785 in Welton near Hull and christened in Swanland Independent church, so came from non-conformist stock.  His first advertisement appeared in the Hull Packet in April 1819.  His shop is at 14 Bridge St.  He says that he just returned from London with the latest fashions (dubious, but all the tailors and dressmakers said it) and various kinds of cloth the names of which mean nothing now.  In 1821 his ad reported that he had moved to Dock Office Row, and his ads in subsequent years show that is where he stayed.  In 1845 he said that he had taken on a cutter.  There are no more newspaper advertisements, and he was admitted to the Charterhouse in January 1856.  He died in 1858.

Theophilus Routledge was another tailor, but of menswear.  Born in Easington, Co Durham, in 1827, he was in Hull by 1851, staying with his older brother John on Hessle Rd.  Both were tailors, although the census says that Theophilus employed 6 men and John only one.  They appear to have been rivals rather than partners.  The only advertisements that Theophilus placed were all in 1854, when he had premises at 32 Queen St as a "merchant tailor, hatter and gentlemen's outfitter".  The first ad offered an Aberdeen hat (?) for 12/6d.  The other two, both in December, promote a raglan cloak with sleeves, and a reversible overcoat.  Routledge was still described as a tailor in 1871 and 1881, but is in lodgings in East Hull, and had perhaps fallen on hard times.  He was admitted to the Charterhouse in December 1893 but in February 1901 he was "removed for drunkenness" and went to the Willerby Asylum, where he died in June 1901.

Born in 1802, Michael Parker worked for 25 years for the W & J Walker iron works before announcing in the spring of 1849 that he was setting up in business as an ironmonger on his own account at 32 Scale Lane.  A year later he moved to 75 Lowgate ("four doors from the Town-hall" as his ad pointed out).  He seems to have concentrated on bathrooms and showers.  In 1855 he expanded into premises with "commodious and elegant showrooms" at 57 Lowgate and had taken over another local firm.  Perhaps he overreached himself.  January 1857 he was advertising a large variety of goods.  But By 1857, however, he was bankrupt, with his valuable stock being sold at auction.  He climbed out of bankruptcy in 1859 and started up his business again.  But it didn't last.  He was bankrupt again in 1865.  His wife died in the same year.  But he was back in business as a "tinner" by 1871, and a supplier to the Workhouse.  We next hear of him when he was admitted to the Charterhouse in February 1879.  He died in December 1884.