Sir Arthur Atkinson

 Sir Arthur Atkinson was for many years a trustee of the Charterhouse, and the Chairman for much of that time.  Yet there is no reminder of him here; no memorial and nothing named after him.

Sir Arthur Atkinson

He had a similar role in many of the charitable organisations in the city, but now seems to have been forgotten.  A ward was named after him at the old Sutton Annexe of the Infirmary, of which he was Chairman and President, but few know who Atkinson was.  Is there any memory of him at Northumberland Court, where he was a trustee of the United Charities Almshouses for many years?  Or in Hull Trinity House, where he was an honorary brother?

So who was Sir Arthur Joseph Atkinson?  He was born in Hull on 20 July 1864, the son of Joseph Atkinson, a shipowner who had founded the firm William Brown, Atkinson & Co.  (Joseph Atkinson cropped up in my earlier research into the building on Salthouse Lane, Hull, which was for many years the Sailors' Home.  He was the driving force behind the home and was Chair of its management committee for all that time.)  Arthur was sent off to be educated at the Leys School in Cambridge and then, at the age of 16, began to work in his father's company and train for its eventual control.  

In 1891 Arthur married Bertha Blain Haughton.  By 1911 the couple were living in Elloughton where Joseph was seriously ill.  He died in 1912 and Arthur took control of the family company.  He was later to form the Sea Steamship Co Ltd and continued to be associated with both companies all his long life.  During the 1914-18 war he made use of his enthusiasm for motor cars by raising and commanding the East Riding Motor Volunteers (M.T., A.S.C.); he retired from that with the rank of Major.  It's thought that this unit did not go overseas, and this chimes with the fact that Atkinson continued to be involved in politics during the war.  He was Sheriff of Hull in 1917-18.  

Elloughton Dale

After the war Atkinson clearly lead a busy life from his home at Elloughton Dale near Brough, involved in business, politics and community work.  He was President of the Hull Chamber of Commerce and a Justice of the Peace.  He was knighted in 1929.  By 1932 he was Chair of the United Charities trustees (known today as Northumberland Court almshouses) as well as being a Trustee of the Charterhouse, offices he held for many years.  At the Charterhouse he became Chair in the 1940s and held the post through the period when decisions had to be made about the restoration of the buildings.

This advertisement from 1933 and shows another of Atkinson's involvements, the Infirmary.  It's a mine of local history information.  The tickets cost the equivalent of about £38 today.  Was 9, Scale Lane Atkinson's business address?

Bertha Atkinson, Arthur's wife, died in 1948.  The couple had two surviving children.  Arthur, now 84, seems not to have given up much of his charity work. 

In April 1949 he gave a party for "72 old folks" of the Charterhouse, to celebrate its re-opening.  The piece does not say where it was held, but it is likely that it was in the hall, completed just before the outbreak of war.  This was another venture that Atkinson had supervised.  He was still Chair of the Trustees in 1950 and, at the age of 86, had become president of the East Riding Antiquarian Society.

In 1954 he gave a party for the residents of the Fountain Road almshouses (the United Charities) to celebrate his 90th birthday.  The newspaper reported that he "still has a commanding face and resolute features and a good head of grey hair".  

Sir Arthur Atkinson died on 17 February 1959 aged 94.  He was, perhaps, a figure from an earlier age; but he left a huge legacy of service to the city and deserves to be better remembered.

The lost decoration of the chapel

 The Georgian chapel in the Charterhouse was designed to be somewhat austere.  The walls are plain, although they have become encrusted with memorials over the years.  The windows are of plain glass.  The showy chandeliers which light it date from the late 20th century.  The other major addition has been the organ in 1901.  Any other decoration depends on the tastes of the Master of the time.  Since its building in 1780 the chapel has been renovated or restored several times, the major restoration occurring in the 1940s following damage during the war.  Each time the aim has been to put it back as far as possible to its original condition.  The new heating system is invisible and the sound system unobtrusive.  It is, after all, a listed building.  

So what are we to make of this plaque?  It is dated 1901 and it is fixed to the side of the organ, close to the east window.  It describes the new stained glass, consisting of heraldic panels.  But there are no such panels.  So what happened?  

A former Master was of the opinion that there never was a stained glass window; that the plaque was put up prematurely and the new window was never installed.  I accepted that but now I know it to be untrue.  We have no pictures of the chapel from the early 20th century to prove it, but a more probable explanation is that the window was shattered during the deterioration of the building which took place in the aftermath of the evacuation in 1941.  It took 7 years to restore the Charterhouse and get the residents back in.  There is a photograph dating from the later 1940s, taken by those assessing the damage.

The window has been boarded up.  It isn't clear what the rectangular patch in the centre is.  The whole window could have been removed for safe-keeping, but no one has heard of it since so this is very unlikely.  

And yesterday I came across the evidence that the stained glass was indeed installed and was certainly there in 1926.  The Hull Daily Mail published a lengthy piece on the Charterhouse, including a kind of "secret shopper" account of a service in the chapel.

I'm not sure what a "severly [sic] heraldic window" is, but the description is clear enough.  So the conclusion has to be that it was destroyed during, or in the aftermath of, the war.

The colourful window would have been partly a fiction anyway.  There are no "original arms of the de la Pole family" distinct from the arms of William and Michael.  The simple device with its its three leopards' heads was the same for all three.  The arms of the Charterhouse, shown at the top of the plaque, were designed by the 1780 Corporation but not registered with the College of Heralds.

There remains a question in my mind.  The glass of the east window looks old.  It has that rippled effect which characterises glass that was not made my modern factories and has been in situ long enough to have "flowed" slightly.

There is another puzzle about past chapel decorations.  

This letter to the Hull Daily Mail by the Master, Rev Arthur Chignell, appeared two years before the description of the chapel above.  The chapel is being painted under the supervision of the principal of the Art School, and the men are busy on "a frieze of angel faces".  There are plans for the spandrels adjoining the pulpit (which is certainly not "time of Charles II" as the piece says) and around the doorway.  Chignell knew that the trustees would not stump up the money for all this and so was seeking contributions from the public.

It sounds inappropriate, tasteless, even tacky.  There is no mention of such decoration in the 1926 description; and we can see from the 1940s photo that it didn't happen.  Perhaps he couldn't raise the cash.  Perhaps the trustees vetoed the idea.  We can only be grateful.