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.

The Mulberry Tree

In the early hours of Tuesday morning, 27 August 2019, a large limb of the black mulberry tree in the garden crashed down.  It looked like the end.  After the tree surgeon had been summoned the local media were informed.  There was a great deal of interest.  The Charterhouse tree is, after all, famous.
Legend has it that Andrew Marvell, the local MP and renowned poet, would sit beneath the tree as a boy.  The trouble with the legend, however, is that it is probably wrong.  We have no evidence for the date of the tree's planting.  Marvell came here as a child of 3, in 1624, when his father became Master, and he left aged about 12 to go off to college.  He rarely came back home.  The current Master's House did not then exist, and all the buildings of the hospital were demolished in 1642 to make way for a defensive garrison at the outset of the Civil War.  Rebuilding began in 1649, and was completed in around 1673, when William Catlyn added a chapel.  There is some evidence that the footprint of the new buildings was very different from that of the original hospital.  Was the new Master's House and garden sited to accommodate the mulberry tree?  A more plausible theory is that the tree is a contemporary of those at Wilberforce House, which was also built by William Catlyn.
We know that black mulberries were introduced into Britain in the 17th century in the hope of developing a home-grown silk industry, but the project had to be abandoned when it was realised that silkworms ate only the white variety.

Our tree survived, protected from encroaching development in its sheltered garden.  It came through the second World War, despite the unexploded bomb which was found in the garden early in the war, and despite the bomb which did explode in May 1941, badly damaging the Master's House and forcing the evacuation of the Charterhouse.  It then survived years of abandonment and neglect; the Charterhouse did not reopen until 1948, and it was the mid-1950s before the Master's House was restored.
At some point it was clear that age was taking its toll. 

Steps had been taken, somewhat crudely, to prop it up with wood and wire meshing.  Nonetheless it has continued to bear fruit, some years in great quantity.  Residents have always made pies and other desserts from the sharp, tangy berries.  2019 has been a bumper year.  And it was, perhaps, that which was the tree's downfall - literally.  The weight of the fruit, together with the very dry summer, was too much for tree to take, and a huge bough simply broke away.  The Matron, Lynne Broom, took photographs of the damage before the clear-up began.

On Wednesday 28 August a BBC reporter from the Look North programme was alerted and arrived with her camera.

 Cutting away the fallen branch.

 The reporter displays the damage and explains the history.

Edward Hudson, our contract gardener, explains what has happened to the tree.


The Master, Canon Greenwell, expresses hope that it can be saved.





The Yorkshire Post had seen our Facebook page post with the Matron's photo and, the next day, published an article (with some historical inaccuracies) headlined Legendary Yorkshire tree which survived English Civil War and the Blitz may have to be felled and using Lynne's photo.
Can the tree survive?  It's hollow, but enough live wood remains to give us hope that it can be saved.  Watch this space.

UPDATE 23 July 2020
The mulberry tree survived! 

Looking rather lop-sided, nonetheless it's in full leaf, and we may yet see some fruit.  Let's hope the weight doesn't bring it down.  Another winter may see it off, but fingers crossed.

 

UPDATE 3 JUNE 2021

The tree survived and is in leaf again this year but in obvious danger of collapse so a prop has been put in.  

 

The Andrew Marvell connection

Andrew Marvell is one of the two most famous sons of Hull (the other being William Wilberforce), known more now as a poet than as the MP for the city.  His statue stands near the grammar school which he attended.  But here we refer to him as Andrew Marvell junior, because his father was Master of the Charterhouse.
The Reverend Andrew Marvell was Rector of St German's in Winestead, a small village not far from Hull.  Winestead was the seat of the Hildyard family.  While they were living there, Marvell and his wife, Anne Pease, baptised 5 children; Anne (1615), Mary (1616), Elizabeth (1618), Andrew (1621) and John (1623).  The youngest died shortly after his first birthday, on 20 September 1624.  Ten days later Rev Marvell was appointed Master of the Charterhouse.  So the future poet and MP came to us when he was 3 years old.
A blue plaque on the Master's House tells the world that it was home to this famous Marvell.  But was it?  We know that the original hospital buildings stood until 1642, when they were demolished during the siege of Hull at the start of the Civil War.  It was, at least partially, rebuilt in 1649 and completed in 1673.  It is highly likely that The Master's House was part of that rebuilding.  Another, much-publicised, connection is with the mulberry tree in the garden, where the young Marvell is said to have sat.  The tree does seem old enough, but we have no actual evidence.
Marvell's connection with the Charterhouse was forgotten for a long time as a result of the failure of historians to do proper research.  A particular culprit was Augustine Birrell, a Liberal politician who turned to essay-writing and wrote a book about Marvell in 1905.  He described Marvell senior as Master of the Grammar School and made no mention of the Charterhouse, causing confusion which was still very much in evidence in 1921 when the city held celebrations for the 300th anniversary of the poet's birth.  Festivities centred on the school, and a commemorative book contained a long essay by Birrell repeating the error.  It wasn't until Pierre Legouis went back to the sources in the 1960s that the truth was told.  (The moral of this story - don't trust confident amateur historians.)
When he was only 13 young Andrew left for university in Cambridge.  His subsequent career has been extensively written about, and although he became MP for Hull in 1659 and remained in that post until his death in 1678, he spent little time here.
His mother died in 1638; his father remarried but died himself in 1641.