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.

William Hay Fea

Despite being Master for over 20 years, William Hay Fea is one of the least known modern holders of the post.  He was born in Hull in
in 1850, the son of a local businessman.  After ordination he became curate of St. Bride's in
Stretford, Lancashire, and was Chaplain of Trinity House and incumbent of the Mariners' Church, Hull, when he was appointed as Master in 1898.  It seemed like a precarious job.  The Aldermen who still ran the Charterhouse were still in a prolonged wrangle with the Charity Commissioners over the nature of the job and the whole governance of the place, and Fea had to agree to the prospect of his salary being halved to £150 pa and his duties reduced to a strictly pastoral role if they got their way.  It was more than a year before the Aldermen received the Charity Commission’s verdict; they agreed that a new scheme was desirable and enclosed copies of a draft scheme of their own. The Committee’s meeting on 5 December 1900 was somewhat bad-tempered. Fea had his own opinions on the proposed scheme, but was told that he would be expected to support whatever the Council decided to do. Fea said that in supporting the Advisers’ scheme he had done everything that he was obliged to do, and could not now be expected to support different proposals. The Councillors replied that in that case he ought not to attend their meetings; Fea agreed and left.  In 1901 the new scheme of governance was imposed.  Fea was to get £250 pa.   

The only glimpses we get of Fea's early years in charge are intriguing.  Very quickly he insisted that the old harmonium in the chapel was not fit for purpose and got the new trustees to agree to a new organ.  This was to be a splendid instrument, enhanced by a stop paid for by the Hull Cycling Club of which Fea was president.  In 1903 a curious little piece appeared in the local paper; "The Master of the Hull Charterhouse keeps a banking account for the inmates, and pays them 5 per cent interest."  One wonders whether that was even legal.  But relationships with the trustees seem to have been fractious at times.  In 1908 the paper reported an exchange about a drunken visitor:

Fea stopped attending meetings of the trustees, communicating with them when necessary by letter.  This became evident in 1911 when an influential trustee, Francis Askew, complained.  He had tried to visit an inmate, who was a friend of his, on a Sunday morning and found the doors and gates of the Charterhouse locked.  Fea was in the habit of locking the place up during services and claimed that it was "for the safety and comfort of the sick and infirm" (who were the only ones not obliged to be in chapel) and because local youths made a nuisance of themselves by disturbing the services.  The trustees ordered that the practice must stop.  Never one to accept defeat easily, Fea wrote to the Charity Commissioners.  They took the side of the trustees, who pointed out that it could all have been sorted out quickly if Fea attended their meetings.

Fea did his best for the inmates.  He bought a magic lantern and put on shows for them in the chapel.  (He left it at the Charterhouse when he retired but asked the trustees for £15 for it.  They agreed.)  He arranged an outing for all of them to his mother's house in Cottingham to celebrate her 90th birthday.  He secured an increase in their allowances during the war and had to sort out the complications arising from Old Age Pensions and then war pensions.  On the downside, he also secured a ban on residents whistling and playing musical instruments.

Fea never married.  By March 1919 he decided to retire because of "age and ill-health", but asked for a pension.  The trustees agreed to £100 pa.  The residents presented him with a smoking cabinet and a silk umbrella.  William Hay Fea died on 3 January 1921.