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.

Too late

A room in the Charterhouse was highly prized.  So why did some people turn it down?
From the second half of the 19th century those who applied for a place were put on a waiting list.  The committee of councillors who acted as advisers to the hospital, faced with a vacancy, would select a few names to be put forward to the full Council.  The Council then voted on who should be "elected".  It is apparent from the register that it helped considerably to have the right connections.  Some people got a room suspiciously quickly.  Even when the new Trustees were put in place, with a scheme of governance, the system remained the same.
The demand was huge.  The local paper first noted it in 1900 when "upwards of 100" queued to apply for a vacancy.  In 1903 the number was 114 (3 of whom were called John Brown); in 1905 the paper asked, "what of the 128" unsuccessful applicants; and in 1906 there were 142 and "several of the applicants had been on the list 20 years".  This would account for the fact that in 1890 "it was found when elected that William Jones had been some time dead".  It seems that no attempt was made to ascertain whether people who had been on the waiting list for years were still wanting a room or even still alive.  Often the candidate or candidates would be in the public gallery of the Council chamber to hear the result.  As soon as the election by the Council had taken place the Master wrote the name in the register, with the date of the meeting, and then, presumably, tried to contact anyone who had not been present.  This certainly seems to have been the case after William Hay Fea became Master in 1898.
The Charterhouse was far from being the only almshouse or hospital in the city.  A number of smaller homes existed, many of which were consolidated in 1887 into the Hull Municipal Hospitals, with its own large building.  Applicants to the Charterhouse would usually have their names down on the waiting lists of these as well.  Perhaps Smith Oldham who, in 1893, "never took possession of his room" and John Appleton who was "never admitted" in 1897 had been successful in getting a room elsewhere.  There is no doubt about Thomas Dean in 1904.  He is recorded as "elected but preferred to remain in Municipal Hospitals".  By 1907 the Master settled on a formula; "elected but refused the room" is recorded for 9 candidates, the last in 1922 when the register ends.  We don't know what happened with Mary Walters who, in 1915, was elected but "resigned" 11 days later.  Perhaps she had a better offer.
The award of a room came too late for William Finningley in 1850.  He died on the same day.  It was a double tragedy for his wife Margaret who would have occupied the room with him.  A rather more romanticised, but anonymous, instance was reported in 1886.

There is no other information about this and the writer obviously had a political point to make.
The most fascinating example of a room being awarded too late is the case of John Kirby Picard.  Born in 1766, he had all the advantages one could wish.  He inherited his father's white lead works and became very wealthy.  He modernised his father's large mansion to the east of Hull, called Summergangs House, and in the early 19th century he came to the attention of the Prince Regent by minting huge numbers of copper coin tokens at his lead works (there was a severe shortage of small change at the time).  In London Picard was drawn into the circles of gambling and dissipation and lost huge sums of money.  Eventually Summergangs House had to be sold to pay his debts (it was later demolished and replaced by Holderness House).  In 1843, still mired in debt, he was awarded a room in the Charterhouse.  Three days later, before he could take up the room, he died.

Picard would have been an extraordinary addition to the Charterhouse community.
For thousands through the years the Charterhouse was a sanctuary in old age.  For a few, the award of a room came too late.

The Charterhouse organ

The organ in the Charterhouse chapel is being dismantled this week.  Work is under way to fix problems of damp in the building; floors have been taken up at the west end of the chapel, and shown to have been in a dangerous state.  Now it's the turn of the east end, and that means removing the organ.  It's a delicate operation on an illustrious instrument.
The first hint of an organ in the chapel came in 1900 in a small notice in the local paper.  The Master, William Hay Fea, had complained that the harmonium currently in use was "inharmonious" and an organ was needed.  It couldn't be afforded; but part of the agreement reached with the Charity Commission for a new scheme of governance in 1901 was that an organ would be provided when funds allowed.  It seems that plans were already in place.  The local firm of Forster and Andrews was commissioned and the new organ was ready for its debut in 1902.
Forster and Andrews was a prestigious firm which existed from 1843 to 1956, and built organs all over the world.  Strangely the Wikipedia entry on them lists dozens of organs but omits the three they built, or worked on, in their own city; the City Hall in 1911, the Minster (then Holy Trinity), an older organ which F & A worked on several times in the 19th century, and, of course, the Charterhouse.

In March 1905 the Hull Daily mail reported that "The Hull Charterhouse now has an organ", despite the fact that it was three years old.  What was new was a stop referred to in the article as a dulciana, labelled on the organ itself as a diapason.  This had been presented by the Hull Cycling Club, of which the Master, Fea, was president.  In January 1906 there was a concert in the chapel which included an organ recital.  It's in the report of this that we get the first mention of Ethel Murray, who sang a solo in the concert.  A book a [Two Centuries of Music in Hull by Norman Staveley, Hutton Press, 1999] describes her only as "a blind teacher of singing and the rehearsal conductor of the HLMU in 1902".  Ms Murray also led a choir which was paid a small sum to sing at services (then on Sunday afternoons) in the Charterhouse chapel.  We have no record of when she began this (although it seems to have been in 1902).  In July 1903 the Hull Daily Mail carried an advertisement for "choir singers" for the choir, though only altos, tenors and basses were required.  Ethel carried on until the place was evacuated and closed in 1941 after bomb damage.  In an unprecedented move the trustees awarded her a small pension for her service.  She died the following year aged 79.

Perhaps the strangest workout the organ has ever had came in March 2017, when a group called the Electro-Acoustic Ensemble gave a concert in the chapel.  It was music from a particular, non-melodic, modernist period which was not to everyone's taste but proved that the old instrument could cope with anything.
We now hope that the experts will be able to put all the pieces back together again and we can look forward to hearing our cherished organ again by Christmas.

UPDATE:  It was successfully rebuilt and is back in action.

Here it's being played by James Webb on Sunday 14 November 2021.

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.

The struggle for power

This appeared in the Hull Daily Mail on 30 October 1901.  The timing is strange; but it sums up a battle which had been going on for years, and which was, at that point, already lost.

Throughout the 19th century the respective roles of the Master and the City Council, embodied in the committee of Advisers, had not been clearly defined.  The Council hired the Master and theoretically had the power to fire him.  But some Masters had been in the habit of by-passing the committee on matters as important as property transactions.  As early as 1879 the committee had put forward a proposal to downgrade the role to that of Chaplain, reducing the salary and turfing him out of the Master's house.  They argued that the job of Master should be part-time, a pastoral post only.  They agreed to put this scheme off until the current Master, Henry Kemp, died, which he did in 1888.  However, the Council had to get the agreement of the Charity Commissioners, and this was not forthcoming.  A new Master, J T Lewis, was appointed under the old terms and for ten years no response from the Charity Commissioners is recorded.  When Lewis died, in 1898, the Council tried again.  They advertised the job on the same terms as 10 years earlier, and all candidates had to agree to use their “best efforts to effect alterations in the government of the charity and the stipend of the Master” as they had set out. The new Master was William Hay Fea.  In December the Committee was still trying to get an answer from the Charity Commission. The following July the Town Clerk reported that he had sent another application to them, signed by the Master, Fea, and the Mayor and Aldermen.

It was more than a year before they received the Charity Commission’s response, which agreed that a new scheme was desirable and enclosed copies of a draft scheme of their own.  At this point Fea, told that he would have to support whatever the Council decided to do, fell out with the Advisers and no longer attended their meetings.  In November 1900 it was reported that the Commission intended to give "more power to the clergy".  Early in 1901 a detailed scheme was put forward by the Commission.  It proposed that a group of trustees would manage the property and “be the ultimate authority in matters of discipline affecting the inmates”. The Master’s stipend would be reduced by £50. The Town Clerk expressed the Council’s objections; the Master would have more powers, not fewer, because he would be able, for example, to appoint the doctor, matron, nurse and porter; the £50 they would save on his stipend would not cover the cost of employing a clerk and a surveyor. If there had to be trustees, he said, they should all be members of the Council.

It is difficult now to understand why the Council was so opposed to the scheme.  Perhaps they felt that it should follow the same model as the Hull Municipal Charities.  This was (and is) an amalgamation of a number of smaller almshouse charities which were no longer viable and were brought together under one roof in a new building.  This was run entirely by the Council.  

At a meeting of the Committee on 27 July 1901 the Council was still refusing to accept the proposed scheme, and claiming that they had the support of bodies such as the Hull Board of Guardians and the Hull Co-operative Society. At this point the minutes of the Charterhouse (Special) Committee end.  By October, as we see from the cutting, Councillors were still maintaining their opposition and arguing that the charity would be better managed by them.  However, the Charity Commissioners got their way, as the local paper reported.  The new scheme came into effect on 5 November.  

The lengthy document setting out the new "scheme" shows that the Council still had most of the power.  These are the main points:

• The Charterhouse would be run by 9 trustees, 5 of them appointed by the City Council, one by the Archdeacon of the East Riding of Yorkshire, and 3 co-optees, who had to live or work in or near Hull. One of these co-optees had to be a woman. It was stated that the first co-opted member had to be the Rev. Joseph Malet Lambert, because he was first on the council’s list of potential members of committee.  
• The Master had to be a Church of England clergyman aged over 30. He would be appointed by the City Council from a list of 3 submitted by the Trustees. He could be removed by the Trustees for misconduct or infirmity, subject to appeal to the Archbishop of York. The Master would get £250 p.a., a free house and £15 p.a. fuel allowance.
• The Master’s duties were: to perform divine service in the Chapel on Sundays and at least twice during the week; to look after the interests of the inmates, including paying their allowances and enforcing discipline; and to appoint the doctor, matron, nurse and porter.
• Vacancies in the hospital would be filled by the City Council from a list of six submitted by the Trustees. A detailed procedure for selecting the six was laid down.

The scope of the Master's work was now clear.  The Trustees were to handle the property and the money, but inevitably they delegated this, and much else, to the Clerk to the Trustees, who was also the Town Clerk.  It was to be many years before the power of the Council was relinquished.