Unravelling the stories of residents

 Our 19th century register gives us the basis of a database currently containing 1,398 names.  Quite a number of those names have only come to light by checking the register against the censuses.  When a married man was awarded a room his wife, who entered with him, was often not recorded; she turns up on the census, either with her husband or as a widow awarded a room in her own right after her husband's death.  If I go on to research the life of a resident more fully, I will often need at least 3 family history websites, plus online forums and general searching.  Occasionally an interesting story will emerge.

A case in point is that of James Beecher, who was awarded a room on 26 August 1886.  Sure enough, he is on the 1891 census. 

I now know that he was a mariner and that he was born in Morton, Lincolnshire.  And I can add his wife, Mackenzie, born in Beverley, to the database.  They should be easy enough to find.

The first problem was that the name was not Beecher, but Beacher.  Perhaps the mistake had been the Master's when he wrote the name in the register.  Once that was cleared up, the story could be extricated.

James Beacher was born on 5 September 1815 in Morton near Gainsborough and was baptised 25 days later in All Saints Church, Gainsborough.  He was in Hull by 1837 when he married Ellen Pickering on 21 July at All Saints Church, Sculcoates.  On the 1841 census the couple were living in Catherine Square, Sculcoates.

A chunk of the 1851 census for Hull is missing, and it includes the Beachers, so I had to pick them up again in 1861.  They were then living at 10 Lucas Square, Sykes St, with their 4 children.  James is described as a merchant seaman.  A decade on and they are still there, with James described as a mariner.  The photo shows another square off Sykes St, which would have been very similar.

Ellen Beacher died in 1877.  James, however, is on the 1881 census, married to Mackenzie, living at 9, Groves Terrace, Sutton.  James is now a lighterman.  However, there is no record of a marriage between James and Mackenzie.  What is the story here?  Were they in a relationship even before Ellen's death?  Unmarried couples were common enough but would she have been accepted into the Charterhouse with James if their status was known?  Mackenzie died in 1894, and because she is not in the register the date is not recorded there.  James died a year later, on 6 August 1895.

Mackenzie remained a mystery.  With a name like that, and the birthplace of Beverley, she was findable - she was Mackenzie Creasor, who was baptised in Beverley in 1817.  Her only other appearance in the records is as the mother of Sarah Creaser [sic] who was baptised in Beverley on 29 December 1831.  No father is named, and Mackenzie would have been very young when her daughter was born.  I can find no other record of mother or daughter.

Two other residents show that mysteries remain.  One such is James Colvin.  He was admitted to the Charterhouse on 2 June 1870, and, as well as in the register, on the two censuses on which he appears his surname is written as "Coloine".  It took a while to discover the true spelling, and so to learn a bit about him.  His date of birth, the register informs us, was 15 September 1801.  He married Catherine McIntyre in Hull in 1830 and by 1841 the couple were living in Holden's Entry, Scale Lane.  Catherine died in 1857, and in 1861 James was a shopman at 22 Parliament St, with his grown-up son and daughter.  But all the censuses agree that he was born in Guernsey, Channel Islands.  Guernsey doesn't have the comprehensive, online BMD records that the UK has, but people more familiar with their records than I am say that they can't find anyone by that name.  So I know nothing about his background.

Another apparent foreigner was William Henry Foreman, who entered the Charterhouse on on 6 February 1889 when he was 73.  He became a shoemaker and broker on West St, Hull, by 1851, but in 1861 he was in jail for a misdemeanour - the record doesn't say what.  It probably wasn't too serious because he went back to shoemaking.  On all the records he gives his place of birth as Quebec, Canada.  And that is more intriguing because there is the record of a baptism of William Henry Foreman in Holy Trinity, Hull, in 1816, a date which fits exactly.  Just coincidence?  Or is there a real story behind it?

Not all the residents' stories can be unravelled.  But what research I can do turns them from names and dates in a book into real people with fascinating lives.

The Westerman family

 Catherine Westerman was just a name on our register, a widow admitted to the Charterhouse on 2 July 1896 who died on 5 November 1910.  But as with so many people, a bit of digging reveals an interesting life.

Catherine Brownrigg was born in Hull in 1829 and married Joseph Robert Westerman in 1850.  The young couple were both from typical poor, working families.  On the 1851 census they were living on Waterworks St and Joseph was a hairdresser.

Waterworks St

Ten years later, with two children, they had moved to Howard St in Sutton.  Joseph had a job as a foreman in a cotton mill and Catherine was working as a dressmaker.  Such career changes were common enough.  Men took work where they could find it, and this may have been a step up in income.  But Joseph was more restless than most.  By 1871 they had moved to Linwood Terrace in Sutton and he had become a grocer.  Of course, we only have these ten-yearly snapshots, so there may have been other upheavals as well.

But soon after this the Westermans' lives took a distinctly unusual turn.  Joseph became a shipbuilder.  That must surely have required capital investment; where did he get it from?  The 1881 census shows the couple living at 17 John St with 4 of their children and a servant.  

John St today

We know that Joseph had gone into partnership with William Sanderson as shipbuilders but that this partnership was dissolved in 1879.  We also know that Joseph had a shipyard and dry dock in Hull.  

I can only find two ships built by or for Joseph R Westerman, both of them sailing ketches.  The first is the 71-ton ketch City of London, built in Rye for Westerman in 1883.  That was followed by another ketch, the 79-ton City of Manchester, built by Westerman in 1884.

But that was the last.  On 12 July 1884 Joseph Robert Westerman died of cholera, aged only 52, at his home on John St.  He was not a poor man.  In his will he left £1,910 19s 2d, worth about £126.5k today.  His executors were Catherine and their eldest son, John Albert.  But John Albert died in April 1885, aged only 25.  Two daughters, Mabel and Kate, also died in 1902 and1909.

What happened to Catherine in the aftermath of Joseph's death is something of a mystery.  Two Hull directories, Kelly's (1889) and Bulmer's (1892) show her living at 5 Reed St, Hull, in an "apartment".  But the 1891 census shows her living with a family in Streatham, London, as a "monthly nurse sick".  The term "monthly nurse" usually meant a nurse tending a mother after her confinement; there was a new baby in the Streatham household.  Why was Catherine there?  Was this a temporary favour to someone she knew?  If so, one would expect her to be described as a visitor rather than a servant, as the census has it.  Whatever the reason, it seems that Catherine was not the comfortably-off widow that Joseph's will would lead us to expect.  Perhaps his legacy was consumed by debts.

She was awarded a room in the Charterhouse on 2 July 1896 and lived there for 14 years before her death on 5 November 1910, aged 81.  Her name (as Katherine, a spelling we find nowhere else) was added to the family gravestone in the Hull General Cemetery.  This no longer exists, a casualty of the City Council's remarkable act of vandalism in the 1970s, but the inscription was recorded by the EYFHS.  The life of Catherine Westerman reminds us that behind every name in a list is a person with a fascinating story.

*Thanks to Bill Longbone for some of this research.

Five more women

 In investigating the lives of past Charterhouse residents it is usually more difficult to find out about the lives of women, especially those with common names.  But where an occupation is given and we have some other bit of information to go on, we can use all the data available online to give them some substance.

MARY ELIZABETH FARR was born c. 1852 and married (or didn't - there's no record of a marriage) William Farr, a boiler maker.  In 1881 they lived at 15 Cottingham Terrace, Sculcoates, by the side of the Drain.  By 1891 they had moved buildings at 2, Sykes St, close to the Charterhouse.  It was obviously a hard life in poor circumstances.  She didn't get her name in the papers until: 

Hull Daily Mail, 21 June 1900

That's all we have.  So what happened?  An electric car was an expensive novelty, so what it was doing on Sykes St, why Mary was in it and why she jumped out must remain forever a mystery.

William died in 1898 and Mary continued to live in Sykes St with her daughters Jane and Rose.  She worked as a charwoman.  She was admitted to the Charterhouse on 6 February 1919 and died in 1937.

ELIZABETH JESSOP was born Elizabeth Murphy in Lincolnshire c.1820 and married James Jessop in Hull in 1850.  They had a daughter, Rebecca, in 1855 but James died in 1858.  Elizabeth took a job as Matron of the Hull Lying-in Charity at 4 Reed St, where she and Rebecca lived in furnished accommodation.  

This charity was established in 1804 as a small maternity hospital for those married women who could not afford the fees for private midwives.  It was managed by a committee of ten ladies (said a report of 1898).  As well as the Matron there was a certified midwife in attendance and doctors on call if needed.  The Matron was responsible for the administration of the charity.  

Elizabeth retired in 1896 and was admitted to the Charterhouse on 1 October that year.  She died on 9 May 1911.  

HELEN MARIA HARRISON lived almost all her life in one house, in Prospect Place, Hull.

She was born in 1838 to James and Margaret Harrison.  On the 1851 census James described himself as an estate agent and genealogist.  By 1871 he was the "town clerk's assistant".  Helen herself was always a music teacher.  We have no more detail than that.

On the 1881 census Helen was living with a family on Grimston Street, described as a servant and music teacher.  Was this a desperate need to earn more money or an escape from the parental home?  By 1891 she was back in Prospect Place with her widowed father.  He died in 1893 and Helen continued to live there alone.  She was admitted to the Charterhouse on 6 January 1910 and died in May 1916.

SARAH TASKER was born Sarah Tasker in Wyberton, Lincolnshire.  She married Frederick Tasker in 1863 and in 1871 the couple were in Skirbeck, Lincolnshire, with Frederick listed as shipsmith & innkeeper.  During the following decade the couple came to Hull.  In 1881 they were managing an establishment which was variously described as a cocoa house, a coffee house and refreshment rooms at 55-56 Paragon St.

This was the White Horse Hotel (on the left of the photo), a temperance hotel which belonged to the Hull People's Public House Company.  This group owned 18 of these hotels in Hull, providing meals and non-alcoholic drinks to take people away from the pubs.  Some of them lasted up to the 1920s before conceding defeat and getting a drinks licence.

Frederick died in 1893 and Sarah carried on alone.  In September 1900, so the Hull Daily Mail tells us, she was granted a "billiard licence".  A year later she was manageress of a coffee house at 10, Witham, another of the People's Public House temperance establishments.  

She was admitted to the Charterhouse on 2 January 1907 and died on 3 March 1915.

EDITH WITTY was another resident who didn't marry.  She came from an East Riding family and was herself born in Hornsea on 18 July 1866.  They were in Hull by 1871 in Durham St, East Hull.  Edith's father John was a shoe-maker.  By 1881, at the age of 14, Edith was a domestic servant - a general skivvy - in the household of a bootmaker.  Ten years later she was back with her parents in Dryden's Entry, Salthouse Lane, but still working as a domestic servant.

Dryden's Entry

In 1901 she was a live-in servant again, this time in the house hold of a "Minister of the Catholic Church of Zion" in Grimsby.  (This was an evangelical sect originating in the United States.)

In the following decade Edith seems to have broken away from the domestic servant role.  On the 1911 census she is a visitor in another household, and her occupation is given as office cleaner.

We don't know when Edith was admitted to the Charterhouse.  It's too late for our register, and the published electoral lists show her living alone until the late 1920s.  However, she appears in the Charterhouse on very informative 1939 electoral register.  She died in 1946, so would have been one of those evacuated from the house in 1941 and not returned.

Edith Witty seems to have been one of those people for whom the Charterhouse was originally founded - the genuine aged poor.

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.