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.  

 

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 Chapel

Christian worship was not just integral to the life of Michael de la Pole's Maison Dieu; it was its whole point.  Like the Carthusian priory next door, it was established to provide a bank of people engaged in prayer for the souls of Michael and his family, to speed them through Purgatory.  So the chapel was the hub of the place, and the Master's main job was to say Mass and lead divine service.
So it's curious that it wasn't until 1394, ten years after the licence and charter for the Maison Dieu, that Pope Boniface IX issued a papal bull (order) to Michael de la Pole, 2nd Earl of Suffolk, giving permission for "masses and other divine offices" to be said in the two chapels erected near the hospital his father had built.  Had the hospital managed without a chapel for 10 years?  Had someone forgotten to ask permission?  Had there been a hold-up with the paperwork in Rome?  The chapels were said to be "near" the hospital, rather than part of it.  And why were there two?  It seems implausible that men and women were segregated into different buildings.
No subsequent records for centuries give us any information about the appearance or use of the chapels.  While a great deal of research has been done on medieval church life and faith, almshouses are a neglected area.  We can only follow the effects of the upheavals which Henry VIII set in train through the men who were appointed as Masters, and assume that our chapel mirrored what was going on in parish churches.  The closure of the priory in 1539 left the hospital isolated, but from the appointment of Thomas Turner as Master in 1558 with a dual role as assistant at Holy Trinity (now the Minster) a strong connection with the parish church was established which was to continue for many years.
By 1582 there were only 12 inmates in the hospital.  Financial accounts of the period tell us a little about the buildings, which included kitchens, a chicken house and a buttery, but there is no mention of a chapel.  However, in 1626, when Andrew Marvell senior had been Master for two years, the accounts show that the old building and the chapel had been repaired.  It was the last time this chapel was mentioned.  In 1642 all the buildings were demolished to make way for a garrison at the start of the Civil War.  Inmates decamped to a building on Silver Street and, it seems, used Holy Trinity for their worship.  After the war, when the first phase of rebuilding started in 1649 it seems to have been without a chapel.  Did the Charterhouse residents go to the nearest church, perhaps St Mary's, or was a worship space improvised within the building?  The second phase of rebuilding added a chapel in 1673, the work of William Catlyn.  In 1724 a crude sketch was made of this chapel and appeared in John Cook's book of 1882.

These buildings lasted just over a century.  In 1777 all of them were demolished; only the bell from the chapel was salvaged.  It was made in 1670 by William Sellers of York.  It was rehung in the cupola above the new chapel and is still rung for services.  The grand new hospital integrated the chapel into the main structure.  The Victoria County History describes it in detail:

"The chapel occupies the middle of the north side of the building and projects from its north wall. The interior retains its original oak fittings and survives almost unaltered. It is lit by a tall round-headed window in each of the east and west walls and by a central dome in the roof. There is a dentil cornice and the enriched plaster ceiling is divided into three panels by raised bands of guilloche ornament. The stone slabs paving the floor have small squares of slate at their intersections. At the east end of the chapel the altar, raised on three steps, is enclosed by original rails with heavy turned balusters. Five rows of box-pews are stepped up against the west wall and there are similar pews on the south side flanking the central entrance from the corridor. This entrance has a carved doorcase and a segmental pediment. In the middle of the north wall is an enclosed area with a panelled front, curved in the centre; spacious pews for the master and officers occupy the two sides of the area while in the middle a fine semicircular pulpit, the most striking feature of the chapel, projects from the north wall. It is surmounted by a sounding-board and supported on a bracket some distance from the ground. Access to it is from a door at the rear leading to the vestry.  The drum of the pulpit and the frieze behind it are elaborately carved with swags of drapery and other ornament."

There was also a small vault beneath the altar, in which around five Masters and their wives were buried, but the vault was sealed at some point in the 19th century (there is no record of when) and the only evidence of its presence are two small arches in the brickwork of the eastern wall, and the memorial plaques which tell us the person was "interred in the vault below".  During the 2018 restoration work some human bones were disturbed below the altar, and were re-interred with appropriate ceremony.

It is the orientation of the chapel which strikes people first, and the pulpit which faces you as you enter.  When it was built it must have seemed far too big for the 44 residents housed around it, but by the second half of the 19th century, after many more rooms had been added, it would have a been a squeeze to fit them all in.

An anonymous 19th century sketch shows the chapel looking rather drab.  A few memorials have been fixed to the walls and benches have appeared to supplement the seating.  There was no heating.  A stove was later put in, but it caused complaints about fumes.  At some point a harmonium was installed to accompany the singing.  In 1901, when the governance of the Charterhouse was handed over to trustees, permission was given to replace it with an organ, and the local firm of Forster & Andrews built a splendid one in the south-east corner.  Later, electric light was installed, and there was a failed experiment with a sound system.

The Charterhouse was closed in 1941 after blast damage caused by bombing, and it was neglected and left to fall into a dreadful state.  A photograph taken after the war shows the damage to the chapel.

It was restored, along with the rest of the buildings, and re-opened in 1948.  More than 30 years later, after a major redevelopment of the complex, the chapel underwent a complete refurbishment.  A gas-fired heating system was installed and ornate chandeliers replaced the pendant lights.  On 8 July 1981 the Archbishop of York, Stuart Blanch, led a service of re-dedication.

The decoration of the chapel has always depended largely on the tastes of the Master of the time.  Until 2017 it was maintained in the rather plain state shown in the photo above.  A new Master brought a different sensibility.  But the chapel was quickly closed when a survey discovered that the floor was in a dangerous state.  Extensive work was done to fix that and install a new heating system.  The opportunity was taken to put in an effective sound system, so that, probably for the first time, everyone could hear what was going on.  While the chapel was closed services were held in the hall.

On 12 May 2019 a service of re-hallowing was led by the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu.

Our current chapel has been in use for almost 240 years, continuing a much older tradition.

Matrons of the Charterhouse

We have come to the end of an era at the Charterhouse.  For well over 200 years we have had a Matron to look after the welfare of the residents.  After the Master, she had the most important job in the institution. She was responsible for the domestic side of Hospital life; ensuring that the place was clean and in order, and that the inmates looked after their rooms; attending to the care of the sick and infirm; and doing much of the day-to-day management. Yet the role did not exist for the first four centuries of the Charterhouse’s life. In 1776 a request by the Master John Bourne to employ a Matron was turned down by the Court of Chancery. It was part of an attempt to “use four spare rooms as sick-rooms or else increase the number of inmates” from its current, and historical, 26. A Matron was needed “to attend such Poor Persons as may be ill in the said Hospital”. The Court read the Foundation Document, found nothing about a Matron (or an apothecary who was also requested) and said no.  The ruling seems to have been ignored.

There is a single reference in a document to a matron called Mrs Williams, but the first Matron whose name is recorded, and who may have been the first to hold the position, is Jane Burn. She was born in Beverley in 1791 and was a seamstress before taking the Charterhouse job in about 1830. She appears on the five censuses from 1841 to 1881 in this role. Successive Masters who filled out the census returns were unsure about her age, underestimating it by up to ten years. As she got older she seemed to acquire more duties. In 1852 the Porter died and Jane took over both his room and his duties, as well as her own. In 1867, “in recognition of the work done by her with the new rooms”, she was given a pay rise of 4/- per week and a gratuity of one guinea. In 1871 the Advisers reviewed the role of the Master and agreed that he would appoint a matron and a nurse, but they would each have to occupy a room and count as inmates, receiving the same allowances, except that the Matron would get 12/- rather than 6/-. This suggests that they expected and wanted the 80-year-old Jane to go, especially as they stipulated that future appointments would not be for life.  But she stayed. In 1877 the Master suggested “that the meritorious services of Miss Jane Burn, the Matron of the Hospital, should be recognized by a gratuity of £10.” By 1881 she had the assistance of a cook, Fanny Adamson, but there was no hint of an official deputy or of a nurse. The Advisers made plans several times for what would happen after her. In March 1881 they decided that a surgeon would be appointed on £80 p.a.; a Matron on £40; two nurses under 45 years of age; and a porter on 10/- a week. Jane died aged 93 in 1884, and is the only person other than Masters, donors and their wives to have a memorial in the Charterhouse Chapel.

The Advisers were faced with a contradiction of their own making. If the Matron and Nurse were to count as inmates they could not be removed from their rooms to make way for their successors. If they should be made to retire they needed a pension arrangement, but this does not seem to have been considered. Jane Burn may well have been a remarkable woman, but there was as yet no way of avoiding the dilemma she posed in her later years.

Jane’s successor was Fanny Adamson, who was then aged 37. She had worked in the Charterhouse since at least 1871 as a servant and then as cook. By 1891 she had her 17-year-old niece, Susan Barber, living with her, and by 1901 Susan was officially assistant Matron. Little is recorded about Fanny. In 1892 her salary was increased from £18.4s to £21 p.a. In February 1895 she got her name in the papers when she tended to a resident who was badly burned in a horrific accident (treating her inappropriately, it seems, and was late getting her to hospital).  By 1899 Fanny received £42 p.a. with "two rooms, coals and other allowances” and her application for another pay rise was turned down. That all was not well is shown by the special clause in the 1901 scheme of governance: “The present Matron of the Hospital shall cease to hold office as from the date of this Scheme, and shall be entitled either to receive a pension out of the income of the Charity, with the approval of the Charity Commissioners, or to become a Sister of the Charterhouse, but with a stipend of 3/- a week in excess of the maximum stipend payable to the other inmates.”

It took the new Trustees a few months to get round to the problem of getting rid of Fanny, and they formed a sub-committee. That recommended that she be given a pension of 14/- per week. Her successor should get £60 a year, and a Nurse should only be appointed once the new Matron was in place. The Trustees then accepted the recommendation of the Charity Commissioners that the new Matron should be a qualified nurse. They would pay her £80 a year, and her Assistant Matron (who would no longer be a nurse) would get £40 a year. Fanny Adamson and her niece left the Charterhouse, but it became apparent that she would not go quietly.  In June 1903 “The Master reported that the late Matron, Fanny Adamson and her assistant, Susan Barber, were in the habit of visiting amongst the inmates, and that these visits had a tendency to lessen the influence of the present Matron and Nurse. He was of the opinion that it would be for the good of the institution if such visits were discontinued.” The clerk to the Trustees wrote to the two women to ask them to stay away. In 1918 Fanny asked for an increase in her pension of £36.8s, and was allowed a “war bonus” of 2/6d a week. Two years later she asked for either another increase or a room in the Charterhouse. She was given an increase to £1 per week. When Fanny died on 1st February 1922 a month’s pension which had been due was claimed by her niece, with whom she had been living.
The next Matron was Sarah Hutton. She was 33, the daughter of a Kendal builder, and had been working as a hospital nurse in Hull. Her assistant or “nurse” was Fanny Maria Mumby. Fanny had been living in the Charterhouse for at least 12 years with her widowed mother Ann. Her only occupation had been helping in her parents’ greengrocery, and at the age of 51 her qualification for the job appeared to be her familiarity with the Hospital. The two were appointed in February 1903. In September the same year Fanny resigned. The Trustees’ minutes are confusing about who followed her. It seems to have been E. J. Stephenson. But the young Martha Goundrill, appointed to replace her, resigned in April 1904. Two months later the Master reported that the Matron, Sarah Hutton, had been given 3 months notice. The reason is not given, but there appears to have been differences about the scope and hours of her work. Sarah appealed to the Trustees against her dismissal, and was allowed to resign instead. She was successful, three months later, in getting them to provide her with a reference. The Master was allowed to advertise for a new Matron and for a married couple to act as porter and nurse.

The advertisement gives us clues about the reasons for the staffing problem.  The Matron's salary was the equivalent of about £8,000 pa today, plus fuel and furnished rooms (how many rooms we are not told, but probably two).  She had to be a qualified nurse and work very long hours in "preserving order" among 130 inmates and nursing the sick.  That was no small task in the days when people were not removed to care homes when they became too ill or frail to look after themselves.  At least she didn't have to do her own housework.  That humiliating task fell to the Assistant Matron.  She and her husband would get the same pay between them as the Matron did.

The new Matron appointed was Lena Jordan, who lasted until she retired in 1910, without a pension.  She was followed by Henrietta Whiteford.  A separate post here details her life.  When Henrietta went back to army nursing in 1914 the Assistant Matron, Gertrude Glister, stepped up to become acting Matron, and when the Matron officially resigned in 1917 Gertrude's appointment became permanent.

Gertrude served as Matron right through very troubled times until 1948.  Like her predecessors she was responsible for looking after residents who, after the creation of the welfare state, would be placed in care homes.  She got a mention in the local paper in February 1939 on the funeral of a resident, Thomas Stainton Cartwright, who died just 5 months short of his 100th birthday.  Gertrude had been "like a little mother" to him.
War brought more difficulties, particularly when the bombing of Hull became intense in 1941.  The only shelter for the residents was the "long corridor" which runs the length of Old House, while the Master had his own shelter in the garden.  When a bomb badly damaged the Master's House and caused blast damage to the Charterhouse itself, it was Miss Glister who had to cope.  Evacuation of the residents began, and Gertrude refused to go until all of them were rehoused; then she moved into a flat in Spring Bank.  Throughout the remainder of the war, and until 1948, she kept in touch with the former residents.  When the buildings had been restored and were ready for re-occupation the trustees decided it was time for Gertrude to retire with a much-deserved pension.  She died in 1958 aged 86.

In the last 72 years the succession of Matrons has generally followed the same pattern.  It was no longer necessary to be a qualified nurse, since with the advent of the NHS medical help and the removal of residents to care homes was freely available.  A stint as relief Matron was followed by a full-time post as Assistant Matron and then, when the current Matron retired, moving into the senior role.  All Matrons lived in a flat on the site and undertook the necessary training (as did all the staff).  There may be some dispute in the future about who was the last Matron.  The last to be appointed as such retired in March 2020.  At that point a Warden was appointed in her place, a man, but the Assistant Matron stayed on until her own retirement 4 months later and was regarded as Matron.

Is the new era merely a change of title?  It signifies, we're told, that no medical care is available here, (although the word has other meanings), and it puts us in line with other similar institutions.  However, having a man in the role is certainly new, as is having a warden who does not live on site and works office hours (with 24-hour coverage being provided by several relief wardens).  Time will tell.

The extraordinary life and death of John Jackson

In an earlier post I focussed on a particular episode in the life of John Jackson.  Now I want to expand on what we know about this fascinating man.
He was born in around 1772, but not in Hull.  We don't know where.  With a name like John Jackson he is very difficult to research.  The first certain sighting of him is on 2 November 1813, when he married Alice Cowan at Holy Trinity, Hull.  He was described as a merchant.  Since he was about 41 at the time it was probably not his first marriage.  Alice was 20 years younger than her husband.  Two years later, on 29 July 1815, their daughter Elizabeth was baptised at St Mary's, Hull.  Their abode was given as Bishop Lane.  It seems that the child died in infancy, and a few years later another daughter was born and given the same name - a common practice then.  It will have been during this period that the couple had the run-in with Robert Bamford while Alice was heavily pregnant.  John, it seems, already had debt problems.

Homes of the Jackson family - North Walls, Bishop Lane and Bowlalley Lane

By 1823 the family had moved to 16, Bowlalley Lane, where Baines' Directory describes John as a merchant.  It's likely that his merchandise was books, and that he was also printing and publishing his and others' work.

16 Bowlalley Lane

At some point he joined the Radical movement.  This had arisen in the 18th century as a growing demand for electoral reform, both in national and local government.  1819 saw the Peterloo Massacre at one of the many large protest gatherings; they were rural riots in the 1820s.  In Hull there was a particular focus on corruption in local government.  Accounts dwell on the role of James Acland, but by the time he came to Hull, Jackson may already have been at the forefront of the reform movement.  The 21st edition of Acland's weekly publication, the Hull Portfolio, on 24 December 1831, led with a letter from Acland to Jackson: "Dear Sir.  At a Public meeting of the People of Hull, held at the scite [sic] of the Old Gaol, now some weeks since, a certain declaration to His Majesty was unanimously resolved upon.  You were the Chairman at that Meeting, and as the proceedings were of my suggestion I trust I may be permitted to enquire, whether the document in question (which was signed by thousands) has been duly forwarded by you to His Majesty - if so by what means, and, if otherwise, why."
Acland must have known perfectly well what was going on; the Portfolio was printed by Jackson at his Bowlalley Lane premises.  Shortly afterwards the People of Hull became a formal group as the Hull Political Union with John Jackson as its first president.  The implication is that Acland was the instigator of the Political Union and pulling the strings, while Jackson was simply his puppet.  That has certainly become the official version, and Jackson's name appears nowhere in the accounts of the time.  But there is a strong possibility that John Jackson played a bigger part than history records.
James Acland was a hugely disruptive presence in the city.  In a very short time he was stirring up almost nightly demonstrations.  His full story has been well documented, including his ferry scheme and his standing for Parliament.  He was imprisoned in 1832, and it became clear that he had created a great deal of personal animosity from people who had been his allies, including John Jackson.  In 1832 Jackson published a pamphlet, written by F. Adams with a preface by John himself, setting out the ways in which Acland had broken his promises and conned his friends out of money which he never paid back.
Jackson had money troubles, probably exacerbated by his involvement with Acland.  He was jailed for non-payment of taxes in 1833.  But his political activity continued.  In August 1836 a letter to the Hull Advertiser referred to his "stern republicanism".  At some point in the 1840s he, Alice and Elizabeth moved to North Walls, where the 1841 census records him as a Clerk.  But Jackson was in jail at that point, and is recorded on the census there too.  (It was not uncommon for that to happen.)  It is likely that he had continuing problems with debt.
The 1832 Reform Act had brought very limited electoral reform, but the 1835 Municipal Corporations Act delivered much more fundamental changes, and the first election in Hull after it, in 1836, swept away the old regime.  The corruption in the running of local charities including the Charterhouse was tackled.  John Jackson got his name onto the waiting list and was elected to a room in the Charterhouse on 7 February 1844.  Since the choices were made by the

Council, this shows that he had friends, or at least sympathisers, among the Aldermen.  But it was apparently the fourth time that his name had been put forward, and John could not resist a dig at those who had voted against him, as the Hull Advertiser noted on 15 March.  Alice went in with her husband, although her name is not recorded in our register.  In the Charterhouse the couple would have come face to face with Sarah Bamford, twenty years after she had been awarded the room in circumstances which John had complained so bitterly about.  She was still only 76.  And she was to outlive John.
John Jackson died in horrific circumstances on 15 January 1850.

The local paper printed an account of the inquest, which makes grim reading.  The exact circumstances couldn't be known, but his end was the stuff of nightmares.  For Alice it was a double tragedy.  She had lost her husband and she was now homeless.  She was not given a room, and was evicted.  She appears on the 1851 census as a merchant's widow in North Street, Sculcoates.

(Photo of 16 Bowlalley Lane and contributions to this research by M Gilchrist.)

Doing the books

James Acland, the radical Hull publisher, took an interest in the Charterhouse, as we reported in a previous post.  At the end of a long article about it he published the full accounts for 1822.
Accounts are not everyone's idea of bedtime reading, but they can throw a great deal of light on what is going on.  We start with a list of the properties which were bringing in the funding of the hospital.  These were the lands gifted by the founder, Michael de la Pole, and his son, the 2nd Earl of Suffolk.

The Hessle lands were rented by just four people.  Mark Green had 63 acres, mainly of farmland, and paid £128 14s during the year.  Green also appears to have kept a public house.  Sarah Burn and Samuel Burstal had a few acres.  The only reference to the chalk quarry is the note that "The stone pit is in the lands rented by J.R. Pease, Esq. and J. Barkworth".  Pease had a total of more than 40 acres, part of which had been "converted into a ship-yard, but not found to answer, and, in consequence, reduced to its former state".  Pease paid more rent for his lucrative lands than Green did for his.
In Willerby, Richard Pickering paid £130 for more than 73 acres (c. 30 hectares) of "sundry fields", and about 140 acres in Cottingham were shared among four people.

The list of properties in Hull includes 5 public houses and a number of other shops and houses.  Thomas Temple ran a large pub chain, one of which he leased from the Charterhouse in Blue Bell Entry.  He died in 1822.  There were other lease-holders on the west side of High St, including builders George Jackson and Samuel Stubbs.  The Blue Bell Inn itself was part of this portfolio.  Charles Thompson was an Anlaby merchant who had a 20-year lease on a property on High St.  Thomas Wilson leased the De La Pole Arms public house on the corner of Charterhouse Lane and Wincolmlee, along with (in 1802) five houses and a malt kiln.

The accounts (or was it Acland himself?) then turn to an overview of the numbers of inmates since 1717 and the weekly allowances they received.

The numbers are not consistent but are mostly in the 20-30 range.  Until 1754 the weekly allowance was only 1s.4d. (around £7.74 in today's purchasing power), rising to 2s. (£10.25).  In 1780, with a new building, the allowance went up to 3s.6d, (£15) per week.  The number of inmates are recorded as no more than 42, although the new building had 44 rooms.  By 1803 the numbers had risen to 56 (in fact, the new wing was not finished until 1804) and by 1821 there were 57 inmates receiving 6s. (£17) per week.
A long list of the rents collected throughout the year follows.  Then we come to the "weekly disbursements".  There were, as we have seen, 57 "poor people" in the hospital, each receiving 6s. (c. £17) a week.  A sweeper (presumably a cleaner) got 5s. a week.  And then we read that £17.7s.0d was paid "extra on 19th July, by recommendation of the Bench".  This was in celebration of the wedding of King George IV; the residents had their allowances doubled for that week.

The £15 for "occasional relief" implies that additional small sums were sometimes paid out when needed.
All of this tells us little about daily life at the Charterhouse; but the next section, Incidental Charges, is more informative.  Thirty-one items are listed.  The largest single charge is for coals, at £121.13s.3d. (almost £7,000 in today's spending power).  In addition, turves cost £22.4s. (£1.275).  Together these two items were the fuel which formed a vital part of the inmates' weekly allowances.  Every room had a fireplace which provided the only means of cooking as well as heating, so fuel would have been necessary even in warm weather.  17s. was paid to a man called Neale for distributing the coals and turves.  Water also had to be bought in, at a cost of £10.10s, with another 15s. to Wilson for distributing it.
Some of the charges relate to building work, but it's not clear whether this is connected to work at the hospital or to properties elsewhere.  Two bricklayers were paid a total of £157 (c.£9,000) and a joiner and a painter also received their pay.  Sand cost £1.5s. - what was that for?  Nearly £8 was paid for work on the Cottingham and Hessle drains.  We can only guess what Webster the upholsterer did for his £8.15s.3d.  Perhaps Mr Miles, the whitesmith, got his 1/6d for repairing a kettle.  Mr Kay, the plumber, clearly did some substantial work, but what Mr Young did for his £51.2s. (nearly £3,000) is not stated.  The chimney sweeper got 12/-.  But who was "Bennison" (he doesn't merit even a "Mr") who got £1.4s.?
We have two favourite items; £1.5s. was paid for lamp-lighting; and then, last in the list, is 2/- for "surplice washing".  We know from other sources that in the first year of his tenure the Master, Kingsman Baskett, had his surplice laundered twice, at a cost of 4/-.  Thereafter, it was an annual event.
Under Constant Expences [sic] we have the Master's salary of £200.  That is the equivalent of about £11,500 in today's values, but he also got the house; and perhaps the £1 for water was also the Master's expense.  Other staff costs appear in the previous section; the clerk and the porter get £1.1s. each.  There is no matron at this stage in the hospital's life.  Curiously, £1.1s. is paid to the Town's-husband.  This was a term almost unique to Hull, an officer of the Bench or Corporation who looked after the town's money and kept the accounts, among other duties.  It's not clear what services he supplied to the Charterhouse.
Among the last items in the accounts, mainly details of arrears of rents, are Sundries Received.

 

The first two of these sundries defy explanation.  The third is easier.  Consols were government bonds; for some years the Charterhouse had invested income in these bonds, and clearly the interest was useful.

And finally, the summary of the audited accounts.

A tale of radical politics versus corruption

The starting point was a report in the local paper from February 1850 about the grisly death of Charterhouse resident John Jackson.  It said that he was "formerly notorious Radical as a Radical bookseller" and "a linguist, and a man of considerable literary knowledge".  Clearly Jackson was an interesting man and warranted further investigation.

There are newspaper references to John "Radical" Jackson as early as the 1830s - his "stern republicanism" was referred to in a letter to the Hull Advertiser published on August 5, 1836.  In 1833 he was jailed for non-payment of taxes, and he was in prison again in 1841.  Perhaps this radical trouble-maker was involved with the most prominent local radical of the time, publisher James Acland.  Marianne Gilchrist discovered, with a trawl of Acland's Hull Portfolio; or, Memoirs and Correspondence of James Acland  of 1831, that Jackson was indeed an associate of Acland, often writing letters for Acland to publish, and that both men took an interest in the Charterhouse.
One letter in particular stands out.  Here is an extract:

 “There is a widow placed in the Charter-House here in the name of Bamford, whose husband, it is said, bequeathed her a well-furnished house and six hundred pounds besides, in money. It will naturally be asked what extraordinary merits this widow possessed, which procured her this comfortable situation. I do not suppose, nor will I insinuate, that this scandalous perversion of those funds, which ought to be regarded as sacred and belonging exclusively to the poor, was occasioned by any personal merits of hers. Well then, who or what was her husband? Aye, now we come to the clue of the business.  Her husband was a barber, and shaved well I dare say. He was also employed by the worshipful Corporation of Mayor and Aldermen, to carry before them some bundle or other, in their procession to Church.  High merits these, no doubt! But we must add to them that of being tax-gatherer.” ….

He goes on to explain that Bamford worked for the Aldermen William Hall and Christopher Bolton and when Jackson’s wife was pregnant and seriously ill he turned up with a constable to “execute a warrant of distress” for a debt of £20, months after it had been proved to be an illegal demand.

These are serious allegations, but they are all true.  Sarah Bamford is on our register, admitted to the Charterhouse in 1824 aged 56.  She is one of the batch of residents who were already there when the register was started in about 1836, following an investigation into corruption by the new local council.  Like many of those admitted in the period, she was too young to be eligible.  She was born Sarah Long and married Robert Bamford on 8 November 1798.  Robert was a hairdresser, and 9 years younger than his wife.  
More of Jackson's details prove correct.  Robert Bamford shows up on a record in 1816 as a tax collector; and the 1823 directory lists him as mace-bearer, giving his address as 6, Broadley Square.  He died in August 1823, and an entry in the Prerogative and Exchequer Court of York Index in February 1824 indicates that he left enough money to make a will necessary.  His widow Sarah was admitted to the Charterhouse in the same year, despite the fact that she was not eligible according to the rules governing the foundation.  She was too young and could not be said to be poor.
This had become the norm from the latter part of the 18th century.  Aldermen took it in turns to nominate someone to a vacancy and used the opportunity to reward retired employees or repay favours.  One of the Aldermen raised concerns in 1823, but it was left to "radicals" like Acland and Jackson to publicise the extent of the corruption.  In 1833 Thomas White (if that was, in fact, his real name) published a pamphlet with a full list of the residents and their circumstances; and in 1836 an inquiry verified White's list.  The new Corporation tried to reform the process of filling vacancies, but old habits died hard.
We may wonder why someone who had a house and a legacy would want a single room and meagre allowance in an almshouse.  We know that some people collected the allowance but didn't live in the room, a practice which took a long time to eradicate.  Some may well have rented out their own house while living in the subsidised accommodation.  
The final irony in this story is that in 1844 John Jackson was himself, with his wife Alice, awarded a place in the Charterhouse.  Sarah Bamford was still there.  One can only speculate how the two of them got on.  In 1850 John died a horrific death in his room.  It seems that he had set the bed alight; it and the curtains were on fire and John was in his chair with all his clothes burned away, as if he had staggered from the burning bed.  He died a few hours later.  His wife, Alice, who had been away at the time, was evicted - normal practice at the time.  Sarah Bamford outlived the man who had "outed" her; she died in 1859.