John Hull

“ I remember when Frederick Harrison visited Hull-House that I was much disappointed to find that the Positivists had not made their ardor for humanity a more potent factor in the English social movement, as I was surprised during a visit from John Morley to find that he, representing perhaps the type of man whom political life seemed to have pulled away from the ideals of his youth, had yet been such a champion of democracy in the full tide of reaction. ”

“ I returned to Hull after six months with the fishing fleet, fairly sick of life on a trawler, and with my mind made up to try for something better in the seafaring line.
My great idea was to get abroad and see something of the world, and I should, so I thought, stand a better chance of doing this if I went to Liverpool and tried to get a ship there. Having no money—my entire worldly possessions consisted, at this time, of a few spare clothes—I set out to walk the whole distance from Hull. ”

“ Commander Thomas Arthur Hull, R.N., retired, has died at Honor Oak at the age of 74. He took part in the Behrings Straits Arctic Expedition in search of Sir John Franklin from 1849 till 1854, for which he had the old Arctic medal. ”

“ Hence, we passed through a fenny but rich country to Hull, situated like Calais, modernly and strongly fortified with three block-houses of brick and earth. It has a good market place and harbor for ships. Famous also (or rather infamous) is this town for Hotham's refusing entrance to his Majesty. The water-house is worth seeing. And here ends the south of Yorkshire. [Pg 298]
19th August, 1654. We pass the Humber, an arm of the sea of about two leagues breadth. The weather was bad, but we crossed it in a good barge to Barton, the first town in that part of Lincolnshire. ”

“ LENG, Sir WILLIAM CHRISTOPHER (1825–1902) , journalist, born at Hull on 25 Jan. 1825, was elder son of Adam Leng of Hull by Mary, daughter of Christopher Luccock, of Malton, architect. Sir John Leng [q. v. Suppl. II] was a younger brother. His father had served in the navy during the Napoleonic wars on board the Termagant; but from 1815 he engaged in commerce at Hull. After education at a private school, where he showed a taste for literature, William was apprenticed in 1839 to a wholesale chemist in Hull, and afterwards acted as town-traveller. In 1847 he began business on his own account. ”

“ While Sir John Hotham still negotiated, the arrest of his son obliged him to act, but before he could admit the royalist forces, Thomas Raikes, the mayor of Hull, and Sir Matthew Boynton, Hotham's brother-in-law, seized the town and secured his partisans. Hotham himself got out of Hull, but was stopped at Beverley (29 June 1643) and shipped off to London (Rushworth, v. 275; Vicars, Jehovah-jireh, pp. 365–72; Wildridge, Hull Letters, pp. 33–40, 151) . ”

“ Rich. Dickson. Rich. Willson. John Hull. Rich. Willson. John Woodhouse, churchwardens, 1730.
From the way in which the holders of similar offices are arranged at present it is surmised that these gentlemen respectively represented the townships of
Poulton. Carleton. Hardhorn. Thornton. Marton.
On the south side of the church is a mural tablet to the memory of the Rev. Richard Buck, M.A., of Agecroft Hall, Pendlebury, [196] born 1761, died 1845, also Margaret, his wife, and Margaret, his daughter. Another monument bears the names of Frances Hull, born 1794, died 1847 ”

“ Hull shall become a great town.”
As a matter of history, it may be stated that when the town was threatened by Charles I., a number of houses in Myton Lane, as well as the Charter-house, were laid in ruins by Sir John Hotham, [Pg 104] governor of Hull, so that they might not give shelter to the Royalists. Ray refers to this couplet, and, in error, calls Myton, Dighton.
Selling church-bells has given rise to satirical rhymes. Here are three Lincolnshire rhymes on this topic:—
“The poor Hatton people
Sold the bells to build up the steeple.” ”

“ Sir John Pickering, Kt. Born at Flamborough in 1544. Was the son of very poor parents, yet became a Privy Councillor and Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal. Was twice chosen Speaker of the House of Commons, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth.
Sir John Lister, Kt. Born at Hull in 1585. Became twice Mayor of Hull, and was five times elected M.P. for his native city. Entertained King Charles I. on his visit to Hull in 1639. Founded in 1642 the ‘Lister Hospital’ for six poor men and six poor women. ”

“ John Yeardley left Hull on the 14th of the Fourth Month, and arrived at Hamburg on the 21st. For the purpose of attending the Exchange, and of becoming acquainted with the language, he hired a lodging in the neighborhood of the city, where he remained for some weeks. Writing to his brother, under date of the 23rd of the Fourth Month, he says,--
In the neighborhood of Hamburg, lodgings are not easily obtained for so short a time as a month. ”

“ John's College, who was closely associated with the group of scholars we all identify with the beginnings of the Settlement movement. It was easy to claim the philosophy of Thomas Hill Green, the road-building episode of Ruskin, the experimental living in the east end by Frederick Maurice, the London Workingman's College of Edward Dennison, as foundations laid by university men for the establishment of Toynbee Hall. ”

“ It would scarcely have been possible that any{105} survivals of the Edwardian port could have been retained in the astonishing commercial development the city has witnessed, particularly in the last century; and Hull, despite its interesting history, lays no claim to even the smallest suggestion of picturesqueness. The renaissance of English architecture is beginning to make itself felt in the chief streets, where some good buildings are taking the places of ugly fronts ”

“ Hull’s famous victory taught the pleasures of war to a new generation, which had hitherto been sedulously educated to think only of its cost. The first taste of blood maddens; and hardly had the “Constitution” reached port and told her story than the public became eager for more. The old Jeffersonian [377] jealousy of the navy vanished in the flash of Hull’s first broadside. Nothing would satisfy the craving of the popular appetite but more battles, more British frigates, and more daring victories. ”

“ There were few actors on the stage for whom Elliston had more regard than he had for the veteran, Hull. In 1807, worn out with a career which dated from 1759, heavy, useful, and intelligent Hull played his last character, the Uncle, in "George Barnwell," and he died soon after. Mason had a good opinion of him, for in consigning the Chief Bard, in "Caractacus," to be played by him, the poet remarked:—"Any instruction from me will be unnecessary; your own taste and judgment will direct you." To Hull is owing the establishment of the Covent Garden fund for the benefit of decayed actors. ”

“ Brooding and shaken, like an old man utterly undone, Hull abandoned his pretentious invasion of Canada and retreated across the river to shelter his troops behind the log barricades of Detroit. He sent six hundred men to try to open a line to Ohio, but, after a sharp encounter with a British force, Hull was obliged to admit that they "could only open communication as far as the points of their bayonets extended." His only thought was to extricate himself, not to stand and fight a winning battle without counting the cost. His officers felt only contempt for his cowardice. ”

“ Gray hairs do not make a coward of such a man, though they should render him imbecile.
It is not easy at this remote period to appreciate the difficulties of the position in which Hull eventually found himself. At first he refused to take command of the expedition, but being urged by the government, accepted, though with the express understanding that in case of hostilities, he was to be sustained both by a fleet on Lake Erie, and an army operating on the northern and western frontier of New York. ”

“ The Natural and Political Observations made upon the Bills of Mortality, by Captain John Graunt, citizen of London, 1662, bear so intimate a relation to this third group of Petty's writings, and they are themselves of such importance in the history of statistics, that, if they were really written by Petty, as some assert, he should not be deprived of the credit which their author unquestionably deserves. ”

“ The old red-brick Grammar{107} School bears the date 1583, and is a pleasant relief from the dun-coloured monotony of the greater part of the city. Of the walls, besieged in a half-hearted fashion during the ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’ trouble, and in a most determined fashion during the Civil War, nothing remains, and, our interest slackening, we suddenly realize that we have been long enough in this shipping city. It is not altogether easy to leave Hull behind, for Hessle, four miles further on, is in the suburban area. ”

“ To say exactly the date of birth of the city which to-day the inhabitants proudly call ‘The Third Port’ is one of the things that are beyond man’s power. It used to be thought that Hull was founded by King Edward I., but we know now that this was wrong; for there are in existence old title deeds which show that the city goes back in point of time more than one hundred years before ‘Edward of the Long Shanks’ became King of England. ”

“ This was Hull’s last expression of confidence or hope. Thenceforward every day brought him fatal news. His army lost respect for him in consequence of his failure to attack Malden; the British strengthened the defences of Malden, and August 8 received sixty fresh men of the Forty-first under Colonel Proctor from Niagara; [256] but worse than mutiny or British reinforcement, news from the Northwest of the most disastrous character reached Hull at a moment when his hopes of taking Malden had already faded. ”

“ Providence clearly held the same views as John Locke on charitable institutions.
He thought of Locke as he had known him years ago, in Paris, a man twenty years his senior—penniless and intemperate but with an irresistible charm, rolling stone and waster but proud as a Spaniard; a man of the world with the heart of a boy, the enemy of nobody but himself, weak but lovable; a ragged coat and the manners of a prince; idealist and failure.
Craven read the letter through again. Locke had forced his hand—he had no option but to take up the charge entrusted to him. ”

“ Hull boasts not only of being the chief port on the Humber, but claims to be the third port in the kingdom, giving precedence only to London and Liverpool. There was a time when it was a mere hamlet; but it has not only outgrown the towns near it that once did a greater business—such as Hedon and Beverley—but has seen what was a much larger commercial centre than either of these places literally pass from the map. What anciently was the chief port on the Humber lay, snugly enough to all seeming, just within the bend at Spurn Head. ”

“ If political life allures her, Hull certainly offered an attractive opportunity, but I am sure her father did not favor that suit, and as her ambition was more for his preferment than from any personal fondness for a congressional career, she will soon cease to regret, and find contentment in her lovely surroundings. ”

“ Was the first Chairman of the Hull School Board, and has his memory perpetuated in the ‘Sir Henry Cooper Schools.’
Thomas Earle. Born at Hull in 1810. Was a gold medallist of the Royal AcademyAcademy, and designed the statue of George the Fourth in Trafalgar Square, London, and that of Queen Victoria in Pearson Park, Hull, beside many others.
Sir James Hudson, K.C.B. Born at Bessingby in 1810. Entered the Government Service and held many important posts in the United States, South America and Italy. Was created a Knight Commander of the Bath in 1855. ”

“ If the spirit of rigid Calvinism, under any plausible disguise, should be widely diffused through the Anglican Church, we need no prophetic mind to announce, that it will lead to consequences fatal to her peace and liberty, introducing a spiritual despotism whose power will be felt throughout the length and breadth of the land, overawing, as in the days of John Knox, the majesty of princes, and spreading its morbid gloom to the sequestered cottage of the peasant, in the remotest regions and most unfrequented provinces. ”

“ But there is nothing more disorganizing to men than to be fired at and not have the opportunity of firing in return, and they besought Morris again to give the permission. Twice more the lieutenant went aft to the quarter-deck, and twice he got the same reply. Hull, like Paul Jones, believed in great broadsides at close quarters. This silence under galling fire was the greatest test of discipline an American crew had ever had. For in the heat of battle a man forgets to be afraid. That the men stood to it, speaks well for Hull’s training. ”

“ It will be gathered from the foregoing that prelates were granted privileges which enabled them to exercise much power amongst the people. Some of the rights enjoyed at Hull by the Archbishop of York were oppressive to the inhabitants of the town, and gave rise to much strife. It was the practice, exercised according to ancient custom, of the Archbishop of York to claim prisage from every vessel of twenty tons burden entering the river Hull. ”

“ Therefore having lived in a Settlement twenty years, I see scores of young people who have successfully established themselves in life, and in my travels in the city and outside, I am constantly cheered by greetings from the rising young lawyer, the scholarly rabbi, the successful teacher, the prosperous young matron buying clothes for blooming children. "Don't you remember me? I used to belong to a Hull-House club." ”