Not many people know that Reckitts (best known for products like Dettol and Veet) used to be a successful biscuit manufacturer, so we thought we’d send Burnsy along to Michelin-starred pub the Pipe & Glass to see what recipes from over a century-and-a-half ago taste like today.
Theatre may be a grand old tradition, but exactly how old? Or how old, at least, in Hull? Our cub reporter Angus Young dives into the mysterious world of the thespians.
The first recorded play performed in Hull was in 1473 when Noah and the Flood was staged outside Holy Trinity Church, now known as Hull Minister. This adaptation of the Biblical story became an annual event held on Plough Monday, marking the traditional start of the agricultural year in early January. Organised by the Guild of Mariners at Trinity House, it featured a purpose-built wooden ship suspended inside the church from its roof before being taken down and paraded around the town, finally coming to a rest outside the church where it became the focal point of the outdoor performance.
Beyond this traditional spectacle, theatrical shows were largely banned in Hull until the mid-18th century. The reason for the clampdown was largely religious and could well have been triggered by none other than William Shakespeare.
In 1599 Hull was governed by a group of Aldermen who, as well as being wealthy merchants and shipowners, were also strict Puritans who viewed acting as both ungodly and wicked. In September that year an unknown travelling company of players visited Hull and found an inn to stage at least one performance. It was enough to spur the Alderman into action. They hastily passed a new bye-law making it an offence for any inhabitant to attend future performances. Venues were also banned from hosting travelling players and risked a fine if they did.
There is no actual record of the actors who triggered all this but local historian Helen Good believes they could have been Shakepeare’s travelling company who he often accompanied on its travels.
Elsewhere, players would normally arrive in a town and apply to the mayor or its governing body for permission to perform. In Hull there is no documented evidence of any such applications in the years up to and including 1599, suggesting the Puritan town was not exactly an entertainment hotspot and that the company’s visit was unexpected.
It is known that Shakespeare’s company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, was on tour at the exact same time with one 18th century author claiming a performance had been given in Edinburgh for King James VI in the same month and year as the one-off play in Hull. Had the actors sailed from London using Hull as a stopping point on their journey to Scotland? No-one knows but Helen is inclined to at least imagine Shakespeare being sent packing by Hull’s straight-laced Puritan Aldermen in much the same way as city councillors once banned Monty Python’s Life of Brian from being shown in local cinemas.
“There is a possibility that Shakespeare, the single greatest cultural figure this country has ever produced, came to Hull and was thrown out of town by the Corporation as an undesirable,” she said. “Somebody came to Hull in September 1599 but was it the Lord Chamberlain’s Men and was Shakespeare with them? From the complaints of the touring actors in Hamlet, first performed in the next year, I would say without hesitation that wherever the Lord Chamberlain’s Men did go, Shakespeare went with them and the experience was not to be a happy one. As to whether the company came to Hull, that is an open question.”
Whoever did visit, they probably stayed and performed at the King’s Head in High Street. At the time, it was the largest inn in the town with a yard capable of being used to stage a play with a paying audience.
The ban on public plays in Hull probably didn’t stop private performances in the houses of wealthy merchants but it took until 1767 for the town to have its own purpose-built theatre which stood in Lowgate. Two years later a larger venue called the Theatre Royal was opened in Finkle Street in what is now the Fruit Market area. It was replaced in 1810 by an even bigger theatre in nearby Humber Street which could hold 1,700 people.
The golden age of theatre in Hull was about to begin.
By Angus Young
Things go a bit space age as Burnsy returns to the Makerspace in Hull’s Central Library to learn how to do laser cutting.
You may well have spotted the Truelove Sculpture near Hull’s Tidal Barrier and wondered what it was all about. Wonder no more as Hull Tour Guide Paul Schofield dons his investigation hat and gets to work.
Jasper of HU17 asked the question, so we got our best brains working out who would win in a fight between a bear and a lion.
In this episode of our podcast, your host Dave ‘Burnsy’ Burns is joined by journalist and Hull City expert Phil Ascough to answer your questions about The Tigers.
Hull crime writer Nick Quantrill is back to tell us about his favourite building in the city. There’s going to be a lot of people agreeing with him on this one.
Comic artist and creator of the CorpseTalk podcast Adam Murphy tells us his top 5 favourite comics of all-time. It includes a LOT of manga.
We see the remains of the city’s most elegant transport system all over the shop, but why did the trams disappear?
As we are the UK’s flattest city with not a hill in sight, you might think that having a tram system here would make perfect sense. However, while Manchester, Sheffield and Nottingham have all revived theirs in recent years, we sadly retired ours in 1945 and have never seriously thought about bringing it back ever since. Instead, all that remains of what was probably the most elegant form of public transport ever to grace Hull’s streets are a few museum exhibits, a couple of old tram depots now converted into new uses and a short stretch of track disappearing from view down an alleyway off Anlaby Road.
Hull’s first all-electric trams made their debut on 5 July 1899, running on two routes to and from the city centre along Hessle Road and Anlaby Road. Until then, people got around the city using horse-drawn transport with the exception of a steam-powered tram service which ran on Hedon Road. Tram lines were first laid in the mid-1870s. The nine miles of single-line tracks and passing loops were used by horse-drawn trams until 1889 when the short-lived Drypool and Marfleet Steam Tram Company opened a 1.3m tramway for steam-powered trams to ferry workers to and from Alexandra Dock.
Both the steam tram company and a separate firm operating the horse-drawn trams were eventually acquired by Hull Corporation ahead of the launch of its ambitious municipally-owned electric tram service. Parliamentary consent and £300,000 in loans to fund construction work were also secured by the Corporation before its first trams went into service. Within a year, lines along Holderness Road, Beverley Road and Spring Bank with an extension along Princes Avenue had been added.
The rails were supplied by a Belgian company while the electrical equipment was made by German firm Siemens who, more than a century later, would return to Hull to develop an offshore wind turbine blade manufacturing facility in Alexandra Dock. The design of the Belgian rails differed from those used in many other cities and were said to give a smoother ride, particularly over Hull’s many railway level crossings.
A specially-built power station in Osborne Street initially provided electricity for the network and although it closed in 1930 the building still stands today and is used as a warehouse. After its closure, electricity was supplied by the Corporation’s huge coal-fired power station in Sculcoates.
At its peak, Hull’s tram service featured 180 vehicles and 21 miles of line but by the mid-1930s trams began to be replaced by trolley buses and motor buses and the final tram – illuminated by 800 lightbulbs to mark the occasion – completed its last journey on 30 June 1945. Beyond the Streetlife Museum and a couple of buildings, the legacy of the network can still be seen on some sections of Hull’s main roads where the trams once ran down the middle of what are now long grassed central reservations.
Significantly, the trams also marked a shift in attitudes towards working women. Until the start of the First World War in 1914, the workforce at Hull Corporation Tramways was all-male. However, once the war started women were recruited to replace men who had joined the armed forces. Initially, women worked as conductresses but were later also employed as drivers and inspectors.
by Angus Young
Among others, Mike Young on Facebook asked us what the oldest house in Hull is. There’s only man fit to answer this question, Hull Tour Guide Paul Schofield is on the case…
