If the phrase ‘a receptacle for every wretchedness’ doesn’t make you want to read this, nothing will. By our wretchedness receptacle correspondent Angus Young.
You might be forgiven for thinking Parliament Street looks pretty much how it was first imagined when the idea of building it was first unveiled in September 1794. Today it remains Hull’s most complete Georgian Street, lined with elegant properties originally designed for “genteel families”. However, one eye-catching feature intended to cement its reputation as one of the most desirable places to live back in the day ended up never getting built.
The street’s story began with a notice published in the weekly Hull Advertiser stating that an application was due to be submitted to the next session of Parliament for “opening and making a new Street…and also for building of a row of Houses on each side of intended Street, with suitable convenience.” So began a process known as a Tontine investment scheme, with private subscribers being sought to fund the acquisition of existing properties for demolition followed by the construction of the new street from Whitefriargate to Quay Street and ultimately the Dock – later known as Queen’s Dock – which had opened in 1778.
A further notice published two weeks later said: “The erection of a new street from Whitefriargate to the Dock side, as proposed to be done by Tontine subscription, would be in every point of view, one of the most eligible improvements which this town has undergone in several years. Beside the advantage of opening a spacious and elegant communication between two places very much frequented, it would be a means of removing from one of the most beautiful Streets in the town a place which is, at present, a receptacle for every wretchedness.”
This dim view reflected a densely-populated neighbourhood of squalid tenement housing only accessible by narrow alleyways, including the evocatively-named Mug House Entry and White Dog Entry. The newspaper notice painted a brighter picture of the area’s future: “The houses on the new Street, on account of their contiguity with the Dock, would be a very desirable situation for people in business and would no doubt be taken with great avidity.”
Despite the likes of William Wilberforce becoming an investor through the subscription scheme, increasing costs around the acquisition of existing properties raised doubts over its viability and progress slowed.
In May 1795 the necessary legislation was passed to create the street, the Act of Parliament inspiring its eventual name. However the uncertain financial situation forced a re-think and, reluctantly, the subscribers agreed to cut costs by shelving original proposals to build a large ornamental archway at one end of the street. The archway had been intended to not only provide a suitably grand architectural statement confirming Parliament Street’s status as the poshest address in town but also to possibly hide views of the less attractive Quay Street and the dockside beyond.
Meanwhile, the wider scheme dragged on. The first building plots were eventually sold at auction in 1796 but it would be another two years before the first newly-built houses were offered for sale. Building plots continued to be sold by auction over the next two years. One sale in 1799 involving five plots at the southern end of the street included “a quantity of old bricks lying on the ground” presumably from the recently-demolished slums.
By the following year the street’s first residents were moving in but any hopes that their arrival might encourage a re-think over the archway faded away. They would end up having to put up living close to the dirty dockside at one end of the street after all.