of the column. The height of the pillar is 100 feet, and that of the statue, 12 feet. It was erected at an expense of £1,250., raised by public subscription, as a memorial of the abolition of negro slavery. The first stone, according to the inscription on the column, was laid August 1st, 1834, the date of the Act of Emancipation. The masons were Messrs. Myers and Wilson. The dock bridge near this pillar occupies the site where formerly stood the Beverley gate; and it was on this identical spot that the unfortunate Charles I. and his followers were denied admission into the town by Sir John Hotham, in 1642. (See page 52.) At the South End, opposite the Pilot Office, is an Ionic pillar of cast iron, rising 20 feet to the top of the capital, and surmounted by a smaller pillar, 3 feet high, on the top of which is an hexagonal lantern, with an argand light and reflector, 6 feet in height. This is for the purpose of lighting the ships into the harbour. The Hull Temperance League is a large respectable body, united for the purpose of stemming the torrent of intemperance. They hold their meetings three or four times a week in the Old Masonic Hall, in Mytongate, and by means of their lectures and good example, a great many drunkards have been reclaimed. E. F. Collins, Esq., is the President of the League. The Citadel, commonly called the Garrison, is situated on the east bank of the river Hull, at its junction with the Humber. As has already been seen, the town of Hull was surrounded with walls, towers, and ditches, and was long considered an impregnable fortress. We have seen at page 38 that Henry VIII. erected a Castle and two Blockhouses on the east side of the river Hull; but neither the walls or towers now exist, and nothing is left of the once frowning bulwarks of Hull but a portion of the Castle and the south Blockhouse, which, with several modern batteries, are called the Citadel. The place is surrounded by a wall, and insulated by a fosse, to which the water of the Humber has access. The centre building of the old Castle is now used as an armoury, and the Blockhouse contains both naval and military stores. The Citadel is occupied by a regular garrison; and the office of Governor, which has fallen into desuetude, was formerly bestowed on officers of high rank. On the opposite side of the confluence of the Hull and Humber, is the South End Battery, where a Lieutenant of the Royal Engineers resides. The Public Baths, Humber Bank, are very neatly and comfortably fitted up, and have recently been opened, after being closed for about five yearsthe property having been in Chancery. They consist of several first and second class baths for ladies and gentlemen, a plunge bath each for both sexes, and a fine swimming bath, 75 feet by 25, and varying in depth from 3ft. 6in. to 6ft. 9in.; also shower and vapour baths. The building has a neat front, and belongs to a number of shareholders. The Public Baths and Washhouses, in Trippett Street, were built by the Corporation, at a cost of £12,000., and opened to the public on the 22nd of April, 1850. The building is of brick and stone, and is a beautiful and richly decorated specimen of the Tudor style. It contains 20 first class baths for men, and 11 for women; 34 second class baths for men, and 8 for women; 5 vapour baths; a plunge bath for women, and a swimming bath for men. The laundry department affords room for fifty persons at once for washing, drying, and mangling. The charges are exceedingly moderate. There are likewise public baths at the new waterworks. The Hull General Cemetery Company is incorporated by special Act of Parliament, 16th and 17th Victoria, for providing a suitable place of interment for the dead of all classes and denominations. The Cemetery is situated at the extreme end of Spring Bank, in the parish of Cottingham, and covers about sixteen acres, a portion of which is laid out with trees, flowers, and shrubs. The entrance gates, lodge, &c., are handsome, and there is a small chapel for the celebration of the funeral service. Police. The police force of the borough of Hull was established in 1836, and now consists of a Superintendent and Chief Constable (Mr. Andrew Mac Manus), 7 inspectors, and 95 serjeants and constables. Their chief station, in Parliament Street (formerly a part of Charity Hall), is admirably suited for its purpose. There is another station house in Jarratt Street. EMINENT MEN.-The family of De la Pole, a brief account of which will be found in the beginning of this volume, produced several illustrious characters; and Hull does not at present give title to any noble family. Robert de Pierrepont, who was created by Charles I. Baron Pierrepont and Viscount Newark, was made Earl of Kingston-upon-Hull in 1628; and Evelyn, the fourth Earl, was advanced to the dignity of Duke of Kingston in 1715; but on the death of his grandson William, the second Duke, in 1773, all the titles became extinct. Thomas Johnson, an eminent physician and botanist, was a native of Hull. He made many additions to the edition of Gerard's Herbal, printed in his time. His loyalty engaged him on the King's side in the civil war, and he was killed in 1644, whilst resisting an attack of the Parliamentarians upon Basinghouse. Fuller, who knew him well, bestows this epitaph on him: Here Johnson lies: could herbs fence off death's dart, Sure death thou hadst escaped by thy own art. Sir John Lawson, a distinguished naval officer, was the son of a poor man of this town; and died fighting for his country on the 3rd of June, 1665. The historians of Hull assign the birth-place of that inflexible patriot, Andrew Marvel, to that town; but, as at the time of his birth his father was Rector of Winestead, in Holderness, and as the baptism of his son is entered in the parish register of that place, on the last day of March, 1621, in his father's handwriting, the claim of Hull to that honour is at least disputable. Those writers state that his father was master of the Grammar School at Hull in 1620, as well as Rector of Winestead, and that the son was born here, and baptised there. On the 16th of April, 1614, the Rev. Andrew Marvel, father of the subject of this notice (who was a native of Cambridgeshire), was instituted to the Rectory of Winestead, and on the 8th of December, 1624, in consequence of his resignation of the benefice, his successor was inducted. On the 30th of September, 1624, he was appointed Lecturer of the Holy Trinity Church, in Hull, an office then usually held by the master of the Grammar School, and it would appear that he then resigned the living of Winestead. Tickell calls him "the facetious Calvinistical minister of this town;" so it seems that he, later in life, seceded from the Established Church; and Poulson tells us, that in 1640, when in crossing the Humber in a small boat, he was unfortunately drowned. Whether he, who became "the ornament and example of his age," drew his first breath in Hull or in Holderness, it is pretty certain that he received the rudiments of his education under his father in the Grammar School of Hull, and that at the age of fifteen he was admitted a student at Trinity College, Cambridge. He afterwards made a tour of Europe, and was secretary to the embassy at Constantinople in the time of the Commonwealth. In 1657 he was appointed assistant to the celebrated poet, John Milton, at that time secretary to the no less celebrated usurper, Oliver Cromwell. In 1658, two years before the Restoration, the burghers of Hull elected him as their representative in Parliament, and during a period of twenty years, which he continued to be member for this borough, he maintained the character of an honest man, a true patriot, and an incorruptible senator. "His integrity," says a recent writer," rendered him obnoxious to a corrupt court, which spared no pains to seduce him from his fidelity, and to obtain the powerful influence of his name and character for their measures; and many instances are adduced of his heroic firmness in resisting the alluring offers made to win him over to the court party." He is recorded as the last member of Parliament who received the wages anciently paid to members by their constituents. Mr. Marvel was eminent as a wit and poet, as well as a senator, and his satires against the vices of the age, which did not spare Majesty itself, are very well known. His death, which took place on the 16th of August, 1678, was sudden and unexpected; and the Corporation of Hull, in gratitude for his services, voted the sum of £50. to defray the expenses of his funeral, and contributed a sum of money to erect a monument over his remains in the church of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, London, where he was interred; but the minister of that church forbad the monument to be erected. At the southeast corner of High Street and Salthouse Lane is an ancient structure, since modernised, which is traditionally said to have been the residence of Mr. Marvel, when he resided at Hull. William Wilberforce, Esq., the senator and philanthropist, was born at Hull in 1759, in the house in High Street in which Sir John Lister entertained King Charles I., in 1639. (See page 49.) The family name was Wilberfoss, and they had an ancient seat in the parish of that name, near Pocklington; but Alderman Wilberforce, of Hull, who, in 1771, resigned his gown, having held it nearly fifty years, and who was grandfather to the subject of this notice, changed it to Wilberforce. Mr. Wilberforce was returned to Parliament for Hull when only just of age; and in 1784 he was elected for the county of York, which he represented in several successive ParliaHe distinguished himself during the course of his long and useful life, by his exertions in the cause of the negro; and at length succeeded in procuring the abolition of the infamous slave trade. He died on the 29th of July, 1833, and was interred in Westminster Abbey; and the handsome Doric column in Hull, already noticed, was erected to his memory, as well as to commemorate the passing of the Slavery Abolition Bill. His three sons entered the church, and one became a Bishop (the present Bishop of Oxford), and the two others Archdeacons. The latter two, however, have seceded from the Establishment, and joined the Church of Rome. ments. Mason, the poet, is said to have been born at the Hull Vicarage. Amongst the members of the literati of the present day, connected with the town and neighbourhood, are the following:-Charles Frost, Esq., F.S.A., author of "Notices relative to the Early History of the Town and Port of Hull," published in 1827, and some tracts on legal subjects; Thomas Thompson, F.S.A., author of a "History of Swine," "Ocellum Promontorium, or Short Observations on the Ancient State of Holderness," and tracts on the Poor Laws; A. H. Haworth, Esq., F.L.S., author of "Lepidoptera Britannica; " William Spence, Esq., F.L.S., author of tracts on Political Economy, and an "Introduction to Entomology;" and P. W. Watson, Esq., the author of "Dendrologia Britannica." Borough of Beverley. THE division of the county of York, at present constituting the EastRiding, and of which Beverley is considered the capital, was termed by the aboriginal Britons Dwyvawr or Deifyr,* in allusion to the universal deluge, a tradition of which was preserved by the Druids; for the name given by that order to Noah, the great father of antiquity, was Dwyvawr. We have already seen that the whole county of York was included in the kingdom denominated by the Saxons Deira; and that people called the site of Beverley, and the neighbouring parishes, Deirwalde, or Deirwold, implying the forest of Deira; from the extensive woods with which it was then covered. The Rev. George Oliver, in his History of Beverley, published in 1829, tells us, that from circumstances of vital importance to the religion of the primitive inhabitants, this place, which was situated in the deep recesses of the wood, acquired the local appellation of Llyn yr Avanc, the Beaver Lake. This learned and ingenious writer, after considerable industry and research, submits some very original reasons for supposing that the original designation of the site of Beverley had reference to the Druidical rites of the ancient Britons. The primitive name of the district, Deifyr or Dwyvawr, he thinks is a sufficient testimony that it was occupied by the Aborigines. The most important religious stations of this people were always placed under the protection of a petty Prince or Chieftain, to guard their hallowed rites from vulgar profanation. It is clearly certain that an ancient Druid temple existed at Godmanham, about ten miles north west of Beverley, which contained an oracle, and attached to which was a regular establishment of Druids, Bards, and Eubates, who resided on the spot, or in the neighbouring wood of Deira. "The rites of insular sanctuary," says Mr. Oliver, were performed periodically by the Druids, at some convenient distance from the temple, and in situations which possessed natural advantages of a river or lake in the centre of a grove of trees. And on the spot where Beverley now stands, these priests found everything prepared by nature for their purpose. Here were lakes and pools of water in the midst of open spaces in the wood; hills, a rivulet, and every convenience for the performance of their rites; a situation which they would appropriate to themselves with eager avidity, as in this part of the country no other place presented equal facilities for these mysterious celebrations. Near this spot, then, the petty chieftain would throw up his * Welsh Triad, in Jones's Ancient Relics, p. 11. |