!

HISTORY

OF THE

Vorough of Kingston-upon-Gull.

ANCIENT historians have ascribed the foundation of this town to that victorious and renowned monarch, Edward I., in the year 1296; but a learned writer of the present day has proved, beyond dispute, that this opinion is erroneous, and that Hull was a place of opulence and note more than a century prior to that period.* From the earliest times on record, the mouth of the river Hull was the site of a Wyk, or harbour for shipping, and the ancient appellation of the town was Wyke, or Wyke-upon-Hull. According to Verstegan, the Saxon word Pic, Wic, Wyk, Wyke, Wick, or Wich, signified a port, refuge, or retreat, and hence the application of this word as a component part of the names of several English sea-ports, as Harwich, Ipswich, Sandwich, Woolwich, and Greenwich. The word Wick is frequently found as a termination in the names of villages in the district of Holderness, which is immediately adjacent to Hull, as Atwick, Burstwick, Bewick, Bonwick, Oustwick, Welwick, and Withernwick. One of the significations of the word Wic, given by Vossius, and also by Ducange, upon the authority of Rhedanus, is "fluminis ostium," or the mouth of a river. The word Hull is derived from Hol, or Ol, which is Gaelic for water. (In some ancient documents the name is spelt Hul.) Hol is a prenomen in many compound names, implying water, stream, and its varieties, thus-Holland, Holbeck, Holgate, Holvingham, now Hovingham, Holburn, &c.

Mr. Frost, a learned and most respectable member of the legal profession at Hull, tells us, in the work just referred to, that the early history of this

* Charles Frost, Esq., F.S.A., in his Notices relative to the Early History of the Town and Port of Hull, 4to., 1827.

+ Restitution of Decayed Intelligence in Antiquities, p. 329.

VOL. II.

B

"The

town has been peculiarly neglected and misrepresented, even by the timehonoured antiquarians, Leland and Camden. The former, who commenced the collection of materials for his Itinerary in 1538, and completed it in 1545, visited this town in the former year, and "he has done little more regarding Hull," says Mr. Frost, "than hand down to us the loose and unauthenticated traditions which he collected during his visit." towne," he says, "was in the tyme of Edward the 3. but a meane fischar toune, and longid as a membre to Hasille Village, a 2. or 3. mile of upper on Humber. The first great encreasing of the toune was by passing for fisch into Iseland, from whens they had the hole trade of stoke fisch into England, and partly other fisch. In Richard the 2. dayes the toune waxid very rich, and Michael de la Pole, marchaunt of Hulle, and prentyce, as sum say, to one Rotenhering, of the same toune, cam into so high favor for wit, actyvite, and riches, that he was made Counte of Southfolk, wherapon he got of King Richard the 2. many grauntes and privileges to the toune; and yn his tyme the toune was wonderfully augmentid yn building, and was enclosid with diches, and the waul begon, and yn continuance endid, and made al of brike, as most part of the houses of the toun at that tyme was."* And again he says, "The toune of Kingeston had first by graunt custodem, then bailives, then maire and bailives, and in King Henry the 6. tyme a maire, a shirive, and the toun to be shire ground by it self. One told me, that their first great corporation was grauntid to Kingeston a 180 yere syns."t

Camden (who finished his Britannia in 1607), trusting to the authority of Leland, is equally incorrect in the account which he gives of the origin of this place. "It is," he writes, "a town of no great antiquity. Edward I., who for his princely virtues deserves a place among our first and best kings, observing the advantageous situation of the place, which was before called Wik, purchased it by exchange of the Abbot of Meaux, and instead of the vaccaria and bercharia, by which I understand pens for cattle and sheep, which he found there, built a town, which he called Kingstone, or the King's Town, establishing there, as the record sets forth, a port and free borough, making the inhabitants free burgesses, and granting them various privileges." This venerable writer then follows the popular tradition, that the town rose to a state of affluence in the reign of Richard II., partly in consequence of the privileges granted to it through the intercession of Michael de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, and partly through its trade in stockfish.

1

Speed's account of its origin is as follows:-"Places for trade and venting forth their commodities are many, yet none of such convenience as Kingston-upon-Hull, which, notwithstanding, cannot fetch her beginning from any great antiquity (being before time called Wyke). King Edward I. built this town, making a haven, and granting many privileges to the burgesses, so that it is risen to great state, both for stately buildings and strong block-houses, for ships well furnished, and for store of merchants, and is now become the most famous town of that country, whose greatest riches is ascribed to the gainful trade they have by Iceland fish, dried and hardened, commonly called stockfish."*

The Rev. Abraham de la Pryme, Divinity Reader and Curate of the Church of the Holy Trinity, for three years, ending in 1701, compiled the first detached History of Hull, "from the records, charters, deeds, mayor's letters, &c., of the said town." This work, which exists yet in manuscript only, and a copy of which is to be found in the Warburton Collection, among the Landesdowne MSS., in the British Museum, formed the basis and groundwork of all subsequent accounts and histories of the town. Gent, Hadley, and Tickell, relying upon the accredited source from which de la Pryme drew his information, without further enquiry, followed his authority in their Histories of Hull, and thus fell into the common error, that the town was founded by Edward I., in 1296; and that Wyke, which, with reference to that period, is incorrectly represented by them, as having been situated not where Kingston-upon-Hull now stands, by a quarter of a mile to the west of it, then consisted of little more than cribs and folds, with perhaps some places of shelter to defend the shepherds from the extremities of the seasons. We are told by Mr. Frost, in the preface to his interesting work, that for some years he had the sole management of the defence of a suit, instituted for the recovery of tithe throughout the township of Melsa or Meaux, a few miles from Hull, which had formerly belonged to a body of Cistercian Monks, and whose extensive possessions included the entire soil upon which the town of Hull now stands; and that the facts which came under his notice in the course of the investigation necessarily attendant on that defence, confirmed the inference previously drawn by Macpherson, from the authorities which he has given, that Hull, as a place of importance, was of greater antiquity than that assigned to it by historians.* Being possessed of peculiar facilities of prosecuting a more minute enquiry into the origin of the place, and feeling

• Theatre of Great Britain, p. 81, edit. 1676.

* Annals of Commerce, vol. i., pp. 358, 372, and 462, in notes.

it, as he tells us, a sort of heresy to question the high authorities already quoted, Mr. Frost is of opinion that "the source whence the error has arisen, is clearly to be traced to the language of adulation or gratitude, which our ancestors adopted in expressing their obligations to King Edward I., under whom, by his recent acquisition of the absolute property of the town, their place of habitation was elevated to the rank of a Royal Borough, and from whom they had themselves received, by charter, many valuable privileges." He tells us, that in a petition, which the burgesses presented to that monarch in the year 1300, shortly after the imposition of the new title of Kingston, they acknowledge him, in direct terms, as the founder of their town; and that through such means a belief became prevalent that the town had been actually built by the monarch to whom it owed so many favours. The King himself, in a Writ of ad quod damnum, issued in consequence of that petition, seems to have accommodated himself to their language, by styling the place his own new town; and in the 44th of Edward III. (1371), in the pleadings in a suit between the Archbishop of York and the burgesses of Hull, one of the parties alleged, and the other did not deny, that his late Majesty Edward I., "Villam ædificavit," on the site of Wyke, "et ibidem quondam portum fecit," where he had customs taken to his use.*

"These apparently strong authorities," continues Mr. Frost, "are sufficient to account for, as well as to excuse, the error committed by Leland, and adopted by Camden, in describing the origin of the town; and it is not surprising that, sanctioned and supported by such names, it obtained a credit which succeeding writers did not venture to impeach."

Verstegan informs us that the Saxons, whose language was altogether different from that of the Britons, "left very few cities, towns, villages, passages, rivers, woods, fields, hills, or dales, to which they gave not new names, such as in their own language were intelligible, and either given by reason of the situation or nature of the place, or after some place in some sort like unto it in Germany, from whence they came; "t and from this Mr. Frost infers, that the name of Wyke, from the Saxon word Pic, indicates the existence of a town here in the Anglo-Saxon times.

Although Hull was a considerable port a century after the compilation of the Domesday Survey, and probably at a much earlier period, it is not mentioned in that ancient record, being at that time only a parcel of the manor of Myton, which is described as a berewick in the manor of Ferriby, hundred of Hessle. Ralph de Mortimer was then Lord of the Manor, and had under him fourteen villains, or small farmers, occupying three carucates, or ploughlands, which amounted to 300 acres. Edina had nearly 1,000 acres in the same manor. There was here also a church, and a minister belonging to it, in the reign of Edward the Confessor. The whole manor, and all the villages therein, were assessed at 100 shillings, but afterwards, on account of the repeated devastations made by the Danes, it was reduced to sixty. The villages and hamlets which then belonged to the manor were Kirk-Ella, in which were only two bovates of land that contained about 30 acres of tillage; Waudby, in which were about 100 acres in tillage; Riplingham, in which were about 120 acres in tillage; Yorkfleet, containing about 100 acres of tillage; Woolferton, with about 140 acres in tillage; and Hassel (Hessle), in which were about 100 acres in tillage.

The greater part of these lands then lay waste, the country being not at that time recovered from the devastations of the Danes. In Hessle, four villains occupied one carucate more. In Sculcoates, or Cowscoates, the Archbishop of York had about 100 acres; and in Drypool nearly 20 more, with an arable close, which then lay waste. In the manors of Sculcoates and Drypool, Ote and Ravenhill possessed three bovates of land, which amounted to about 130 acres. Ralph de Mortimer, who was ancestor of the famous Earls of March, was lord of all the surrounding villages, and many other towns and domains in Yorkshire, as well as in several other counties in England. Soon after the period of the Domesday Survey, we find all the neighbouring towns and hamlets in a flourishing condition.

Among the documents relating to Wyke, the earliest notice met with is a grant, without date, of lands "del Wyke de Mitune," made to the monks of Melsa or Meaux, probably about the year 1160, by Matilda, the daughter of Hugh Camin. The original charter is preserved among the ancient muniments of the Corporation of Hull.* From this charter we learn that, in addition to the lordship of Myton, there was also a town which bore that name, and which in early times had a chapel. The latter was destroyed by the monks of Melsa, who made atonement in the sixth year of the reign of King John (1204), for this and other transgressions, by paying 100 shillings as a compromise to Richard Ducket, then parson of the church of Hessle.t, The necessity of providing an additional place of public worship within the

* A fac-simile of this curious relic is engraved in Mr. Frost's Historic Notices, p. 8.

+ Lib. Melse ex MSS. nup. W. H. Smyth, arming. apud Heath, fol. 63.