Dealing with Contagious Fever in Georgian Hull
In 1803 Miss Jane Horner sent an account of a contagious fever at Kingston-upon-Hull to the “Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor”. Jane
Science, Industry & Commerce
The Industrial Revolution brought new technologies and increases in commerce. East Yorkshire was well placed to take advantage of these improvements to productivity and wealth. Whaling became the major industry in Hull after the various wars of the period made importation of oil difficult and costly. Agriculture continued to be the main business of the rest of the county.
One of the great commercial features of the Georgian period is the expansion of the canal network. Canals were built to link Driffield to the River Hull and Market Weighton to the Humber, while Beverley Beck was improved with a lock. Drainage schemes also made much more land commercially viable. All this helped to ship the region’s goods to other parts of the country, and through Hull to the Baltic and the countries bordering the North Sea.
The region was the birthplace of a number of scientific notaries. Marmaduke Tunstall was born at Burton Constable and became a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London at the age of twenty-one. Later in the period, Bishop Burton born entomologist William Spence and Reighton born naturalist Hugh Edwin Strickland made their marks in their respective fields.
Edward Topham and the Wold Cottage Meteorite
In the eighteenth century the notion that rocks could fall from the sky was dismissed by most educated people as ridiculous superstition. The only objects known to inhabit the Sola
Hull Merchants and the Philosopher Immanuel Kant
Early in the first ‘lockdown’ the society received an enquiry from Simon Wain-Hobson, a leading virologist working at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. He is a collector of, and
Winters in Georgian East Yorkshire
The Revd Nicholas Nichols, rector of Patrington, recorded in the parish register, as follows, what has been considered the most severe winter of the 18th century. ‘On Friday, Dec
Canals: The Georgian Arteries of Trade
Before the Industral Revolution, inland towns that lacked access to a navigable river had to have their wares and wants transported over land. This mean trains of packhorses, trudg
The Birth of Hull’s Great Docks
For most of the eighteenth century, ships coming into Hull would dock at wharves at the river. The “Staithes” of High Street extend down to this area, which is now a pl