I’d always taken the highways and byways of post war Hull for granted, the Blitz had taken its toll of our cultural heritage but I was still aware of the history of the City’s surviving buildings with the more prominent of these being Wilberforce House, Holy Trinity Church, The Guildhall, The City Hall and Ferens Art Gallery. What I hadn’t realised was that in among these survivors, surrounded as they are by the glass, chrome and concrete of regeneration, exists the hidden history of a people, survivors themselves and well used to struggle. Their hidden history is tucked away, known only to the local community and unmarked, with the exception of the occasional blue plaque.
I’d been invited to join the tour organised by historian Frances Harris and her colleague, tour leader, Dr. Howard Cuckle. The meeting point for the tour was in Hull’s Market Place opposite the statue of ‘King Billy’ where about thirty of us, all damp and enthusiastic, chatted and made our introductions on the soggy Sunday afternoon.
As Howard struggled to remove the shrieking gremlins from his microphone I spoke to Dr. David Lewis, archivist and historian, and other senior members of Hull’s Jewish Community about the tour and its origins. The leaflet, combining a plan of the walk, was based on the work of Israel Finestein (Jews in Hull 1776-1880) with further help in compilation being provided by Dr. Nicholas J. Evans of Hull City Archives and Hull Local History Library.
The site of Hull's first synagogue, Posterngate.
As well as members of the local community, the group included members from Leeds, Harrogate and the East Riding, all with an interest in Jewish history. In speaking to one member who’d been tracing his family history, I learned how he’d discovered that his great, great grandparents had arrived in Hull as refugees from Lithuania before the turn of the last century, Lithuania being the starting point for many members of Hull’s Jewish community. He commented on his interest by telling me ‘It’s not a religious thing…but I’m proud of the connection and I do feel an empathy’. Others had similar if not closer family connections which had prompted their interest in discovering more about their ancestors’ contribution to the social, political and economic life of the City.
With the gremlins finally exorcised from his microphone, Howard our tour leader referred us all to the map embodied within the leaflet prepared by the Hull Jewish Archive Committee which indicated thirteen sites of interest to be covered by the tour. We were at the ‘King Billy’ starting point, the final stop would be at the Salvation Army Icehouse on Anlaby Road opposite the former emigrants ‘waiting room’ now ‘The Lair’.
With the group complete we set off behind the indefatigable Howard who with a wicked sense of humour referred to each future point of interest as ‘the next station of the cross’ to the amusement of all. His account, well known to ‘Hullites’, of King Billy climbing off his horse at the stroke of midnight, surprisingly didn’t fool anyone.
We were told that the southern end of the Market Place had been the centre of Hull’s original Jewish quarter and how in 1788 to celebrate the centenary celebration of King William’s victory over Catholic King James the Second, the presentation of ‘an elegant crown to be suspended over the King’s head’ was made to the Corporation by a local jeweller, Aaron Jacobs to mark the continuing loyalty of the Jewish community.
The next move was across the road to a site near what is now Liberty Lane, where the first known Jewish resident of the City lived from at least 1766. This was followed by a trip to the former Neptune Inn on Whitefriargate, built by Trinity House during 1794-7 and occupied as the Customs House where until the Aliens Act of 1905 all foreign immigrants were required to register.
The site of the Harry Lazarus Hotel in Posterngate
Around the corner in Posterngate, a street fully immersed in Hull’s maritime history. I recall in the fifties, squads of bored (and hungry) boys from Trinity House School being marched along to their dining hall, little knowing that a few feet away and sixty years earlier, many even hungrier Jewish transmigrants fleeing the pogroms in their own land, would have been squeezed into the Harry Lazarus Hotel (now marked by a blue plaque) awaiting transport to a new life in North America.
Faithfully accompanied by the relentless rain we moved into the Market Square adjacent to Holy Trinity Church. The square is now a well manicured paved area re-designed with a nod toward today’s café culture which our climate is not yet familiar with, although there is still time. The hustle and bustle of its traditional Market occupancy is long gone. Those times were brought back to us by Mrs. Rosalie Black. Rosalie’s family had worked in the Market since 1880 when her grandfather arrived from Lithuania, she recounted all the names and occupations of the stallholders who until the sixties were mainly Jewish, with many now being household names in the commercial and civic life of the City. One member of our group remarked on the educational opportunities offered by Market stall work. He was firmly convinced that when at school, his part time work on the Market gave him the grounding necessary to pass his ‘A’ Level Economics exam.
The site of Hull’s very first synagogue, a former Catholic Chapel was again in Posterngate . It was positioned nearly opposite the entrance to Dagger Lane and founded in 1780.
I’m not a fan of shopping and must admit a feeling of alarm when Howard led us across Princess Dock Side through the all enveloping Princes Quay Shopping Centre, to what was once the Parade Row Synagogue at the Waterhouse Lane exit. This had been set up by Joseph Lyon after community disagreements. These disagreements were finally resolved in 1826 and the Hull Hebrew Congregation was formed eventually moving to a new Synagogue in Osborne Street built in 1902-3. Sadly the structure was badly damaged in the Blitz with re-building completed in 1955. In 1989 the building was sold and the City’s two Orthodox Congregations merged to worship at the new joint premises in Pryme Street, Anlaby.
Opposite the post war synagogue, Osborne Street.
The war of attrition with the rain had begun to take its toll as the tour approached its end and our numbers decreased. Howard stopped in Carr Lane and pointed out premises associated with the Duveen family, both father and son being noted philanthropists and art dealers and great benefactors to the City.
Another contributor to Hull’s cultural development was Bethel Jacobs, a member of a prominent family who championed and formed ‘The Hull School of Art and Industrial Design’which moved to its Anlaby Road premises in 1905.
Civic leaders and benefactors leave their legacies in various ways. Some have schools, recreational areas and facilities named after them, others are traditionally commemorated in stone. As a small boy I would regularly pass the YEB building on Ferensway, now the St. Stephens Development. On the corner at eye level was a foundation stone set in the wall. I wondered then what great deeds had to be performed to have one’s name inscribed and what a great man Benno Pearlman must have been to deserve this honour. There are many from his community in our City who have achieved this.
The tour was drawing to a close as moving further along Osborne Street we stopped to enjoy a moment of nostalgia spiced with a dash of disagreement over the former location of Barnett’s Fish and Chip shop and Friedman’s Bakery, both within my mouth-watering memory. I could see hunger was playing its part in distorting these recollections as glazed far-away looks among the group recalled early morning errands to collect freshly baked bread followed by fish and chips in the chill of a winter’s evening.
Finally we reached the Salvation Army Icehouse where I was surprised to learn that it had been leased to the Hull Old Hebrew Congregation during the Blitz until the Synagogue was rebuilt after the War.
Opposite the emigrants waiting room, Anlaby Road.
In many ways it was a fitting end to the tour. Directly opposite the Icehouse stood the ‘Lair’. Originally a purpose built waiting room for transmigrants, Jews and non- Jews alike, it represented the end of an old life and the beginning of a new one in North America and elsewhere. Now a pub, its customers will leave as they entered, albeit a little mellower and lighter of pocket, whereas its earlier visitors and their families would often enter with one identity and leave with another at the whim of the immigration authorities, a preparation for the further bureaucratic indignities in store at New York’s Ellis Island.
With the tour over we thanked Howard our guide and said our goodbyes. The rain had been our constant companion but had failed to dampen our enthusiasm. As I walked back down Osborne Street, perhaps it was the atmosphere, I’m sure I could smell freshly baked bread and fish and chips.
