It’s got a Hull of a history – but why isn’t there a museum properly charting the city's story?

Working as a journalist in Hull it wasn’t hard find bad news. With devastating floods, murders and large scale job losses some could say that the city was tainted. Yet from a selfish point of view, all of this meant there was usually plenty of choice for us to find a powerful front page, even if it did nothing to bring cheer to the people of East Yorkshire.  

But returning four years on, I wanted to find out if there is a reason to smile optimistically about Hull today. Unfortunately within five minutes of arriving at Hull Paragon train station I knew this was going to be an uphill struggle; there seemed to be more empty shops than when I was last in the city and the majority of those that were trading could fit into the categories of pound stores, pay day loans and bookies.

What’s more, the copies of local paper the Hull Daily Mail I picked up featured gloomy headlines such as ‘Man failed for five years after attacking elderly woman with her walking stick’ and ‘equipment shortage putting obese patients at risk’. Clearly there were also some more positive stories, like one about a barking dog alerting sleeping family to blaze in their home, but overall bad news continues to be high up on the agenda in East Yorkshire.

So in a bid to get away from all the doom and gloom I decided to head for a whistle stop tour of one of Hull’s museums. In the past these have always impressed and this visit was no exception. The Hull and East Yorkshire Life Museum tells the captivating story of early settlement both in the region itself and further afield. If you were fascinated by Neil Oliver’s recent BBC series, a History of Ancient Britain, then this is the place for you to visit. The exhibitions also cover the arrival of the Romans (with particular reference to how life changed for the inhabitants following the crossing of the Humber in AD71), illustrated by some wonderful local floor mosaics and finds from regional settlements.

But then, after displays on early Medieval East Yorkshire, this captivating story comes to an abrupt halt. Just as Hull is arriving at its prime, its glory days, visitors are greeted by signs to the gift shop and exit. There are of course other, specialist museums in Hull, such as the excellent Streetlife museum (charting the Victorian transport revolution in the city), the Maritime Museum and Wilberforce House (covering slavery and its abolition), but there is nothing that brings the social narrative together for a popular audience. "Perhaps they ran out of money," said one of the museum attendants.

You might not think it today, but the people of Hull do have a lot to be proud of. Building on its early trade of the export of wool and imports of wine, the River Hull became a haven for shipping. And after being awarded royal charter by Edward I in 1299, the settlement was renamed King’s town upon Hull, or Kingston Upon Hull and rose in importance. The increase in trade after the discovery of the Americas ushered in very prosperous 16^th and 17^th centuries for the city. During the English Civil War, Charles I was barred from Hull, strategically important because of the large arsenal stored there, thus becoming a key part of the long-running conflict.

Right up until the First World War, when its prosperity peaked, Hull remained an important place. Many settlers from Northern Europe passed through the Port of Hull on their way to the New World. It must have been a really exciting time as over the years new docks were built and wave after wave of immigrants moved in to work in a variety of industries, including the whaling trade. By the Victorian era the city had of course expanded far beyond the medieval city walls.

Then during World War Two Hull had 95% of its houses damaged or destroyed, making it the most severely bombed British city or town apart from London. Much of the city centre was wiped out and 1,200 people died in the raids. Hull never really recovered and, worse still, in the decades that followed the Port of Hull on the Humber dwindled bringing numerous job losses.

    

It’s easy to focus on the gloomy recent history, but as I have recounted in the last few paragraphs Hull has seen some happy, more prosperous times. The city needs to step up to the plate and follow the example of the likes of London, Bristol and Liverpool which all have excellent museums properly charting their histories. There is in East Yorkshire a Hull of a great tale to tell.  

Sacrificing a river to make London the thriving metropolis it is today

With a host of exhibitions, TV programmes and special events on right now, the Thames is the talk of London. And as the sole reason as to why London is what it is and where it is today, it is only proper that this important river gets the just historical recognition that it deserves. It is quite simply the mother of the world’s greatest capital city.

But, sadly, the Thames is now a shadow of its former glory. In comparison to days gone by, it is relatively sedate and underused. Once used as a major trade route into the centre of the capital, the Thames now only really carries tourists. So while a prosperous London may have grown up over the years, it has all been at the expense of the river that made it successful. London’s first “super highway” stands as a bit of a dinosaur.       

Just over a week ago, the Thames formed the centre piece of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations. In marked contrast to its normal course of use these days, tens of thousands braved the rain (or at least endured the BBC’s dreary coverage) to watch am impressive flotilla of ships accompany our monarch travelling in her royal barge as she marked 60 years on the throne. I have to confess I was out of the country for the Bank Holiday weekend, but I’ve now caught up on some of the TV highlights and I admit aspects did look pretty spectacular.

To those that witnessed those bustling Jubilee scenes this month, this form of river pageantry is nowadays a bit of novelty. But, as the excellent Royal River exhibition at the National Maritime Museum so clearly illustrates, there is a proud 500 years of history linking the royals and river Thames. Visiting the exhibition this afternoon, I discovered how the Thames has for a long time been used both a way of showing off to subjects, in a sense public theatre, but also as a way for kings and queens to reach their numerous palaces along the river.

Many a coronation, royal wedding and state funeral have taken place at venues along this magical river. Wars, fought in the name of kings and queens, were won thanks to the power of Navy fleets built at Royal dockyards such as Woolwich and Deptford. And royal yachts, moored along the Thames, allowed monarchs to travel around Europe in what could only be deemed luxurious floating palaces, with no expense speared in terms of lavish entertainment, dining and comfort.

And as someone who is very interested in the history of the City of London, I particularly enjoyed the displays at the Royal River exhibition on 400 years of the annual Lord’s Mayor river procession. From 1485 to 1856, the different guilds in their brightly decorated barges would form a flotilla accompanying the new Lord Mayor as he travelled to the Palace of Westminster for an inauguration ceremony led by the monarch.

There is a vivid painting from 1683 that shows Charles II watching the newly installed Mayor. And the exhibition features some of the colourful carvings from the barges of the different livery companies, such as one from the Fishmonger company from 1773. A parade still takes place every year when a Lord Mayor is elected but sadly it no longer involves a river procession.

In terms of trade, when the British Empire was in its prime in the 19^th century, the Thames was alive with ships carrying an array of goods to all four corners of the world. The busyness of the Thames is wonderfully captured at Royal River in a large scale panorama of the river from 1845. How different it must have been to the relative sedateness of the Thames today where its use is largely restricted to tourist boats.

I was also captivated at Royal River by amazing prints showing the scene in 1683 and 1684 when the Thames was frosted over with ice 28cm thick. Stalls were set up on the frosted river and people enjoyed games like skittles and bull bating. Souvenirs, including embossed mugs on show at the exhibition, were sold to commemorate this ‘Frost Fair’.   

The central role of the Thames in the development of London was wonderfully captured in Britain’s Lost Routes with Griff Rhys Jones. The presenter helped crew the first barge laden with straw and hay to travel down for the Thames for over 70 years. Before the advent of motor cars and buses, this fuel laboriously brought from the east of England was essential in keeping the horses that powered carts lining the city’s streets adequately fed. On the return journey, the barges carried horse waste back to the east of England for use as fertiliser.     

But it wasn’t just hay and straw that was brought in the boats down the Thames. As Griff Rhys Jones pointed out on Lost Routes, they carried food for people to eat, barley for beer and bricks and sand for building. Ironically, many of the materials carried on the barges were used in the construction of the roads which helped to make the Thames obsolete as an essential highway for bringing goods in and out of London.  

Dan Cruickshank’s the Bridges That Built London programme on BBC4 tonight provided more clues on the reasons for the decline of the Thames. This excellent film was fixed as essential viewing in my diary after I heard him speak on the subject a few weeks ago at the Tales of the Thames festival, a series of talks by authors on different aspects of the history of the river.

As Dan commented at the top of his BBC programme tonight, bridges were instrumental in the making of London: “Bridges are far more than means of transport…. they are also a way of linking the present to the past.” When the Romans were looking for the site for their new town 2,000 years ago they chose where they did because it was the shallowest and narrowest place for a crossing point. London became successful because of what was brought from one side of the bridge to the other.

The imposing stone medieval bridge, started in 1176, featured homes, shops and even a chapel dedicated to Thomas Beckett where many pilgrims stopped at on their way to Canterbury. Until Westminster Bridge was built in the 18^th century, it was the only structure that could be used for people to cross the river. The tolls collected from London Bridge were immense and the ongoing annual surplus of some £20m today provides the means to fund a number of charities in the capital.

But it was bridges that helped bring about decline for the Thames. After Westminster Bridge was built many others followed, reducing the need for people to travel along the river. Many, including the Watermen, did protest but they couldn’t do anything to halt the construction of bridges. They did, however, get the modern day equivalent of £2m when Westminster Bridge was opened to compensate for lost trade.    

If London couldn’t have existed in the first place without the Thames, it couldn’t have grown to what it is today without its bridges. They quite literally connected and helped it to make the modern world. 

And bridges are today continuing to rejuvenate parts of London today. As Dan Cruickshank pointed out in his programme tonight, the relatively new Millennium Bridge which connects the Tate Modern and Southwark with St Paul’s has helped bring tourists to the area. But as a blog posted today suggests bridges weren’t the only threat to the river Thames – there had been plans for a major tunnel instead of a Tower Bridge.     

So after 2,000 years of history between London and the Thames, do we have a reason to be optimistic about the future? As it stands, I am afraid I have to say ‘no’. I have talked about the royal pageant which was celebrated this month by many, but in the normal course of events the river is barely used. What’s more, the bridges we have to look at today are nothing in comparison to the grand bridges of the past. I share Dan Cruickshank’s hope that one day we will have a bridge in London which is inhabited with homes and shops.

We can’t expect pageants every week and Britain is no longer the workshop of the world so we can’t anticipate high loads of goods flowing out of central London on barges, but surely there is a role for some supplies to be brought in on boats for people living in the city. And, as we approach the Olympics where the capitals infrastructure will be put under considerable strain it seems crazy that the Thames is largely ignored as a solution to move people about.     

Why don’t more passengers travel by river bus? It is, quite simply, an expensive and slow way to travel. Take travelling from Westminster to the Tower of London. By boat it would cost you £9.50 for a single, far more than by bus (£2.30) or Tube (£4.30). For the latter two options there are even greater savings to be had with Oyster and travel cards. And then there’s the time it takes – the Westminster to Tower boat journey I found buried away on the Tfl website took 40 minutes. Something needs to be done to make river travel more attractive.

The Thames was London’s first "super highway" and the mother of city. I can only hope that Londoners making decisions in the future show some loyalty to its maker.

How a rose was used to pay off City officials

Planning officials today would tell you exactly where to go if you offered them a rose as payment for building a footbridge across a public road without permission. But that’s exactly what was imposed when in 1381 Mrs Knollys was rebuked for creating a structure to connect her husband’s City house on Seething Lane to a rose garden across the way. As a penalty, it was ordered that the flower had to be given every year to the Lord Mayor by way of ‘rent’.   

This morning I joined the annual ceremony where a single red rose is cut from the garden and carried on a cushion in a procession to Mansion House. The footbridge may have long since disappeared but each year the Lord Mayor still gets this peppercorn rent payment thanks to the ritual organised by the Company of Watermen and Lightmen of the River Thames.  

Against a backdrop of shiny modern office buildings, the red rose attracted a lot of attention today from office workers rushing from meetings and bemused tourists alike. Few probably had a clue what was going on as members of the Company of Watermen and Lightmen, dressed in traditional red outfits and carrying wooden oars, watched attentively over the flower.   

But why did Mrs Knollys want / need a footbridge to cross the road to reach her rose garden anyway? While her husband, leading citizen Sir John Knollys, was away fighting abroad she is said to have become annoyed with dusting blowing from a property opposite. So she bought it and turned it into rose garden. London roads were muddy so she built the footbridge as well and so her troubles began.

What I witnessed today just goes to show that while the fabric of the old City may have changed it still has a beating Medieval heart. Boris Johnson has control over Greater London but there is still a Lord Mayor elected annually. Guilds may not have the monopolistic powers they once had on all aspects of commercial life, from setting prices to deciding who can trade in the City, but they still meet in their halls. Some are even reporting growing memberships. The street layout in London is Medieval. You just sometimes need an imagination to relieve it and understand it.

The planned destruction of Deptford

Today it is one of the poorest parts of London with residents struggling to get by on low incomes, many shops look shabby, 70s tower blocks are ridden with crime and street drinking is an all too apparent problem. So it may surprise some that Deptford High Street was once one of the richest part of the capital and on par with fashionable Oxford Street.   

This captivating riches to rags story is powerfully told in the first episode of The Secret History of Our Streets, part of the BBC’s ‘London Calling’ season. Taking the landmark map produced by Charles Booth in 1886 recording living conditions of inhabitants in the capital, the programme features archive footage and interviews with residents to chart over 125 years of social history.

In many senses the story of Deptford High Street in south London mirrors an important national history - the destruction of close knit communities up and down Britain through the clearance of slums. But a running theme through this programme is the question of whether the condemned houses really were unfit for human habitation. Were the terraced properties bulldozed by the authorities in Deptford, and elsewhere in Britain, really slums?

Of course many people were living in terrible conditions after World War Two with whole families forced to bunk up in single rooms. Yet documents unearthed in 2012 and featured on the BBC programme revealed that many of the properties in Deptford were not beyond repair - council officers that visited the homes noted that demolition was not the only option. Unsurprisingly these comments were not made public at the time.

In fact, some contributors to the programme alleged that it was the authorities themselves created the slums. When residents moved out following the purchase of their homes demolition teams would move in and those in neighbouring properties who refused to leave would suffer. Roofs were damaged and water pipes cut. If people weren’t already living in slums they after the bulldozing had started.

Councillors and planners at the time also said that people were happy to move out - and with shiny new kitchens and bathrooms why wouldn’t they? But contributors to the programme and archive interviews from the time tell a different story. Deptford residents enjoyed the community spirit that came with living in terraced streets. They popped in for a coffee with neighbours and children had somewhere to play. By contrast, many told of the misery of living in 70s high rise tower blocks or of being pushed out of the area and away from friends.

Booth’s map of 1886 showed how rich and poor people were living literally streets away from each other. Yet the Deptford after the slum clearances was largely one of extreme poverty. Those that had “made it” could not be persuaded to stay and the local council struggled to fill the new homes with local residents. So to fill the vacant spaces a new wave of immigration brought in only those on low incomes.

It’s telling that houses in a street (Aldbury Street) in Deptford that miraculously survived demolition are on the market for £750,000 today. And for a street that was labeled as the lowest of all slums in the 1960s. Just imagine what Deptford would be like today if many more streets had survived demolition.

International Slavery Museum - a case study for a good museum

What is a museum? The answer to this may at first be obvious - surely it is simply a place where objects and artefacts from the past are preserved and put on show for the public to see. Originating from the Greek Mouseion, which denoted a place or temple dedicated to the Muses (the patron divinities in Greek mythology of the arts), the word evokes grand museums like the British Museum in London and the Smithsonian in Washington DC. With both these, impressive buildings house equally special collections charting thousands of years of civilisation.

But in reality the scope and purpose of museums around the world vary enormously, both in what they conserve and how they present it to the public. In today’s modern age, where the thirst for lifelong learning has never been greater, institutions need to work harder in the way they interact with visitors. Displaying classical objects in dusty museums cases is not enough to win over a demanding public, no matter how rare and significant the pieces. 

Of course a good museum starts with its collection, without that it is not a museum. This however is only the starting point. For me, museums need to use a range of tools and techniques to tell the story of the past. When I visit a museum I want to be able to get a sense of the world in years gone by - presented correctly objects really can speak a thousand words, as BBC Radio 4’s recent Shakespeare’s Restless World proved. Touring galleries, I want to know what people thought, what they would have seen, what they would have smelt and what they would have heard. Objects and artefacts can go a long way to telling the past’s story, but good museums supplement with photos, videos, models and other effects.   

In terms of a case study for a good museum, I think Liverpool’s International Slavery Museum ticks all the boxes, somewhere I had the pleasure of visiting at the weekend. The middle passage gallery, which charts the history of the terrible conditions slaves faced as they were squashed into cramped boats on the torturous journey from Africa to the New World, is particularly effective. The shackles that were put on the enslaved people are displayed in well illuminated cabinets. There is a chilling model of a ship, based on contemporary paintings, that brings home the horrors of the poor conditions victims faced. Accompanying text discusses the magnitude of the crime. During the 400 years of the Atlantic slave trade at least 12m Africans were forcibly transported on ships - but about a quarter died on the passage. Visitors can also feel the full force of the conditions on board ships with a video room featuring wrap-around screens showing the terrible transatlantic journeys that slaves faced below deck.

Those that did make it to the New World were both lucky and unlucky - in that they’d made the passage but faced a pretty bleak future on plantations where they were quite literally worked to their deaths. The museum has an impressive large scale model of a plantation next to which visitors can listen to audio accounts, based on original sources, of daily lives for the enslaved workers. Listening to the accounts of the workers, where they were whipped for not working hard enough, can be contrasted with the lavish daily life lived out by plantation managers and owners.

The slave trade made plantation owners very rich indeed. Attractive returns of 10% a year meant that the entrepreneurs could build themselves great country houses in England. It is particularly fitting that the museum is in Liverpool because by the end of the 1700s it was the slavery capital of the world given the high number of ships sailing to Africa. The profits from the slave trade were invested in many other enterprises such as iron, coal and banking bringing about a boom in the local economy.     
Of course, history needs to be set in context - something that the International Slavery Museum does well. It has a whole gallery dedicated to the legacy of slave and the sad fact that, despite the Abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1807 (which is properly charted in the museum as well), the trade continues today.  

No-one today could ever possibly fully comprehend the horrors that enslaved African faced, but the International Slavery Museum is the best attempt I have seen in the UK to chart this chilling history.

Mapping the Underground - a new exhibition

Travelling on packed Tubes on weekday mornings when you are squashed in to small spaces against closing doors, it is hard to imagine a time when clever marketing was needed to persuade people to get on board. But turn the clock back a few decades and you have a colourful array of beautifully designed posters encouraging those living in the capital to explore the countryside at the weekend or up sticks to a modern housing development on the outskirts of city and use the London Underground to commute in.   

The story of how the London Underground helped serve a growing London (or indeed brought about the growth of London) has been well documented - see for example The Subterranean Railway: How the London Underground Was Built and How it Changed the City Forever . Mind the Map, a new exhibition at London Transport Museum, tells the story of how maps and other illustrative artwork in shaping the network. Find out about the origins of the fold-out Tube map and how it has changed little over the years. And see the colourful maps that chart the shopping centres and theatres of London.

But there is much more to Mind the Map as artists have been commissioned to produce special pieces, like Stephen Walter who has mapped out what lies beneath ground. It is a congested map showing secret tunnels, burial sites and disused stations. Other installations graphically chart individuals’ journeys across the capital over the course of many years. What would it look like if your movements were recorded?

Travelling on the Tube in amongst all the congestion it is easy to take this vast transport network for granted - Mind the Map will make you stop and think a little deeper about the world’s first subterranean railway. 

UK high streets struggle while it’s boom time in Dubai

High streets across the UK are struggling: footfall is collapsing and consumers’ spend is going down. Across the UK, there are countless examples of parades of boarded-up shops in what were once-thriving market towns and busy city centres.  Several long-established businesses such as Peacocks and Blacks have been pushed into administration in recent months. And, as I write this, it looks like the greeting card chain Clinton Cards could be next.

The response from many struggling retailers is to invest in digital and benefit from the growing number of people who want to shop from the comfort of their own homes and offices. If the likes of Amazon can create a highly profitable business, then why can’t others emulate it, goes the thinking.

But, why, in other parts of the world, are shopping malls busy and consumers still spending . Take Dubai as an example; I was out there for a few days recently and found shopping malls booming – people were laden with shopping bags from designer stores and out in force after a day in the office. My friend, who lives out there, could identify that many were Saudis who were treating Dubai’s malls as their playgrounds. It is, of course, far quicker to jump on a plane to Dubai or one of the UAE’s other emirates than it is to jet all the way to London. These days many famous British brands, such as Hamleys, are owned by Middle Eastern investors and have outlets in the Gulf anyway.    

And then of course there are the expats from Britain who live permanently out in Dubai. If they were born in the UK then going out and spending money in shops is probably the only way they know. They have the disposable income, so they spend, spend, spend.

But perhaps the biggest reason explaining why shopping malls in Dubai are booming is that online shopping is almost non-existent.  As people in the emirate don’t generally have postal deliveries to their homes making purchases on the Internet becomes very difficult.  Organisations pay for postal boxes at local post offices where they can pick up deliveries on a daily basis, yet this is mainly used for business purposes. In any case, it is hardly worth companies like Amazon investing in somewhere like Dubai when the market is so small – they would be building a distribution centre for a place with a population on par with the likes of Birmingham. All this means that Dubai’s shopping centres, the nearest we have to high streets, have something of a reprieve from the switch to consumers moving online.  

And so we are back at the UK and whether it matters that are high streets are in terminal decline in the face of falling consumer confidence and increasing Internet purchases. On the one hand, we can’t go back to the time when so many purchases were bought using cheap credit – our economy needs to recover and we can’t artificially keep the high street afloat. But at the same time we thrive on nostalgia, with brands like Marks & Spencer and WH Smith helping us connect with the past.  And it is an important place for social interactions – it gives people a place to meet.  

So perhaps we need a compromise. In towns where shop after shop is boarded up, the solution could be to reduce the space given over to retail. If shops are concentrated in one particular area, then the rest of the space could be converted into affordable housing or devoted to community centres, such as libraries. We don’t have the luxury of a shopping monopoly, as bricks-and-mortar shops have in Dubai, so perhaps this idea of matching the supply of shops to demand could prove the best solution?