Fortunes and Misfortunes. Beverley U3A Local History talk by Ann Scruton 28 th June 2017

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1 Fortunes and Misfortunes Beverley U3A Local History talk by Ann Scruton 28 th June 2017 We ve existed as a Local History group for just over a year now, but already we ve begun to piece together the jigsaw of Beverley s history. As themes, people and places recur through our talks, walks and visits, the big picture emerges from the shadows of the past. So today, as Ann took us on an imaginary stroll through the streets of Beverley, characters reappeared. We met again the saintly John, to whom Beverley owes its very existence, and the less than saintly Gillyatt Sumner, the brawling churchwarden who became Beverley s own Del Boy. We heard more about the town s medieval rise and fall, then its resurrection as a prosperous Georgian market town where the rich paraded their wealth while the less salubrious residents were kept beyond the town boundaries. Ann had chosen to illuminate this history through the rise, and sometimes fall, of some of the great characters and families of Beverley. She s doing the actual walk for this talk at September s Walking and Outdoor festival. Ann began outside the Treasure House, by reminding us of one of the St Mary s lantern turrets, placed outside what is now the ERYC offices. This was taken from St Mary s after the restoration in 1851 as it was unsafe. The other surfaced in, guess where, Gillyatt Sumner s garden in Woodmansey where it remains. (The lantern tower would have become redundant in any case by then, no longer needed to direct lost travellers at night as they crossed the dark Wolds or featureless marshes around the town.) Next, we visited The Hall in Lairgate, built in 1760 and a great example of Beverley s Georgian gentrification. This was a second golden age for the town, with magnificent town houses, the Assembly Rooms, theatres, paying libraries and the creation of the great promenade of New Walk so the fashionable rich could show off their prosperity. Built by Sir James Pennyman, the hall was paid for by his wife Mary s fortune inherited from her brother Sir Michael Warton, he of the magnificent tomb in the Minster. Sir Michael was known as the richest man in England but died childless. His wealth was so considerable it took lawyers fifty years to sort out his will. Another James Pennyman, a descendant, 6 th Baronet and another nonattending MP (the corruption of local politicians seems to be another common theme we re discovering) lost the family fortune and the house by It passed to other notables whose names are familiar: Benjamin Blaydes of the Hull ship-owning family, and James Walker, merchant of

2 Hull, then was finally sold to Beverley Corporation in 1925 by Rear Admiral Charles Walker, who was notable enough to have a street named after him where the house s extensive parkland once stood. There was some discussion about the original Chinese wallpaper still there in one of the rooms, though it s now privately owned. People remembered seeing it as children, going with parents for ration books or on school trips, and one member recalled voting in the same room in the sixties. Another member had worked there when the room was used for council meetings. It will be open to visitors perhaps on Heritage Open days as it s Grade 2* listed. Ann showed us a photo of her next character, James Habersham, another well-heeled gent who had humbler beginnings as the son of a dyer and bleacher. The trade was moved out beyond the town boundaries (in the Middle Ages probably from around Dyer Lane area) as the processes were smelly and noxious. Streams were there to wash the fabrics and space to dry them out in the fields. (I ve read that medieval tanners and bleachers used products including urine, warm dog dung and bird droppings to bleach and cure fabrics and hides). As early as 1461, the brick and tile industry too was forced by law to move away from the town centre. Nimbyism is nothing new.) Living on Keldgate and Kitchen Lane, his grandfather left the business to his uncles but to James s father went only 1, which was exactly what his daughters got, in an early example of everyday inequality. Orphaned at 17 James went to London where he got a job with an uncle who was a merchant and staunch Methodist, a friend of the evangelist George Whitfield. They went off to the colony of Georgia where James made his fortune, but not before spending time in gaol for arguing with a vicar. He founded an orphanage, set up a trading business with London and rice plantations along the rivers, the first of which he called Beverley. Habersham County, Georgia, was named after him when he became a state governor. But James s descendants lost his fortune, not through profligacy like James Pennyman, but through the misfortunes of war. First, he sided with the Brits in the War of Independence, which cost him his relationship with his sons, then his grandsons sided with the Confederates in the Civil War which cost them his wealth and property. Ann, wearing her genealogy hat, mused about what had happened to the Habershams as the name doesn t crop up in Beverley. She suspects that they either all moved to Georgia, or to West Yorkshire when the dyeing and bleaching industy s centre of gravity moved there. Ann had discovered another family link here, as a Scruton ancestor had taken over the Habersham bleaching business.

3 Ann s virtual tour moved on to the Minster area, which Bishop John chose for his retirement home. His near contemporary, the Venerable Bede, wrote Here in the wood of the men of Deira the church on this spot was rebuilt by that saint. The original church was probably built of wood, perhaps on stone foundations. It s fortunate for Beverley that his fame spread, turning Beverley into the centre of pilgrimage that it was to become in the Middle Ages. His fame spared Beverley from the ravages of William the Conqueror s Harrying of the North: the peace of Saint John is to be respected, he commanded. There were further misfortunes for the Minster, including the great fire of 1188, and the Black Death of the 14 th century, when perhaps 80% of the workers rebuilding it were killed. The Dissolution of the monasteries in the 16 th century could have meant the end of the Minster, prey to the rich landowners who took advantage of the property bonanza. Sir Michael Stanhope of Hull bought and demolished the Archbishop s Hall to use for his hunting lodge at Beverley Parks. Luckily for posterity, the burgesses of Beverley raised 100 to buy the Minster. They were not entirely altruistic, however. To get their money back they demolished the adjacent St Martin s Chapel but without their intervention, as Ann told us, it could have been a ruin like Rievaulx. Here our old friend Gillyatt Sumner resurfaced as Churchwarden in the early 19 th Century, having left his choirboy signature as graffiti, still to be seen by the organ. He conducted a vendetta, including fisticuffs, with the churchwardens of St Martin s, who still used the Minster for their parish business even though their chapel was no more. So, the Minster survived, and by Victorian times money was there to be spent on heating, lighting, cleaning and general gentrification. (As John Phillips told us on our recent Minster tour we were

4 lucky the Victorians didn t try to restore the church as they so loved to do elsewhere, or we could have lost many of the original features.) his popularity. We moved on to Flemingate, where St John Fisher had lived in the house where the leaning chimney now stands. Educated at Cambridge in the 15 th Century he became the college s administrator then tutor to Henry V111. However, he turned against the king over his divorce and break from Rome. He resigned the priesthood but this didn t save him from being convicted of treason and executed. His original sentence of being hanged, drawn and quartered, the commoner s usual sentence, was changed by Henry to beheading, showing a rare glimpse of compassion, or guilt, from the king. His head was stuck on a pole for all to see but was quickly taken down again, such was We moved on to the Friary, where the friars were also victims of Henry. At the Dissolution they were turned out. Some fled to the continent, some became beggars and others lost their lives. It was much bigger then than now and had orchards. All that s left is the original guesthouse. It was first taken over by the railway then by Armstrongs who, in the sixties, that decade of many disastrous planning decisions, wanted to demolish it. ERYC saved it and turned it into a youth hostel. The stone archway is from the Guildhall and was moved to the Friary from Gillyatt Sumner s garden. Yes, him again. We travelled on our virtual tour to Wednesday Market next where Ann drew our attention to the green plaque commemorating Mary Wollstonecraft. She was a teenager in Beverley in the 1770s. Ann reminded us of Val Wise s novel, the Wrongs of Women, based on research of Mary s life. She

5 had a drunken and abusive father but became a governess, opened a girls school and became a writer. Her books, Thoughts on the Education of Daughters and Vindication of the Rights of Women are seminal feminist texts. She led a suitably bohemian life, having an illegitimate child by an American adventurer, but did marry William Godwin, dying at 38 giving birth to her equally famous daughter, Mary Shelley. It s a real pity Beverley doesn t make more of Mary s links with the town. Down Toll Gavel, we noted the many Georgian buildings of the 18 th Century, Beverley s golden time. There are many Grade 2 listed buildings, some hiding medieval interiors. Ann told us about the importance of the 1745 Beck Act in extending our knowledge of this period. This legislation was designed to clean up Beverley by requiring that all residents clean the street in front of their buildings. A Francis Tadman in 1805 was given the job of measuring every building, and detailing who was responsible for it. This book is still in existence and is a brilliant census. (We ve bought the John Dawson CD with research based on this census and are loaning it out to members.) So, we know, for example, that the front of the Holderness Hotel (now New Look) would have cost 11d to be cleaned. This census tells us that there were over 30 inns and butchers. We know that at 27 Beckside, Gillyat Sumner s father was a fellmonger, who dressed and sold hides. We also know that at Newbegin House, (14-16), lived a relative of the Duke of Northumberland who was also a descendant of one of the Gunpowder Plotters, Thomas Percy, who was shot. Ann thought he was lucky. I ve seen Guy Fawkes s signatures before and after he was tortured, she sighed, and it wasn t a pleasant sight. On this grisly note, she ended her fascinating talk. Thank you, Ann. HK