Part 18

Soon, with a roaring, rose the mighty fire, And the pile crackled; and between the logs Sharp, quivering tongues of flame shot out, and leapt, Curling and darting, higher, until they licked The summit of the pile, the dead, the mast, And ate the shrivelling sails. But still the ship Drove on, ablaze above her hull with fire.

With the passing of centuries came more peaceful times, when the ships that passed up and down the Humber were no longer ships of war, but ships of peace. They were ships ‘that sailed from Hull ... to Bergen with English wares, and brought back cargoes of salt fish; that fetched iron from Sweden, and wine from the Rhine vineyards, and oranges and spices and foreign fruits from Bruges; and that carried out the English woollen cloths to Russia or the Baltic ports, and brought back wood, tin, potash, skins and furs.’

What the ships of the fourteenth century were like we can judge from the old plan of Hull on page 165, and from the drawing of the seal of the Corporation of Hedon here shown. The Humber was then noted for its ships, and in the year 1346 furnished the following ships and men to the expedition fitted out by King Edward III. for the siege of Calais:—

TOWNS SHIPS MARINERS Kingston-upon-Hull 16 466 Grimsby 11 171 Barton 3 30 Ravenser 1 27

For the same expedition London provided only twenty-five ships and 662 mariners.

Gradually the ships of the Humber increased in size; and when in 1598 the seamen of Hull first engaged in whale fishing, the kind of ship they had was one much more seaworthy than the ‘cockle-shells’ of previous centuries.

In the hall of the Hull Trinity House hangs a strange relic of the early days of the whale fishery. This is an Esquimaux canoe, built entirely of whalebone and sealskin, and picked up off the Greenland coast by the captain of a Hull whaler in 1613.

When sighted, the canoe held the dead body of its owner sitting strapped upright with his paddle across his knees. The ‘Bonny Boat’ the English sailors christened it, and there in the Trinity House it may be seen to-day, with what at first glance appears to be its owner still sitting as he sat when he died of starvation on the wide Atlantic Ocean.

During the time of the Dutch wars of the reign of Charles II., the whaling industry passed into the hands of the Dutch, but a century later—in 1765—it was resumed by the Hull seamen. A shipowner named Captain Standidge took a great part in this revival of the Greenland fisheries, and for his services in this direction received the honour of knighthood.

From 1772 to 1852 the WHALING INDUSTRY flourished. To the icy seas around Spitzbergen, or to the Greenland seas and the Davis Straits, there went each year ships of the Humber in number from three to sixty-five. Often they were unlucky, and had to return ‘clean’—that is, with nothing in their holds to repay their owners and their crews. Sometimes they were still more unlucky, and did not return at all, having been gripped in the ice or captured by French privateers. Out of ten ships that sailed from the Humber in 1775, six came back ‘clean,’ and two were lost.

One of the most disastrous years known was 1835, when five of the Hull ships were frozen up, three of them being eventually lost, one with all hands.

In the following year a Hull vessel, named the _Swan_, was frozen up much farther north than the whalers usually went; so that it was the midsummer of 1837 before she got free. Meanwhile she had been given up as lost; and on Sunday, July 2nd, a memorial service was held on the Dock Green, and a collection of £47 taken on behalf of the families of the crew. In the midst of the service, however, news arrived that the ‘missing’ vessel was entering the mouth of the Humber.

We can imagine the excitement caused by her arrival. Among other things it meant, of course, a ‘Hextra Speshul’ edition of the News Sheet, as the photograph on the opposite page shows.

As a rule, however, a voyage resulted in fair profits for both owners and crews. The thirty-one ships that went to Greenland in 1821 took between them 204 whales, and the twenty-one that went to Davis Straits took 294 whales. These 498 ‘fish’ produced whalebone and oil to the value of £150,000. The average return per ship was here slightly lower than that for the whole period 1772–1852, which works out to £3,500.

Occasionally a ship would be particularly fortunate. In the Greenland Sea in one day the _Gibraltar_ killed eleven whales, the _Manchester_ ten, and the _Molly_ six. In 1794, also, the _Egginton_ arrived from Greenland with the produce of fifteen whales, 3,021 seals, and five bears. She had been away from home only a hundred days, and created a record by afterwards making two trading voyages to St. Petersburg the same season.

Such luck as this was quite exceptional. Usually the capture of a single whale meant much hard work and many dangers for the boats’ crews. In 1821 the _Baffin_

struck a whale which ran out fifteen lines of 240 yards each, and dragged two boats and fifteen men for a long time. When the ‘fish’ was killed, it was found to have been also dragging under water six similar lines and a boat belonging to the _Trafalgar_, of Hull. The 5,040 yards of line weighed a ton and a half.

Most famous of the ships of the Humber that passed to and fro in the whaling industry was the _Truelove_. This was a three-masted barque with a length of 96 feet and a width of 27 feet. Built at Philadelphia in 1764, the _Truelove_ was captured by the English in the American war, and eventually sold to a merchant of High Street, Hull.

The _Truelove’s_ first whaling voyage was to Spitzbergen in 1784. From that year till 1868 she made seventy-two voyages to Spitzbergen, Greenland, or the Davis Straits, and accounted for about 500 whales. In 1873 she was taken to her birthplace, where the captain and crew were fêted; and for several years afterwards she made trading voyages to Norway until eventually she was broken up as no longer seaworthy.

The peculiar build of the _Truelove_ accounted to a large extent for her many hair-breadth escapes from the danger of being ‘nipped’ in the ice. Her sides bulged outwards like a barrel; or, as sailors put it, they ‘tumbled home’ to the deck.

One of the saddest events in the Hull whaling industry was the return home of the _Diana_ in 1867. This was the first steamship to go to the whaling-grounds, and in her voyage of 1866 she had the misfortune to become locked in the ice for six months. The sufferings of her crew can be imagined. Captain Gravill died in December, one of her crew died in February, five died in March, and five more died in April.

The _Truelove_ was sent out from the Humber as a relief ship for the _Diana_, but the two vessels passed each other. With thirty-six men down with the scurvy, and only seven left fit to work the ship, the unfortunate _Diana_ eventually reached home, her dead captain’s coffin on the ship’s bridge.

The following year this ill-fated vessel was wrecked on the treacherous flats of Donna Nook, off the Lincolnshire coast at the mouth of the Humber. With her loss the whaling industry of the Humber seamen came to an end.

* * * * *

During many of the years when the whale fisheries were providing work for East Riding seamen, France and England were at war. Men were consequently needed to man the English navy, and such notices as the following were frequently issued in seaport towns:—

RECRUITING FOR THE NAVY.

=WANTED.=

For the parishes of _Sculcoates_, _Cottingham_, and _Little Weighton_, A few able-bodied SEAMEN or LANDMEN to serve in His Majesty’s Navy during the present War ONLY.... The Families and Friends of Volunteers will receive Monthly Pay, and the Volunteers themselves will have a bountiful supply of Cloathing, Beef, Grog, Flip, and Strong Beer, also a certainty of Prize Money, as the men entered for this service will be sent to capture the rich Spanish Galleons, and in consequence will return loaded with Dollars and Honour, to spend their Days in Peace and Plenty.

* * * * *

May the constitution of _England_ endure for ever, and the Parishioners of _Sculcoates_, _Cottingham_ and _Little Weighton_ live to see it.

Hull, November 28th, 1796.

But the results of this ‘Recruiting for the Navy’ were not always satisfactory, notwithstanding the ‘certainty of Prize Money’ and the ‘bountiful supply of ... Grog, Flip, and Strong Beer.’ So recourse was had to the _Press Gang_, and many were the tricks practised by the captains and crews of Hull whalers to reach home safely.

A ship of war was stationed in the Humber to board incoming whalers and impress men for service in the navy. To escape, numbers of the men were landed at Easington or at lonely spots farther north, and these would make their way home as best they could by land.

Another very ingenious trick was worked successfully by the captain of a whaler which was boarded by a revenue cutter off Flamborough Head. This is how Captain Barron in his _Old Whaling Days_ tells the story:—

A revenue cutter hove in sight off Flambro’ Head when Captain Scoresby was returning home with a full ship. When he saw it in the distance, he let four or five feet of water into the hold through a large brass tap which some whalers had in their counters on purpose to fill their casks for ballast. This was kept running, so that the pumps could not gain upon it, and when the officer boarded the ship he was told she made so much water that the crew would not be able to keep her afloat if he took any away. The officer sounded the pumps, and was satisfied in finding when they stopped pumping the water rose in the hold. He took his departure. The tap was at once turned off, and the water pumped out. This clever trick saved his men from being forced on board His Majesty’s ships.

On another occasion—in 1798—the _Blenheim_ was boarded in the Humber by _H.M.S. Nonsuch_, and a free fight followed, in which two of the warship’s crew were slain. For this the captain of the whaler was brought to trial at York. But he was acquitted on the charge of murder laid against him; and when the York coach brought him safely home to Hull, ‘the crowd took out the horses, dragged it to the Market Place, and ran it three times round the statue of King William’ by way of showing their joy.

The warships of this period, were, of course, vastly different from the battleships of which English seamen are so proud to-day. Many were built in the Humber; the largest being the _Humber_, an eighty-gun ship, launched at Hessle Cliff in 1693. _H.M.S. Hector_ was built by Hugh Blaydes fifty years later. During the years 1739–1774 three warships were built at Paull, six at Hessle, and fifteen at Hull. A memento of the _Hyperion_, built at Hull in 1806, still exists in the name of a small street running off Great Union Street, and a neighbouring street bears the name of a very popular whaler, the _Aurora_.

* * * * *

The first steamship used on the Humber was one built in Scotland, and hence appropriately named the _Caledonia_.[66] This steam packet ran between Hull and Selby in 1815. Five years later the _Rockingham_ was built at Thorne, and the following year the _Kingston_ began the ‘expeditious and easy conveyance’ of passengers from Hull to London.

Footnote 66:

The first steamboat built in England was constructed in a yard off Wincolmlee, Hull, and was launched in the river Hull. This was in the year 1787, and the engine was patented the next year. The makers, Messrs. Furness & Ashton, afterwards built a larger steam-boat, which was put together in London and bought by the Prince Regent, who rewarded them with a pension of £70 each.

The _Kingston_ was, of course, looked upon as a wonderful vessel. Its owners proudly announced to the public:—

In the construction of this elegant vessel, which will be propelled by an engine of sixty horse power every attention has been paid to render the conveyance expeditious, commodious, and safe.

‘Expeditious’, however, it did not prove to be—at any rate on its first voyage. For when twenty miles from the Humber, the axis of the paddles broke; and instead of reaching London in thirty hours, as the passengers had expected, the _Kingston_ found its way back to Hull some forty-eight hours after its triumphant start.

These early steam packets were somewhat different from the ocean liners of our own day. Compare the portrait of the _Rockingham_ on page 295 with that of the _Bayardo_ on page 299. Launched in 1910 from Earle’s Shipbuilding Yard, at a cost of £67,000, the latter was for its short life the ‘Queen of the Wilson Line.’

The fate of the _Diana_ and the _Bayardo_ illustrates the dangers of the Humber. The latter vessel left Gothenburg on a Friday evening in January, 1912, with a cargo worth £30,000 and a small number of passengers. On the Saturday evening she was making her way up the Humber in a dense fog when she ran hard aground on a sandbank almost opposite the dock which was her destination. By the following evening her back was broken, and the ‘Queen of the Wilson Line’ was a hopeless wreck.

* * * * *

Stand on the Victoria Pier at Hull on a clear day, and watch the ships of the Humber. Of all sizes and shapes and speeds they are. There we see the keel, with its one square sail, making its way slowly along, the peaceful descendant of the square-sailed long-ship of Viking days. There are the schooners and barques that are survivals from the days when all ships depended on the wind for their motive power. There is a tug-boat taking out to its moorings the light-ship on which the safety of many other ships will depend.

There also are the ‘fast-sailing’ steam trawlers and carriers coming from, or going to, the fishing-grounds off Iceland and north of the White Sea—the representatives of the whalers of a hundred years ago—there the scurrying pilot boats and revenue cutters. And there is a great ocean liner riding at anchor and waiting the turn of the tide to allow it to enter the dock and discharge the cargo it has brought from the other side of the world.

XXVIII. FOLK-SPEECH OF THE EAST RIDING.

There is a tale told of a Yorkshireman on a visit to London that he fell into argument with a bus conductor over the correct way of pronouncing the simple word ‘road.’ The cockney bus-conductor had, in his usual way, called out ‘’Toria Rowd; ’Toria Rowd!’ and the Yorkshireman was highly displeased with this obvious murder of the King’s English. ‘Rowd!’ said he in his disgust; ‘whah dooant ya speeak English? R-o-a-d—that’s hoo it’s spelt, beeant it? Whah dooant ya ca’ it Roo-ad?’

The story will serve to illustrate the fact that a man born and bred in the heart of England’s biggest shire, and one born and bred in the heart of England’s biggest city, do not sound all their words in the same manner, though they may at the same time spell them alike. Moreover, neither of the two will perhaps sound his words in the way in which custom says it is correct to sound them.

Such differences are to be found in many parts of the country. The Northumberland miner, the Sheffield steel-worker, the Nottingham lace-worker, the Norfolk grazier, and the ‘Zummerzet’ farm-labourer all speak ‘English’; but yet they would have no little difficulty in making one another understand what their respective English words meant. In other words, the districts to which they belong have each a DIALECT or FOLK-SPEECH of their own.

* * * * *

Let us see what are some of the peculiarities of the Folk-Speech of our East Riding:—

(1) An East Yorkshireman sounds his vowels in his own peculiar way. With him I is pronounced as _ah_, warm as _wahrm_, night as _neet_, road as _rooad_, cow as _coo_, know as _knaw_, pound as _pund_, come as _coom_, and ought as _owt_. He is, moreover, very fond of the EEA sound; for he makes cake into _keeak_, meat into _meeat_, home into _heeam_, sure into _seear_, school into _skeeal_, look into _leeak_, enough into _eneeaf_, and plough into _pleeaf_.

(2) He finds it too much of an effort to sound the whole word ‘the,’ and therefore clips it into _t’_; so that with him ‘the cow is in the close’ becomes _t’ coo is i’ t’ clooase_. If he is a Holderness man even that effort will probably be too great for him, and what he will say is _coo is i’ clooase_.

(3) In the same way he finds it much easier to drop the final G of words ending in ING and to drop an initial H. To make up for the latter, however, he may very possibly put in an occasional H somewhere where it would not be expected. Thus he may tell us, speaking of his companions, that _hivvry yan on em is gannin t’ ’Ool t’ morn_.

(4) He has a very simple method of dealing with the inflections of the verb. I am, thou art, he is; and I do, thou dost, he does, are levelled into:—

_Ah is_ _Ah diz_ _Thoo is_ _Thoo diz_ _He is_ _He diz_

—while, in speaking of his sheep, he may even tell us that _Them’s good uns_.

(5) The plural words cows, eyes, children, are not at all to his liking. He much prefers to speak of such things as _ky_, _een_, and _childer_. Nor does he take kindly to the ‘apostrophe s’ as a sign of the possessive case; but will tell his boy to _stan bi t’ hoss heead_.

(6) He is very fond of doubling his negatives, and occasionally he is not even satisfied with the doubling process. It is said of an East Yorkshireman whose apple trees were the aim of many a schoolboy’s stone, that his lamentation took the form of _neeabody’s neea bisniss ti thraw nowt inti neeabody’s gardin_.

(7) He is also very fond of ‘strong’ past tenses and of past participles ending in EN. The past tenses beat, crept, snowed, are with him _bet_, _crop_, and _snew_; while the past participles burst, fought, got, held, let, put, become _brussen_, _fowten_, _gotten_, _ho’dden_, _letten_, and _putten_. So firmly fixed in popular favour are these forms in EN that it is told of a small boy who had been receiving a lesson on their incorrectness, that in a state of momentary excitement he informed his mistress: _Pleease, miss, Billy Jooanes ha’ putten ‘putten’ wheer he owt ti ha’ putten ‘put.’_

(8) The East Yorkshireman has a host of words that are all his own. Thus he will tell us that _theer war nobbut yah coo i’ t’ helm at t’ far-end o’ t’ pastur_; and that he _doots t’ awd meer’s boon ti dee, but happen she mud live whahl Moon da_.[67]

Footnote 67:

_nobbut_=only. _boon_=ready. _helm_=shed. _happen_=possibly. _far-end_=opposite side. _mud_=might. _doots_=fears. _whahl_=until.

(9) He has likewise his own way of expressing his thoughts, and no other will serve his purpose so well. ‘Well, my boy, who are you?’ a country parson freshly arrived from the South is said to have asked a village boy. _Ah’s weel, hoo’s yersen?_ was the unexpected reply that the parson received. But, of course, he should have known that in East Yorkshire the correct way of asking his question is ‘What do they call you?’

There are very many of these special modes of expression. To spread a report is _to set it aboot_, to scold a person is _to call_ him, to call a person is _to call of_ him, to pour hot water on tea-leaves is _to mash t’ tay_, to be going to the bad is _to be at a loose end_, to leave off doing a thing is _to give ower_, and to give good promise of success is _to fraame middlin_.

If an East Yorkshireman wishes to make known that he saw his brother Sam, he will say _Ah seed oor Sam_. Of one who cannot look after himself he will say that _t’ awd chap canna fend for hissen_, and of one who is not getting better from an illness it will be said that _he dizn’t mend onny_.

Sometimes the result of the change of expression becomes ludicrous, as it was in the case of the cottager who, telling of a lodger that he prepared his own food and she did his washing for him, explained: _He meeats hissen an’ ah weshes him_.

The East Yorkshireman, like many other people, likes making comparisons; but he has his own idea of what forms a fit and proper comparison. Thus, in speaking of the steepness of a cliff he will tell us that it is _as brant as a hoose sahd_, or he will explain that his grandfather is _as deeaf as a yat-stowp_.[68] Concerning a person of whose capabilities he does not think highly, he will tell us that he is _as fond as a billy-gooat_, or _as green as a yalla cabbish_, or even _as soft as a boiled tonnap_.

Footnote 68:

_Yat-stowp_=gate-post.

* * * * *

Many other examples of the peculiarities of the East Yorkshire Folk-Speech might be given. What shall we say about them? Shall we smile at what we are pleased to consider mis-pronunciations and awkward attempts to speak the English language? When the farm-labourer, who had been beguiled into buying a ‘solid gold-plated keyless watch jewelled in seven holes’ from a cheap-jack in Beverley Market Place, was told by his companion to _ax_ where the key was, and proceeded to bawl out _Wheer’s t’ kay?_ was he to be laughed at for murdering the King’s English?

If we wish to laugh at those who thus speak ‘broad Yorkshire’ let us do so. But at the same time let us remember that what we are pleased to call ‘broad Yorkshire’ is often much truer English than what we ourselves customarily use.

A thousand years ago our ancestors called a key _cæg_ (pronounced _kaig_), and used the verb _acsian_ where we should use ‘ask.’ They also used the word _cy_ (pronounced _kee_) for the plural of _cu_ (pronounced _koo_), and the word _cilder_ (pronounced _kilder_) for the plural of _cild_.

So really the East Yorkshire farm-labourers are speaking the language of their ancestors much more truly than we who mis-pronounce words and make them into _cows_ and _ask_, and who manufacture such a double plural as the word _child(e)r-en_.

In numerous instances is the East Yorkshire Folk-Speech nearer to the true English than is the commonly accepted ‘English’ of to-day. The following examples might be multiplied indefinitely:—

OLD ENGLISH WORDS. STANDARD ENGLISH WORDS. EAST YORKSHIRE WORDS.

(IN USE A.D. 912). (IN USE A.D. 1912).

AFYRHT (pron. afraid AFEEARD _afeert_)

GIF if GIF

GRAFAN (pron. to dig GRAAVE _grahvan_)

HAGOL hail HAGGLE

HRYCG (pron. _hrig_) back or ridge RIG

LICGAN (pron. to lie LIG _liggan_)

SETL seat SETTLE

SWELAN to gutter (of a candle) SWEEL

THAEC (pron. _thak_) thatch THAK

WANCOL unsteady WANKLE