EYLHS Newsletter 19 Summer 2008 newsletter of the East Yorkshire Local History Society Front cover: The Minerva at the junction of Nelson Street and Minerva Terrace, Hull, August 2008. Contributions Based in Hull it is not always easy to keep track of events in other parts of the Riding; news that members could contribute on their town or village should be sent to the editor. Short articles, illustrated or unillustrated, news on libraries, archives, museums, societies or education, queries other people may be able to answer, etc. for inclusion in future news- letters should also be sent to the editor. Newsletter temporary editor Robert Barnard 825 Anlaby Road, Hull, HU4 6DJ Telephone 01482 506001 published by the East Yorkshire Local History Society Secretary David Smith 114 Telford Street, Hull, HU9 3DY Telephone 01482 706902 e-mail [email protected] printed by Kall Kwik, Hull News from the Society Programme Helmsley Castle £4, concessions £; Rievaulx £4.50, concessions £.40, both As usual, the Society has arranged a full are free to English Heritage members. programme of lectures and excursions There is a large car park to the north of for 2007. Please support the events Helmsley Castle (charge) and there will and bring along your friends. Please do be time for lunch in Helmsley before ar- not hesitate to ask for lifts; you will be riving at Rievaulx for 2.00pm. expected to contribute to petrol. Participation in events PLEASE NOTE: Please make all cheques payable to the East Yorkshire Local As reported in previous years, it has not History Society. All cheques and book- been possible to arrange group insur- ing slips (which are on a separate insert ance for events. We therefore strongly with this newsletter) should be sent to recommend that members and their the relevant named individual at the friends take out personal accident/ address on the booking form. loss insurance, or include this in their households policies. We would also SatURDAY 6 SepteMBER 2008 stress the need for suitable clothing - in Venue: WISE, Oriel Chambers, 27 High particular, sturdy footware and water- Street, Hull proofs - for outdoor events. Topic: ‘Lincolnshire Spinsters in the Seventeenth Century’ Please note Speaker: Dr Judith Spicksley, WISE, Uni- versity of Hull There is usually a waiting list for most Time: 2.15pm of the Society’s events. If you book an Cost: £4 event and then find you cannot attend, Tea and coffee provided. please inform the Secretary. Please do Talk - will discuss the often precarious not transfer your booking to a relative position of unmarried women in Sev- or friend without first consulting the enteenth Century Lincolnshire based Secretary, whose telephone number on the speaker’s PhD. can be found on the inside of this No parking available newsletter. Thank you. SATURDAY 20 SEPTEMBER Review of EYLHS Events Venue: Helmsley Castle and Rievaulx Abbey AGM and Illustrated History of How- Leader: Dr John Walker den Time: 10.0am Helmsley Castle 29 March 2008 Cost: £1.50, this does not include ad- mission, which is payable on the day: The above event was held at the How- although a number of our hosts were den Masonic Hall and well attended. It wearing them, sporting a variety of dif- was interesting to see the inside of a ferent colours and decorations. Masonic Hall as such buildings are not Mr Judah Rose welcomed us to the always open to the general public. Synagogue explaining that his role as Chairman was simply to introduce As usual the AGM was over fairly speed- the speakers who would talk on vari- ily. ous aspects of the Jewish Faith and in particular about the Synagogue and its Following the formal part of the meet- archives. ing Susan Butler enabled us to tour Howden without getting wet on a par- The first speaker was Professor Howard ticularly inclement day. Cuckle. He briefly spoke about former Jewish places of worship in Hull and We were treated to a circular tour of the the expansion of the community town by photographic slide in which throughout the nineteenth century. all the significant buildings were de- Although Jews were allowed back into scribed together with some that are England at the time of the Common- now standing. wealth, most of the early brethren set- tled in London and it was not until the It wetted ones appetite to explore 1780s that the first record of a Jewish Howden and I for one will be visiting at Synagogue in Hull can be found. This a later date. was in Posterngate in a repaired Ro- man Catholic chapel that had been Tom Bangs severely damaged during the Gordon Riots. Subsequently a larger building A visit to a Jewish Synagogue in Robinson Row replaced Posterngate 1 April 2008 in 1826. As the 19th century progressed and the Hull Jewish community ex- On a rather chilly and wet Sunday af- panded with the influx of immigrants ternoon last April, a goodly number of from eastern Europe, several places of members augmented by people from worship sprang up in the town, but in the local Jewish community, came to- 1902 a new Synagogue was registered gether to visit the Pryme Street Syna- at Linnaeus Street, designed by the gogue at Anlaby. We arrived a little well known Hull architect Benjamin before the appointed starting time and Septimus Jacobs. It was then explained found difficulty in finding two empty that the Pryme Street Synagogue was chairs. I was surprised at the informal- a modern replacement for Linnaeus ity prevailing, as guests chatted in a re- Street. laxed and animated fashion waiting for the meeting to begin. I noted also we Professor Cuckle explained the differ- men were not asked to wear yarmulkes ence between Ashkenazi and Sephardic 4 Jews, the former originating from Rus- the Scrolls of the Torah, the five books sia and other Eastern European coun- of Moses. The Ark itself was a huge tries whilst the latter came from Iberia. wooden structure which had originally He then gave a fascinating account of been installed at Linnaeus Street and the stages in a Jewish boy’s life begin- then transferred to Pryme Street. Rabbi ning with circumcision, then Bar Mitz- Osdobi kindly drew back the central vah and marriage. Finally he explained curtain to allow us to see the Scrolls af- the various Jewish festivals throughout ter which we were able to walk around the year, the best known to us in the and look at a number of commemora- audience being the Passover and Yom tive plaques, many showing familiar Kippur, the Day of Atonement. names of Hull families. Dr David Lewis, ably supported by Mrs Reflecting on what I had seen, I was Frances Harris, spoke about the re- struck by the way the early Christian search work which is being done into church must have been influenced by discovering the names of the early Jew- the form of the Jewish faith and ritual. ish congregation at Hull, their places of In terms of a religious similarity, cir- residence and the occupations they cumcision might well be related to a followed. Dr Lewis described the ‘five Christian baptism and more surely the treasures’ they had been able to collect, Bar Mitzvah has its parallel in Confirma- the oldest being a rental indenture of tion. For Christians, the altar replaced 1684 concerning land that eventually the Ark and the curtained area contain- became the site of the Robinson Row ing the Scrolls on the the altar, with the Synagogue. tabernacle holding the Holy Eucharist. At the end we were kindly offered re- Obviously the decennial census returns freshments before leaving into the rain from 1841 are a fruitful source of infor- after a very informative and enjoyable mation and an example was shown to visit. us of tracing the Jacobs family, which included the celebrated Bethel Jacobs, Martin Craven who fathered 15 children, one of whom being Benjamin Septimus, the archi- Lincolnshire Churches tect. 17 May 2008 Dr Lewis explained that their archive More than seventy-five churches will eventually be deposited in the opened their doors to the public over Central Archive which is currently be- two weekends in May in celebration ing built in Hull. of Lincolnshire’s religious heritage and architecture and this tour encom- Interspersed between talks, we invited passed four of them. After following by Rabbi S Osdobi to view the Ark, a circuitous route through Hull with the holy place within which are kept rather unpromising weather, we made 5 a brief stop at Brigg Garden Centre rates nave and aisle, its round pillars where a vast selection of plants and decorated with rather roughly carved related items entertained those of us stiff-leaf capitals. Geoff Bell gave an -in with a gardening inclination while oth- teresting talk on changes in medieval ers made use of the refreshment facili- church interiors over the years and we ties. The four churches were within a had an opportunity to look round an relatively short distance of the main exhibition giving details of villagers A15 Lincoln road , but tucked away in involved in the First World War. Very lit- villages and therefore easily missed. tle seemed to have barred entry to the Hawthorn and Horse Chestnut blos- army – details such as missing fingers, som lined our route and the edge of cleft palate, being undersized or under- fields, while clematis, tulips and peo- aged seem to have been unimportant. nies brought colour to the gardens. Saxby church and vicarage The first church we visited was St Pe- We were very grateful to Pat Aldabella ter and St.