Kingston upon Hull
Kingston upon Hull, or simply shortened to Hull, is a port city and unitary authority area in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies upon the River Hull at its confluence with the Humber Estuary, inland from the North Sea. It is a tightly bounded city which excludes the majority of its suburbs; with a population of , it is the fourth-largest city in the Yorkshire and the Humber region. The built-up area has a population of 436,300.
Hull has more than 800 years of seafaring history and is known as Yorkshire's maritime city. The town of Wyke on Hull was founded late in the 12th century by the monks of Meaux Abbey as a port from which to export their wool. Renamed Kings-town upon Hull in 1299, Hull had been a market town, military supply port, trading centre, fishing and whaling centre and industrial metropolis.
Hull was an early theatre of battle in the English Civil Wars. Its 18th-century Member of Parliament, William Wilberforce, took a prominent part in the abolition of the slave trade in Britain.
The city offers a variety of museums and art galleries, a city centre marina and historic old town, stunning architecture, and a thriving arts scene. Due to Hull's growing appeal as an outdoor film location, particularly for period dramas using the Old Town's historic streets and buildings, plans for a purpose-built film studio complex have been approved by Hull City Council. The £3m complex could open by the end of 2025. The city has earned the nickname "Hullywood" in recent years, after productions including The Crown, Enola Holmes 2, The Personal History of David Copperfield, Victoria and Blitz have been filmed in the city.
In 2017, it was the UK City of Culture and hosted the Turner Prize at the city's Ferens Art Gallery. Other notable landmarks in the city are the Minster, the tidal surge barrier, and The Deep Hull's award-winning aquarium. Areas of the town centre include the old town and the marina. The University of Hull
was founded in 1927 and had over 16,000 students in 2022. Rugby league football teams include clubs Hull F.C. and Hull Kingston Rovers. The city's association football club is Hull City. Hull RUFC and Hull Ionians both play in the National League 2 North of rugby union.
The city came 2nd in the Time Out list of the 15 best places to visit in the UK in 2024, with the guide commenting that the city has got "The Deep, an enormous aquarium with 3,000 species, a picturesque old town which survived the city's relentless WWII bombings, and lots of up and coming indie art galleries like Ground and Artlink. Don't sleep on Hull". In 2016, it was named as one of the top 10 cities in the world to visit by Rough Guides alongside cities such as Seoul, Vancouver, Amsterdam and Reykjavik. In 2017, the city was featured in The Sunday Times Best Places to Live Guide and in 2024 was named as one of the UK's most "up and coming" places to move to. however, Kingston upon Hull has been ranked as one of the most deprived cities in the UK and the fourth most deprived local authority in the country. The city also has a lower than average life expectancy than the majority of the UK.
History
Wyke and wool trade
Kingston upon Hull stands on the north bank of the Humber Estuary at the mouth of its tributary, the River Hull. The valley of the River Hull has been inhabited since the early Neolithic period, but there is little evidence of a substantial settlement in the area of the present city. The area was attractive to people because it gave access to a prosperous hinterland and navigable rivers but the site was poor, being remote, low-lying and with no fresh water. It was originally an outlying part of the hamlet of Myton, named Wyke. The name is thought to originate either from a Scandinavian word Vik meaning inlet or from the Saxon Wic meaning dwelling place or refuge.The River Hull was a good haven for shipping, whose trade included the export of wool from Meaux Abbey, which owned Myton. In 1293, the town of Wyke was acquired from the abbey by King Edward I, who, on 1 April 1299, granted it a royal charter that renamed the settlement King's town upon Hull or Kingston upon Hull. The charter is preserved in the archives of the Guildhall. When first created, the borough straddled the ancient parishes of Hessle and North Ferriby, but was remote from either parish church. A chapel of ease dedicated to Holy Trinity was built to serve the part of the borough in Hessle parish; that church subsequently became Hull Minster. St Mary's Church similarly began as a chapel of ease for the part of the borough in North Ferriby parish.
In 1440, a further charter incorporated the town and instituted local government consisting of a mayor, a sheriff and twelve aldermen.
In his Guide to Hull , J. C. Craggs provides a colourful background to Edward's acquisition and naming of the town. He writes that the King and a hunting party started a hare which "led them along the delightful banks of the River Hull to the hamlet of Wyke... , charmed with the scene before him, viewed with delight the advantageous situation of this hitherto neglected and obscure corner. He foresaw it might become subservient both to render the kingdom more secure against foreign invasion, and at the same time greatly to enforce its commerce". Pursuant to these thoughts, Craggs continues, Edward purchased the land from the Abbot of Meaux, had a manor hall built for himself, issued proclamations encouraging development within the town, and bestowed upon it the royal appellation, King's Town.
Prospering port
The port served as a base for Edward I during the First War of Scottish Independence and later developed into the foremost port on the east coast of England. It prospered by exporting wool and woollen cloth, and importing wine and timber. Hull also established a flourishing commerce with the Baltic ports of the Hanseatic League.From its medieval beginnings, Hull's main trading links were with Scotland and northern Europe. Scandinavia, the Baltic and the Low Countries were all key trading areas for Hull's merchants. In addition, there was trade with France, Spain and Portugal.
Sir William de la Pole was the town's first mayor. A prosperous merchant, de la Pole founded a family that became prominent in government. Another successful son of a Hull trading family was bishop John Alcock, who founded Jesus College, Cambridge and was a patron of the grammar school in Hull. The increase in trade after the discovery of the Americas and the town's maritime connections are thought to have played a part in the introduction of a virulent strain of syphilis through Hull and on into Europe from the New World.
The town prospered during the 16th and early 17th centuries, and Hull's affluence at this time is preserved in the form of several well-maintained buildings from the period, including Wilberforce House, now a museum documenting the life of William Wilberforce.
During the English Civil War, Hull became strategically important because of the large arsenal located there. Very early in the war, on 11 January 1642, the king named the Earl of Newcastle governor of Hull while Parliament nominated Sir John Hotham and asked his son, Captain John Hotham, to secure the town at once. Sir John Hotham and Hull corporation declared support for Parliament and denied Charles I entry into the town. Charles I responded to these events by besieging the town. This siege helped precipitate open conflict between the forces of Parliament and those of the Royalists.
File:Parliament Street, Kingston upon Hull, Jun23.jpg|thumb|right|Parliament Street, a Georgian thoroughfare in the city centre, with Whitefriargate in the distance
After the Civil War, docks were built along the route of the town walls, which were demolished. The first dock was built in the area occupied by Beverley and North gates, and the intermediate walls, which were demolished, a second dock was built on the land between Hessle and Myton gates, and a third dock between the two was opened 1829 as Junction Dock.
Whaling played a major role in the town's fortunes until the mid-19th century. As sail power gave way to steam, Hull's trading links extended throughout the world. Docks were opened to serve the frozen meat trade of Australia, New Zealand and South America. Hull was also the centre of a thriving inland and coastal trading network, serving the whole of the United Kingdom.
City status
Throughout the second half of the 19th century and leading up to the First World War, the Port of Hull played a major role in the emigration of Northern European settlers to the New World, with thousands of emigrants sailing to Hull and stopping for administrative purposes before travelling on to Liverpool and then North America.Parallel to this growth in passenger shipping was the emergence of the Wilson Line of Hull. By the early 20th century, the company had grown – largely through its monopolisation of North Sea passenger routes and later mergers and acquisitions – to be the largest privately owned shipping company in the world, with over 100 ships sailing to different parts of the globe. The Wilson Line was sold to the Ellerman Lines – which itself was owned by Hull-born magnate Sir John Ellerman.
Hull's prosperity peaked in the decades just before the First World War; it was during this time, in 1897, that city status was granted. Many of the suburban areas on the western side of Hull were built in the 1930s, particularly Willerby Road and Anlaby Park, as well as most of Willerby itself.
Wartime bombing
The city's port and industrial facilities, its proximity to mainland Europe and ease of location being on a big estuary, led to much damage from bombing during the Second World War; much of the city centre was destroyed. Hull had 95 per cent of its houses damaged or destroyed, making it the second most severely bombed British city or town by number of damaged or destroyed buildings, after London, during the Second World War. More than 1,200 people died in air raids on the city and some 3,000 others were injured.The worst of the bombing occurred in 1941. Little was known about this destruction by the rest of the country at the time, since most of the radio and newspaper reports did not reveal Hull by name but referred to it as "a North-East town" or "a northern coastal town". Most of the city centre was rebuilt after the war. In 2006 researchers found documents in the local archives that suggested an unexploded wartime bomb might be buried beneath the Boom, in Hull a redevelopment.
After the decline of the whaling industry after the Second World War, emphasis shifted to deep-sea trawling until the Anglo-Icelandic Cod War of 1975–1976. The conditions set at the end of this dispute started Hull's economic decline.