The year 1910 saw the beginning of a new direct steamship service between Australia and Hull, a service which is expected to open out a large trade in the import of Australian wool for the looms of the West Riding. March, 1909, saw the arrival in Hull of the first large cargo of soya beans sent out from China, and the beginning in Europe of a new industry—the crushing of soya beans and the manufacture of soya oil and feeding cake.
Another new industry was started in 1907, when the ‘National Radiator Co.’ opened a branch of their American works. They have extended their buildings each year since the opening, and now employ nearly 1000 hands.
| Photo by] | The Garden Village, Hull. | [C. Bennett |
Most noticeable of all recent developments in Hull, however, have been the destruction of slum districts and the opening out of wide thoroughfares in the heart of the city—a work that was carried out during the five years’ mayoralty of Sir Alfred Gelder—the securing of an unfailing supply of pure drinking-water; the construction of a tramway system that is one of the cheapest, if not the cheapest, in Great Britain; and the planning of Garden Villages and Public Parks on the outskirts of the city.
XXVI.
FAMOUS SONS OF THE EAST RIDING.
First in the list of those who may justly be called ‘Famous Sons of the East Riding’ stand the names of Roger of Howden, William of Newburgh, and Peter of Langtoft. All these were men of learning in an age when knowledge was difficult to obtain, and each devoted himself to the work of spreading the knowledge of which he became possessed. The work that each of them bequeathed to us is a history of our country, the histories of the first and second being written in Latin, and that of the third in Norman-French rimed verse.
Roger of Howden and Peter of Langtoft took their surnames—i.e., additional names—from the places at which they were born. But William of Newburgh was born at Bridlington in 1136, and gained his surname from the fact that he became an inmate of the monastery at Newburgh in the North Riding. Peter of Langtoft was a Canon of the Priory at Bridlington.
Peter of Langtoft’s History of English Affairs takes rank as the ‘finest historical work left us by an Englishman of the twelfth century.’ It is interesting because there are introduced several of the songs sung by the peasantry and the townsfolk of Yorkshire in the thirteenth century.
But most interesting to us is the Annals of Roger of Howden. Roger was a clerk, or secretary, to King Henry II., and later became one of the King’s Justices in Yorkshire. He records several facts about his birthplace—among them that King John spent Christmas, 1191, as a guest of Hugh Pudsey, Bishop of Durham, at the latter’s palace or manor-house at Howden, and that in 1200 the King granted Bishop Hugh the right to hold there an annual fair.