Hackforths of Goole

 At last it feels like spring. The incessant rain has stopped and everything is beginning to grow. Our snowdrops have finished but the daffodils are taking their place. I have been watching a greater spotted woodpecker sharing the peanuts on the bird feeder and then can hear it the hammering in the wood.

It is time too to spend less time on the computer and more in the garden. I have planted some new rasp canes in large pots as my old ones seem not to like where they are and the greenhouse is cleaned out ready for planting seeds.

 But my local history groups are still running and one of the recent topics we discussed was Hackforths of Goole - a high class grocery shop on Boothferry Road with a popular cafe above. It closed in 1969 and was now where the Nationwide is.

So I thought I would have a look at the Hackforth family - who were they and when did they come to Goole? I did not realise how many grocers there were in Goole and how interconnected their families were - I should have done!

John Hackforth was born in 1849 at Donington in Lincolnshire. His father George was a hair dresser and letter carrier. In 1871 John was a grocer's assistant at a large grocers' shop in March in Cambridgeshire.

By 1879 he was in Goole and married Mary Thompson.  Mary was born in born 1852 and in 1861 she was living with her parents and family on Barge Dock side. Her father Edward Wilson Thompson was  a grocer and provision merchant. In 1871 she was living on Boothferry Road with her brother James, a grocer.

By 1881 John and Mary had a son George Edward and John was manager of a grocer's shop on Bridge St near Dutch river bridge, probably his father in law's.

Family and business

Son Harry was born in 1881, John was born in 1883 and Ethel was born in 1884. Sadly John died in 1884.

Spring 1891 was a bad time for the Hackforths.  On 2nd March Mary's mother Ann died and on March 26th  her husband John died aged 42. So she was left with a business and young family to look after.

From the Howdenshire Gazette of September 1891 we learn that John had been in partnership with a Thomas Settle and they had three grocery businesses. Mary had been running them after John's death until matters were sorted out

One was at 6- 8 Bridge street and it was agreed that this would continue to be carried on by Thomas Settle and Fred Thompson Downing, under the name "Thompson & Co " .  

The business on BoothferryRoad, was 'disposed of to James Thompson, the former Proprietor thereof, who will carry on the same on his own account'.  James, as we have seen was Mary's brother . This was in the building which was the former Wesleyan Manse and later became Harry Boom, outfitter. James retired to Owston Ferry before the First World war and died in 1935.

A Pasture-road business was also disposed of. 

Tom Settle continued to run the Bridge St  business and seems to have been doing so until his death in 1935. as the following newspaper report explains

The death took place at Goole of Mr Tom Settle, of 31, Woodland-avenue, Goole, who for more than half a century had been in the grocery. trade. Mr Settle was 73 years ol age and was a native of the town. He served his apprenticeship as a grocer with the late Mr E. Thompson, and was for many years with the late Mr J. Hackforth, who took over the business. Later he became manager of Messrs Thompson and Co.,of Bridge-street, Goole, and held this position upto the time of his death. He was for 25 years the secretary of the Goole Grocers' and Bakers’ Association, and was prominently associated with the Goole North-street Methodist Church, of which he was a trustee. Mr Settle leaves a widow and five daughters.

Mrs Mary Hackforth lived for many years at 129 Boothferry Road, Donington Villa. The house is now demolished and is presently a bed shop.

Rev George Hackforth

Her eldest son George became a vicar.  He studied at the London College of Divinity. He was made priest in 1912 and became a curate at Llanhilleth, followed by All Saints, Crindan, Newport. He next became curate at St. Augustine’s Church, Sheffield (1916) and at St. Clement’s, Newhall, Sheffield (1918). In 1921 he moved  to London, where he was successively; curate at St. Andrew’s, Streatham (until 1923), St. Matthew’s, Essex Road, Islington and then (from 1926) vicar of St. Bartholomew’s, Shepperton Road, Islington. In 1932 he married Maud Witherall (1898-1982) and, in 1936, became vicar of Wix, Essex. The couple appear to have retired to Clacton and he died in 1965, in Black Notley Hospital. 

Harry Hackforth

He was born in 1881 and in 1891 was in Boothferry Road, possibly where his uncle James later had his business  living with his mother, George, Ethel and his aunt Susan Hackforth aged 44

By 1901 the family had moved in to Donington Villa  - Harry, George,  Ethel and Mary, who was living on  her own means

In 1911 Harry was a boarder in Otter St Derby, probably learning his trade

On Sept 16th 1915 he married Esther Newman at Stockton on Tees.

In December 1915 he joined up described as a tea and coffee specialist and confectioner on his attestation form living at  Donington Villa

He served with the Royal Engineers as a sapper and motor cycle despatch rider

After the war

Harry and Esther lived at 127 Boothferry road, next door to his mother and sister.

He took over the shop which became known as Hackforths probably in 1921 when the owner  Mr R G Leggott died. Before that  it was Wilkinson and Heald's. By January 1922  we get a mention of Hackforths cafe.

Also in 1922 his daughter Margaret was born.

 In 1927  Harry's grandmother Lucy died at Donington aged 103. Because of her age her death was mentioned in many newspapers

SIMPLE FARE FOR LONG LIFE. Woman's Death at of 103. The death occurred at Donington, on Tuesday, of Mrs. Lucy Hackforth, at the ago of 103. Mrs. Hackforth, who had lived at Donington since girlhood, retained all her faculties to the last, and took a keen interest in her surroundings. She looked the picture of health, and possessed a beautiful complexion, which was the envy of the young ladies in the district. Her diet was a very simple one—brown bread and butter (one loaf per week), milk, roast apples, and occasionally a little Lincolnshire bacon. Sho attributed her longevity to a simple life, simple fare, and absolute cleanliness. 

But in  September 1929 Harry Hackforth committed suicide by putting his head in a gas oven. He had apparently previously had a nervous breakdown and was worried about his business. In fact it was sound.

His widow Esther who had moved to her  native Stockton on Tees died in 1939 at Bootham Park hospital in York, a psychiatric hospital

In 1945 Mrs Mary Hackforth died aged 90. Her daughter Ethel who lived with her and never married died in the 1960s.

Shop and cafe

Hackforths shop and cafe was a big part of Goole's history until its closure in 1969. It was where customers could sit on a chair and be served their high class groceries and cakes; it was where countless wedding receptions were held and where ladies went for morning coffee and always wore gloves! 

We have not found out who actually ran the business after 1929 but do know it went bankrupt in 1964, was presumably re- financed  and closed in 1969 when the remaining six staff were transferred to the Fine Fare supermarket which by then owned Hackforths. Here are some pictures which might jog a few memories. 

 Shop front

 The cafe upstairs

 The shop

               Back  Dorothy Vause nee Dickins, Jean Gowler, nee Andrews, George Brant
 Front Mary Burton nee Bean, Mrs Kitwood,  Iris Pearson nee Revell, Lena, Violet Bollingham

I find it interesting that although the family were in Goole for only two generations and that, as far as I can tell the last of the family to run the shop only did so for eight or nine years the name Hackforths has lived on until the present day.

2026

 Yet again it is a damp morning. Apparently January 2026 was one of the wettest for several years but at least we here in East Yorkshire missed the worst of the January storms. Our snowdrops are putting on a fine show and the daffodils are not far behind. The chickens too are coming into lay although they too dislike this wet weather.

This blog post will be a bit of a  local history pot pourri as it is some time since I wrote one - so here goes. 

I collect the work of Frances Hutchinson, the artist daughter of Rev Hutchinson, vicar of Howden. Her views of Howden - and other towns - appear on postcards and I have a couple of her original watercolours. Recently I found one I had never seen before which is in America. It was mis-indexed as being by G Hutchinson but clearly on the reverse is written The Vicarage Howden. Also on the back is the information that it is a view of a house at Kilpin Pike. I was not sure where it was - but after writing this post I was contacted by some local people who identified it as Mr Pillings house, now demolished which stood on the corner where the Howdendyke jetty now is. Here it is.

I have also answered several queries  including one about the Howdle family of Howden. Some older residents will remember the name. Thomas Howdle was at one time landlord of the Neptune inn [now 31 Pinfold Street] and  his wife Sarah  recalled how the road was flooded upto their inn in 1871 and sightseers came to the inn to watch - times don't change!!

One of their daughters, Eliza married Joseph Hodgson and they lived for many years at Barmby. Joseph worked on the railway. Their son, William Thomas Hodgson, born 1883 was hanged in 1917 in Walton Gaol after being found guilty of murdering his wife and three year old daughter by battering them with a hatchet. Witnesses said he was known to be sometimes violent to his wife.

But much of my time recently has been spent looking at the history of Goole.  It is two hundred years since the Aire and Calder Navigation Co opened their canal linking Knottingley to Goole. As a result a new town was created where the canal met the River Ouse and the town is celebrating its 'birthday' with many events this year.

I attended a packed showing of films about Goole organised by the Civic society last Saturday and enjoyed hearing the Warblers singing a song written in 1926 called Advance Goole. The author and composer was Sydney George Metcalfe, then headmaster of Alexandra Street school. He was originally from Norwich and had not been in Goole long

In 1929 he left teaching and was ordained. After a brief time as a curate in Goole he left for Yarmouth and later became vicar of Sprowston in Norfolk where he died in 1943 aged 62.

I thought readers might like to see the song he wrote.

 

But of course there was a place called Goole long before the canal. And also long before Cornelius Vermuyden in the seventeenth century carried out his drainage work in the area, necessitating the digging of the so called Dutch River. His re-routing of the River Don  had caused flooding around Snaith and beyond and he was compelled to pay for this new channel out to the Ouse.

There are mentions of Goole from the fourteenth century and I am currently working on what was there at that time. Who were these early inhabitants? I am working on finding out