Trip on the Sobriety

Last Friday I went on a trip on the Sobriety with 12 members of my Goole WEA class from the Waterways museum at Goole. Sobriety is a Humber keel, built in 1910 and now fitted out for day and residential trips either along the canal system or on the river.

The trip was organised by Eileen Sherburn who, with her husband Goff, is  a member of   the class. Goff has spent his working life on such vessels and, as their son Chris, along with Waterways manager Rachel Walker, were our crew, we were in safe hands.

Although it was cold and sometimes wet it was fascinating to see Goole and the local villages  of Swinefleet, Saltmarshe, Blacktoft and Whitgift from the river. We journeyed past Hull up to Paull as we were travelling with the tide which was flowing quickly. The trip took us all day and we returned to Goole around half past six in the evening, passing through Ocean Lock on our way back to the museum.

Below are some pictures of our trip taken by Gilbert Tawn, our resident photographer!

Sobriety at the Waterways museum

Leaving Goole

Passing Saltmarshe

Whitgift church

Yokefleet windmill

Gilbert

Passing under the Humber Bridge

Hull

Almost home

St John's church, Goole

Herons mill

I was pleased to receive this week a letter from Josephine who has, with the help of some people who used to work there, identified nearly all the people on the Herons mill picture I put on my blog a couple of weeks ago. With her permission I have now added the names to the picture. I shall, in the near future put on more pictures in the hope that the people on them can be similarly identified.

It is now December and although nothing like as cold as it was last year it is still cold enough to need the heating on. I have a Rayburn and whilst cleaning it out last week found that one of the fire bars had broken. When I looked more carefully another was very worn and the bar they all rest on was bent. I did try to buy new ones locally but no one had them in stock. The internet can be useful as I ordered them from Wrexham and they arrived in two days. The only downside is that each firebar cost £25!!

Molly, the puppy, is now nearly 5 months old. She is slightly calmer but still chews anything within reach. She enjoys rugs and carpet corners at the moment. On the plus side she is learning basic commands like sit, stay and down. She comes back  fairly well  when I whistle for her but has a tendency to look back and wonder whether she can get away with not coming just yet!

I should go now and take her for a walk.

Barmby on the Marsh history - 2

Soon after writing about the mills at Barmby I had a message from Stuart whose ancestors were in fact the millers there at one time. His 3x great grandfather was John Cook who was a miller at Barmby. John's daughter Sarah married John Fox in 1856 whose father, Joseph Fox, was a miller at Airmyn.

Joseph Fox had moved from Airmyn to Brumby (Lincolnshire) where he was unfortunately killed on the 7th January 1839 during the great storm when he went out to inspect the mill and a large wooden spar fell on him.

Stuart is happy to share this information and I too would be happy to put any other interesting bits of family history on this blog for others to read.

I am continuing my researches into the village and have just obtained a copy of an 18th century Barmby inventory for a weaver who left a loom in his (work) shop.

Barmby on the Marsh history

I am finding the history of Barmby on the Marsh fascinating at the moment. Whilst I have quite a lot of information on the village already, I am looking at it again and finding new material. 

Situated as it is at the end of the road from Howden, not too many people nowadays know the village - but in earlier times most of those who lived there benefited from being both on the banks of the Ouse and at the start of the Derwent navigation. 

There was a large weaving industry making sailcloth for the visiting vessels and many families were watermen, making their living from the river. There were ferries to both Drax and Hemingbrough and regular 'market boats' to both Hull and Selby.

The land around the village was not enclosed until 1853 and before this villagers had rights to graze on the Marsh - 'marsh gates' - and annual  horse races were held.

I have been looking at the mill or mills - I think there were two: a post mill outside the village and a smock mill in the village centre. I would like to know more of them.

So far I know that in January 1839  both Barmby mills were  blown down in a storm and that in 1851 Alexander Bell from Gilberdyke, John Cooke and Thomas Collins were millers. By 1861 Joseph Wood was a miller.

Barmby also had an inn called the Windmill kept by Thomas Johnson in the 1850s and in 1864 by William Jackson, who was fined that year for staying open too long.

In 1870 Joseph Fenton was refused a spirit licence for the the Windmill beerhouse as it was said that there were already four public houses for the 330 inhabitants in the village.

An advertisement for the sale of the Barmby on the Marsh windmill from 1834

Joseph Rank family history

I had an interesting visit this week from a descendant of Joseph Rank, the miller. The gentleman and his wife were tracing Joseph's Yorkshire roots and visiting places where there was a family connection.

Joseph was born on Holderness Road in Hull in 1854. His father was James Rank who had married Mary Ann Parrott in Hull in 1851.

However, the reason that my visitors were in this particular area of East Yorkshire was that Mary Ann was born at Saltmarshe in 1825, the daughter of Joseph and Mary Ann Parrott. She was christened at Laxton and came from a long-established Saltmarshe family who were sailors and boatbuilders.

By 1841 the family had moved into Hull, where Joseph continued to build boats and sail them and where young Mary Ann eventually met James Rank. Sadly, Mary Ann Rank died in 1858, having never recovered from the birth of her fourth child. Joseph, although only four when his mother died, apparently had very clear memories of her.

Another local connection is that Joseph Rank later attended a small private school at Swinefleet run by Rev Edward Cragg Haynes, believed to be Yorkshire's first black vicar. I was able to show my visitors a  photograph of Rev Cragg Haynes with some of his pupils and they tentatively identified one little boy as Joseph.

I find family history and the connections it throws up, such as this, endlessly fascinating.