Blast from the past

As the city celebrates the achievement of William Wilberforce, Hull in print delves into more of the city's history - with a visit to the local studies library.

Child support: a letter from a squire's son, in which he promises to pay maintenance for his illegitimate child	The Queen's pub was located where the entrance to Princes Quay shopping centre now stands, opposite the Beverley Gate, at Monument Bridge. It was on St. John's Street, which was named after the nearby St. John's Church, which was on the site where Ferens Art Gallery now stands.
Memory Lane: Houses and shops on Staniforth Place, which has since been demolished. It was located in the Great Thornton Street area of Hessle Road, near to where Smith and Nephew now stands.	Amy Johnson, standing by her plane "Jason", in which she became the first woman to fly solo to Australia Hands on history: a bloodstained duelling glove

From The Beatles concerts at the ABC cinema in the 1960s (and George Harrison being nicked for careless driving on the way home), right back to the first-ever book published in Hull in 1630.
The local studies library, on the second floor of the Central Library in Albion Street, has information about much of Hull's past.
Among artefacts stored at the library, there's a 19th-century bloodstained duelling glove, and a lock of pixie hair (found by a woman who claimed to have the creatures in her garden).
There's also a letter written by a rich squire's son, promising to pay maintenance to a servant girl for the illegitimate child she bore him (as long as she never "attempt to affiliate the said child").
And there are 286 letters written by one of the city's most famous daughters - Amy Johnson, the first woman to fly solo from Britain to Australia - to her lover Hans Arreger, a Swiss businessman living in Hull.

Settling scores

Being in the local studies library is like looking through a telescope the wrong way - and it's also a good place to settle scores.
"How many times has the Wilberforce monument been moved within the city centre? - that's a score we're often asked to sort out," says senior librarian David Smith.
"A common request is from people wanting to know about lost pubs or streets, or from people wanting to know about the history of their houses - when they were built, who used to live there and what was on the land before.
"Two residents of Cecil Street, off Hawthorn Avenue, came in recently to ask about this. Their houses were built in 1898, so they were included on the 1901 census and we were able to see who first lived there.
"But people like to do the research themselves, so we just point them in the right direction by telling them what they can look at.
"Our information includes books, maps, directories, voters' registers and census returns. We also produce study sheets giving people research tips."

Boost for local history

Meanwhile, the local studies library will soon be given a new home inside the £10.7 million state-of-the-art Hull History Centre, a joint project by Hull City Council and Hull University, which is also being supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The centre, on which construction work is due to start in autumn 2007 at a site on the Mason Street car park, behind Hull New Theatre, will be open in 2009.
It will also house the Family History Unit, where people can trace their family tree, and the City Archives Unit, which includes the speeches of William Wilberforce and the papers of Hull poet Andrew Marvell. From the University of Hull Archives, the centre will also house the papers of another famous Hull poet, Philip Larkin.
"It will bring together all of the city's local history archival resources under one roof," says Cllr Kalvin Neal, portfolio holder for quality of life and culture.
"The people of the city will be able to use it as a kind of 'one-stop history shop' to get answers to all their historical and genealogical questions."
The answer to that popular question above, by the way, is that the Wilberforce monument has been moved only once, from Monument Bridge to its current location outside Hull College.