The Story of the East Riding of Yorkshire

Every ten years a census is taken of the people inhabiting the British Isles. The latest counting of the people took place in 1911, when it was found that there were living in the East Riding of Yorkshire 432,804 persons. This large number of people is made up of men, women, and children who live in groups or communities very greatly varying in size. The number of persons living in the great city of Hull was 278,024; the number living in the little village of Wilsthorpe was only one.

But whether the inhabitants of the East Riding are living together in large communities or in small ones, they live at peace with one another; and any disorderly person who disturbs the peace of the community is quickly brought to book. Now, seeing that man is by nature somewhat inclined to be a quarrelsome animal, how is this very desirable state of affairs brought about?

The answer to this is that all the men, women, and children of the East Riding are living under certain wise laws by which their lives are governed. Probably they do not often recognise the fact that their lives are being governed or ruled. If they did, they would almost certainly begin to kick against the rules and say that it is an Englishman’s privilege to do just as he likes.

But that is just the secret of the quiet, peaceful lives led by the great majority of English people. They submit to be governed without their knowing it; and they do not realise that they are being governed because, very largely, they govern themselves.

The laws by which the lives of the inhabitants of the East Riding are ruled are made at Westminster by the British Parliament. This consists of two ‘Houses’—the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

Among the 670 men who make up what is called the House of Commons there are six who are chosen by the people of the East Riding to represent them in Parliament. The city of Hull supplies three of these; and the remaining portion of the East Riding supplies the other three. For voting purposes, when the elections of these Members of Parliament are held, Hull is split up into three Divisions—East Hull, West Hull, and Central Hull; and the rest of the East Riding is similarly split up into the Buckrose Division, the Holderness Division, and the Howdenshire Division.^[71]

In what is known as the House of Lords the East Riding is represented—though not through the process of election—by the Earl of Londesborough, Baron Middleton of Settrington House, Baron Leconfield, Baron Deramore of Heslington Hall, and Baron Nunburnholme of Ferriby Hall.

But the British Parliament only says what the laws of the whole country shall be. To see that these laws are rightly administered, there are in London what are called ‘Government Departments,’ such as the Board of Trade and the Board of Agriculture. A great deal of the work of these Departments, however, cannot be conveniently carried on from London, and the country is therefore split up into Shires, or Counties, to each of which is given the work of seeing that certain of the laws made by Parliament are properly kept.

The East Riding of Yorkshire is one of these counties, and in addition to seeing that the laws of the country are properly kept, it has the duty of making less important laws which concern only its own inhabitants. The latter are known as by-laws, or, as the word is often written, bye-laws.

Again, just as Britain is split up into different counties, each of which makes for itself the by-laws which it considers best, so the East Riding is split up into different portions, each of which makes its own by-laws.

This sort of arrangement is by no means a modern invention. A thousand years ago each ‘town,’ or group of farm dwellings, in the East Riding had its meeting to arrange the rules by which it should be governed. So also each ‘wapentake,’ or wider district, had its meeting, which was attended by representatives from the different ‘towns’ composing it. Lastly the whole ‘shire,’ the East Riding itself, had its meeting, attended by representatives from the different wapentakes.

Now we will see how this very ancient system is followed out to-day; but first we must put on one side the city of Hull, and the towns of Beverley, Bridlington, and Hedon.

Taking the rest of the East Riding, what was the tūn mōt of the Angles is our Parish Council. There are in the East Riding 131 Parish Councils, each of which is attended by chosen representatives of the village or township, and each of which looks after its own good management of affairs.

Similarly the waepentac or hundred mōt of the Angles is our Urban or Rural District Council. In the East Riding there are eight groups of townships to which the name ‘Urban District’ is given; these have for their respective centres Cottingham, Driffield, Filey, Hessle, Hornsea, Pocklington, Norton, and Withernsea. There are also twelve groups of townships which we know as ‘Rural Districts.’

As you will see from the map on this page, the difference between an Urban and a Rural District is that in the latter the people are spread over a much wider area than in the former. The Urban Districts are, in other words, the more thickly populated parts of the country.

Similarly, too, the scīr mōt of the Angles is the County Council of our day. This exercises authority over both the smaller Councils.

The East Riding County Council is made up of representatives from different districts throughout the County, and consists of:—

/* Members elected for Beverley 4 Members elected for Bridlington 3 Members elected for the rest of the East Riding 45 — Total of Elected Members 52 County Aldermen 17 — Total of Members 69 */

For purposes of local government the city of Hull is entirely, and the towns of Beverley, Bridlington, and Hedon are partly, outside the East Riding. Hull ranks as a County Borough, its full title being the ‘City and County of Kingston-upon-Hull,’ and it is governed by a Corporation, consisting of a Mayor, sixteen Aldermen, forty-eight Councillors, a Recorder, and a Sheriff.

Beverley, Bridlington, and Hedon rank as Municipal Boroughs. That is equal to saying that at some time or other each has received from the reigning Sovereign a charter granting it the right to rule its own affairs. Each Municipal Borough has a Mayor for its chief townsman.

In addition to their Mayors, Beverley and Bridlington have each six Aldermen and eighteen Councillors, while Hedon is governed by its Mayor, three Aldermen, and nine Councillors. For the election of Councillors Bridlington is divided into three wards—Bridlington Ward, Quay Ward, and Hilderthorpe Ward—and Beverley into two. The latter are named respectively Minster Ward and St. Mary’s Ward.

The work to be got through by a County Council or a Town Council is so large in amount that the members would not be able to carry out their duties satisfactorily if they did not arrange themselves in groups or Committees, each of which can undertake one kind of work. Often these Committees are again arranged in Sub-Committees.

Thus the sixty-nine members of the East Riding County Council arrange themselves in the following nine groups, each of which has its Chairman and Deputy Chairman:—

Each Committee conducts the affairs entrusted to it, and makes reports to the whole Council at stated intervals.

The Finance Committee examines and recommends for payment all bills and accounts; it also has the management and control of all County Council buildings.

The Cattle Plague Committee deals with the outbreak of contagious diseases on farms—such as swine fever, foot and mouth disease, sheep scab, and the most dreaded anthrax. It has to see that the various Acts of Parliament concerning these are fully carried out. Hence it may have to order the immediate slaughter of all the cattle or sheep on a farm, or perhaps to order that no animals are moved from one farm to any other. Should there be during a hot summer a plague of destructive insects, it issues instructions to farmers how to fight the plague, and moreover it can compel farmers to carry out these instructions.

The work of the General Purposes Committee is very varied. It is concerned with the protection of wild birds during the nesting-season, the testing of the weights and measures used in some seven thousand shops, the inspection of places where ‘Living Pictures’ are shown, the granting of licenses for these, and the choice of places at which men and women shall record their votes at the time of an election.

Under the notice of the Public Health Committee come all proposals for the planning of new town-districts and all those dealing with sanitation; under the Small Holdings Committee come all requests for allotments. The applicant for an old-age pension must prove to the Old-Age Pensions Committee that he or she is seventy years old, and has not a greater income than £31 10s. a year. The control and repair of roads and bridges, and the management of the County Asylum at Walkington, are in the hands of the Highways and Bridges Committee and the Asylums Committee.

But of greatest influence over the lives of schoolboys and schoolgirls is the work of the Education Committee. The work is felt to be so important that the Committee is divided into Sub-Committees. These are called respectively:—

Each of these Sub-Committees has its particular work, the nature of which can be recognised from its name. The Sub-Committee which exercises, perhaps, the greatest amount of influence is that whose name stands first in the list. It is the Higher Education Sub-Committee, which provides funds for the carrying on of the Bridlington, Pocklington, and Beverley Grammar Schools; which founded the Bridlington and Beverley High Schools for Girls; which provides the villages of the East Riding with lectures on Dairy Farming, Poultry Keeping, Gardening, and Beekeeping; which organises classes for Cookery, Laundry-Work, Dressmaking, Carpentry, Wood-Carving, and Domestic Economy; which grants Scholarships to deserving boys and girls who wish to continue their education at a Secondary or a Technical School.

A very special kind of work carried on by the East Riding County Council is that known as the Registration of Deeds. As a result of this work the Council possesses a record of all sales of land in the East Riding since the year 1706. There are only two counties in Britain that keep such records, Yorkshire being one and Middlesex the other.

For carrying on its numerous branches of work the County Council needs large supplies of money. In the year 1901–2 its total receipts were £61,760; in the year 1910–11 they had grown to £190,927. These figures show how the work of the Council increased during the nine intervening years.

About one-fifth of this large sum of money is provided by the Government, the rest of it by the inhabitants of the Riding. The latter is made up of rates, rents, licenses for traction engines and motor cars, fees for pedlars’ and chimney sweeps’ certificates, fines imposed by magistrates, and so on.

Of course very accurate accounts have to be kept of all items of Income and Expenditure. In the accounts for 1910–11 there are such items as the following:—

All moneys received and all moneys paid away must be accounted for, and the accounts for 1910–11 show that for the whole year the Receipts amounted to £190,927, while the Payments amounted to £191,161. You may, perhaps, think that you see in these figures something like a mathematical impossibility; but that is only because you have not reached the higher stages of commercial arithmetic.

The meetings of the County Council and those of its different Committees and Sub-Committees are held at the County Hall, Beverley.^[73] That is the reason Beverley, though only a small town, is called the ‘Capital of the East Riding.’

The full meetings of the Council take place in the Council Chamber four times each year—in the months of January, May, July, and October. Each meeting is presided over by the Chairman, or in his absence, by the Deputy-Chairman; and the conduct of the meeting is in accordance with a set of rules known as the Standing Orders of the East Riding County Council. To each resolution brought forward and put to the vote the members give their assent, or refuse it, by the words Aye and No.

Both the County Council and the Town Councils have a body of officers to see that their wishes are properly carried out. They comprise a Clerk, Treasurer, Accountant, Surveyor, Medical Officer of Health, Inspector of Weights and Measures, Analyst, and so on, down perhaps, to the Gardener. In the case of the County Council the adjective County is prefixed to the name of the office; in the case of a city or town, the word Borough. The chief officer in each is known as the Clerk of the Council and the Town Clerk.

The Urban and Rural District Councils, and also the Parish Councils, have each a smaller body of officers whose duties resemble those of the officers mentioned above.