Founding
city in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, UK
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
Kingston upon Hull, or simply Hull, is a port city and unitary authority area in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies upon the River Hull at its confluence with the Humber Estuary, 25 miles (40 km) inland from the North Sea. It is a tightly bounded city which excludes the majority of its suburbs; with a population of 273,257 (2025), it is the fourth-largest city in the Yorkshire and the Humber region. The built-up area has a population of 436,300.
Hull has more than 800 years of seafaring history and is known as Yorkshire's maritime city. The town of Wyke on Hull was founded late in the 12th century by the monks of Meaux Abbey as a port from which to export their wool. Renamed Kings-town upon Hull in 1299, Hull had been a market town, military supply port, trading centre, fishing and whaling centre and industrial metropolis. Hull was an early theatre of battle in the English Civil Wars. Its 18th-century Member of Parliament, William Wilberforce, took a prominent part in the abolition of the slave trade in Britain.
The city offers a variety of museums and art galleries, a city centre marina and historic old town, notable architecture, and a thriving arts scene. Due to Hull's growing appeal as an outdoor film location, particularly for period dramas using the Old Town's historic streets and buildings, plans for a purpose-built film studio complex have been approved by Hull City Council. The £3m complex could open by the end of 2025. The city has earned the nickname "Hullywood" in recent years, after productions including The Crown, Enola Holmes 2, The Personal History of David Copperfield, Victoria and Blitz have been filmed in the city.
In 2017, it was the UK City of Culture and hosted the Turner Prize at the city's Ferens Art Gallery. Other notable landmarks in the city are the Minster, the tidal surge barrier, the Paragon Interchange and The Deep, Hull's award-winning aquarium. Areas of the town centre include the old town (including its museum quarter) and the marina. The University of Hull was founded in 1927 and had over 16,000 students in 2022. Rugby league football teams include clubs Hull F.C. and Hull Kingston Rovers. The city's association football club is Hull City (Premier League). Hull RUFC and Hull Ionians both play in the National League 2 North of rugby union.
The city came 2nd in the Time Out list of the 15 best places to visit in the UK in 2024, with the guide commenting that the city has got "The Deep, an enormous aquarium with 3,000 species, a picturesque old town which survived the city's relentless WWII bombings, and lots of up and coming indie art galleries like Ground and Artlink. Don't sleep on Hull". In 2016, it was named as one of the top 10 cities in the world to visit by Rough Guides alongside cities such as Seoul, Vancouver, Amsterdam and Reykjavik. In 2017, the city was featured in The Sunday Times Best Places to Live Guide and in 2024 was named as one of the UK's most "up and coming" places to move to. However, Kingston upon Hull has been ranked as one of the most deprived cities in the UK and the fourth most deprived local authority in the country. The city also has a lower than average life expectancy than the majority of the UK.
Kingston upon Hull stands on the north bank of the Humber Estuary at the mouth of its tributary, the River Hull. The valley of the River Hull has been inhabited since the early Neolithic period, but there is little evidence of a substantial settlement in the area of the present city. The area was attractive to people because it gave access to a prosperous hinterland and navigable rivers but the site was poor, being remote, low-lying and with no fresh water. It was originally an outlying part of the hamlet of Myton, named Wyke. The name is thought to originate either from a Scandinavian word Vik meaning inlet or from the Saxon Wic meaning dwelling place or refuge.
The River Hull was a good haven for shipping, whose trade included the export of wool from Meaux Abbey, which owned Myton. In 1293, the town of Wyke was acquired from the abbey by King Edward I, who, on 1 April 1299, granted it a royal charter that renamed the settlement King's town upon Hull or Kingston upon Hull. The charter is preserved in the archives of the Guildhall. When first created, the borough straddled the ancient parishes of Hessle and North Ferriby, but was remote from either parish church. A chapel of ease dedicated to Holy Trinity was built to serve the part of the borough in Hessle parish; that church subsequently became Hull Minster. St Mary's Church similarly began as a chapel of ease for the part of the borough in North Ferriby parish.
In 1440, a further charter incorporated the town and instituted local government consisting of a mayor, a sheriff and twelve aldermen.
In his Guide to Hull (1817), J. C. Craggs provides a colourful background to Edward's acquisition and naming of the town. He writes that the King and a hunting party started a hare which "led them along the delightful banks of the River Hull to the hamlet of Wyke ... [Edward], charmed with the scene before him, viewed with delight the advantageous situation of this hitherto neglected and obscure corner. He foresaw it might become subservient both to render the kingdom more secure against foreign invasion, and at the same time greatly to enforce its commerce". Pursuant to these thoughts, Craggs continues, Edward purchased the land from the Abbot of Meaux, had a manor hall built for himself, issued proclamations encouraging development within the town, and bestowed upon it the royal appellation, King's Town.
The port served as a base for Edward I during the First War of Scottish Independence and later developed into the foremost port on the east coast of England. It prospered by exporting wool and woollen cloth, and importing wine and timber. Hull also established a flourishing commerce with the Baltic ports of the Hanseatic League.
From its medieval beginnings, Hull's main trading links were with Scotland and northern Europe. Scandinavia, the Baltic and the Low Countries were all key trading areas for Hull's merchants. In addition, there was trade with France, Spain and Portugal.
Sir William de la Pole was the town's first mayor. A prosperous merchant, de la Pole founded a family that became prominent in government. Another successful son of a Hull trading family was bishop John Alcock, who founded Jesus College, Cambridge and was a patron of the grammar school in Hull. The increase in trade after the discovery of the Americas and the town's maritime connections are thought to have played a part in the introduction of a virulent strain of syphilis through Hull and on into Europe from the New World.
The town prospered during the 16th and early 17th-centuries, and Hull's affluence at this time is preserved in the form of several well-maintained buildings from the period, including Wilberforce House, now a museum documenting the life of William Wilberforce.
During the English Civil War, Hull became strategically important because of the large arsenal located there. Very early in the war, on 11 January 1642, the king named the Earl of Newcastle governor of Hull while Parliament nominated Sir John Hotham and asked his son, Captain John Hotham, to secure the town at once. Sir John Hotham and Hull corporation declared support for Parliament and denied Charles I entry into the town. Charles I responded to these events by besieging the town. This siege helped precipitate open conflict between the forces of Parliament and those of the Royalists.
After the Civil War, docks were built along the route of the town walls, which were demolished. The first dock (1778, renamed Queen's Dock in 1854) was built in the area occupied by Beverley and North gates, and the intermediate walls, which were demolished, a second dock (Humber Dock, 1809) was built on the land between Hessle and Myton gates, and a third dock between the two was opened 1829 as Junction Dock (later Prince's Dock).
Whaling played a major role in the town's fortunes until the mid-19th century. As sail power gave way to steam, Hull's trading links extended throughout the world. Docks were opened to serve the frozen meat trade of Australia, New Zealand and South America. Hull was also the centre of a thriving inland and coastal trading network, serving the whole of the United Kingdom.
Throughout the second half of the 19th-century and leading up to the First World War, the Port of Hull played a major role in the emigration of Northern European settlers to the New World, with thousands of emigrants sailing to Hull and stopping for administrative purposes before travelling on to Liverpool and then North America.
Parallel to this growth in passenger shipping was the emergence of the Wilson Line of Hull (which had been founded in 1825 by Thomas Wilson).
By the early 20th-century, the company had grown – largely through its monopolisation of North Sea passenger routes and later mergers and acquisitions – to be the largest privately owned shipping company in the world, with over 100 ships sailing to different parts of the globe. The Wilson Line was sold to the Ellerman Lines – which itself was owned by Hull-born magnate (and the richest man in Britain at the time) Sir John Ellerman.
Hull's prosperity peaked in the decades just before the First World War; it was during this time, in 1897, that city status was granted. Many of the suburban areas on the western side of Hull were built in the 1930s, particularly Willerby Road and Anlaby Park, as well as most of Willerby itself.
The city's port and industrial facilities, its proximity to mainland Europe and ease of location being on a big estuary, led to much damage from bombing during the Second World War; much of the city centre was destroyed. Hull had 95 per cent of its houses damaged or destroyed, making it the second most severely bombed British city or town by number of damaged or destroyed buildings, after London, during the Second World War. More than 1,200 people died in air raids on the city and some 3,000 others were injured.
The worst of the bombing occurred in 1941. Little was known about this destruction by the rest of the country at the time, since most of the radio and newspaper reports did not reveal Hull by name but referred to it as "a North-East town" or "a northern coastal town". Most of the city centre was rebuilt after the war. In 2006, researchers found documents in the local archives that suggested an unexploded wartime bomb might be buried beneath the Boom, a redevelopment in Hull.
After the decline of the whaling industry after the Second World War, emphasis shifted to deep-sea trawling until the Anglo-Icelandic Cod War of 1975–1976. The conditions set at the end of this dispute started Hull's economic decline.
In 2017 Hull was awarded the title of 'City of Culture' by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. There were festivals in public spaces to promote the city and its new title. At the start of the year there was a huge firework display attracting a crowd of 25,000.
Following the Local Government Act 1888, Hull became a county borough, a local government district independent of the East Riding of Yorkshire. This district was dissolved under the Local Government Act 1972, on 1 April 1974 when it became a non-metropolitan district of the newly created shire county of Humberside. Humberside (and its county council) was abolished on 1 April 1996 and Hull was made a unitary authority area.
The single-tier local authority of the city is now Hull City Council (officially Kingston upon Hull City Council), headquartered in the Guildhall in the city centre. The council was designated as the UK's worst performing authority in both 2004 and 2005, but in 2006 was rated as a two star 'improving adequate' council and in 2007 it retained its two stars with an 'improving well' status. In the 2008 corporate performance assessment the city retained its "improving well" status but was upgraded to a three star rating.
The Liberal Democrats won overall control of the City Council in the 2007 local elections, ending several years in which no single party had a majority. They retained control in the 2008 local elections by an increased majority and in the 2010 local elections. Following the UK's local elections of 2011, the Labour Party gained control of the council, increasing their majority in the 2012 and retained this following the 2014 local elections. They increased their majority by one in the 2015 local elections, but lost it in the 2016 local elections. In the 2018 local elections all of the council was up for election following boundary changes that reduced the number of seats by 2. Labour retained control of the council but with a much reduced majority, while in the 2019 local elections there was no change to the make-up of the council. In the 2021 local elections the Liberal Democrats gained a couple of seats but Labour retained control by just three seats. On 3 March 2022, Labour councillor Julia Conner defected to the Liberal Democrats, reducing the Labour majority to one. The Liberal Democrats won overall control of the City Council in the 2022 local elections to end ten years of Labour rule, increasing their majority in the 2023 local elections. They remained in control until the 2026 local elections when the council entered a period of no overall control.
The city returned three members of parliament to the House of Commons and at the last general election, in 2024, elected three Labour MPs: Emma Hardy, Diana Johnson and Karl Turner.
William Wilberforce is the most celebrated of Hull's former MPs. He was a native of the city and the member for Hull from 1780 to 1784 when he was elected as an Independent member for Yorkshire.
Kingston upon Hull is on the northern bank of the Humber Estuary. The city centre is west of the River Hull and close to the Humber. The city is built upon alluvial and glacial deposits which overlie chalk rocks but the underlying chalk has no influence on the topography. The land within the city is generally very flat and is only 2 to 4 metres (6.5 to 13 ft) above sea level. Because of the relative flatness of the site there are few physical constraints upon building and many open areas are the subject of pressures to build.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Kingston upon Hull”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.