Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

Yesterday morning, about half-past eight, the Diana arrived at the Hull roads. She was sighted about seven o’clock off Paull. The intimation of her approach had attracted thousands of persons to the South End on the previous evening, and yesterday morning the throng was much greater. She at once entered the Humber Dock, and as she passed through, the quays and shipping on all sides became crowded. Of course the Diana was boarded by very many, and the yards were manned and other portions of the vessel crowded. The half-mast flag indicated the presence of a corpse on hoard, and it was seen that the shell containing the late Captain Gravill was placed upon the bridge, being covered with canvas. The forlorn state of the ship was at once observable, and the deepest interest was manifested to communicate with those on board. So much excitement has never been manifested in regard to a Hull vessel, nor a wider-spread interest created, though at the best it is of a painful character. There is no parallel in the records of suffering and misfortune at the Greenland fishery, at least so far as Hull is concerned. The multitudes of expectant people who lined the piers and the quays of the decks this morning, assembling as they did as soon as the approach of the Diana became known, must have reminded many elderly people of the golden age of the whale fishery – when Hull sent a magnificent fleet of vessels to prosecute the arduous trade.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations:

• ER: East Riding
• GM: Greater Manchester
• NR: North Riding
• NY: North Yorkshire
• SY: South Yorkshire
• WR: West Riding
• WY: West Yorkshire

Comment

Comment

The Diana’s surgeon had long since given up his diary, but the published edition deals with her return to Hull (Smith 1922).

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Original

Yesterday morning, about half-past eight, the Diana arrived at the Hull roads. She was sighted about seven o’clock off Paull. The intimation of her approach had attracted thousands of persons to the South-end on the previous evening, and yesterday morning the throng was much greater. She at once entered the Humber Dock, and as she passed through, the quays and shipping on all sides became crowded. Of course the Diana was boarded by very many, and the yards were manned and other portions of the vessel crowded. The half-mast flag indicated the presence of a corpse on hoard, and it was seen that the shell containing the late Capt. Gravill was placed upon the bridge, being covered with canvas. The forlorn state of the ship was at once observable, and the deepest interest was manifested to communicate with those on board. So much excitement has never been manifested in regard to a Hull vessel, nor a wider-spread interest created, though at the best it is of a painful character. There is no parallel in the records of suffering and misfortune at the Greenland fishery, at least so far as Hull is concerned. The multitudes of expectant people who lined the piers and the quays of the decks this morning, assembling as they did as soon as the approach of the Diana became known, must have reminded many olderly people of the golden age of the whale fishery – when Hull sent a magnificent fleet of vessels to prosecute the arduous trade.

The shell containing the body of the late captain was carefully removed from the ship to the hearse by his old harpooners, and conveyed to his residence in Hessle Road. The funeral is arranged to take place on Monday, the 29th inst., leaving the house at 2 o’clock p.m., and arriving at the Springbank Cemetery at 2.30. The late Captain Gravill died on board the Diana on. Tuesday, December 26th, of inflammation of the liver and kidneys, and general dropsy, in the sixty-fifth year of his age, the ship at the time being beset in Davis’s Straits among very heavy ice, off the entrance of Frobisher’s Straits.

364 words.

Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• Arctic Ocean (9) ·
• Davis Strait (2) ·
• Diana (1840 ship) (8) ·
• East Riding of Yorkshire (66) ·
• Edema (2) ·
• Frobisher Bay (1) ·
• Holderness (14) ·
• Hull General Cemetery (1) ·
• Humber (20) ·
• 📌Kingston upon Hull (65) ·
• Paull (1) ·
• 📌Port of Hull (17) ·
• Whaling in the United Kingdom (11) ·
• Whaling (9) ·

All tags.

Similar

• 19 February 1866: The Diana, Hull’s first steam-assisted whaler and its last of any nature, leaves on its fateful voyage to the Arctic
• 24 June 1866: Captain Gravill of the Diana of Hull celebrates his crew’s failure to catch a whale on the Sabbath
• 25 December 1866: Starving amidst Arctic ice, and with Captain Gravill on his deathbed, the crew of the Diana of Hull celebrate a “horrible mockery of the spirit of an English Christmas”
• 30 June 1866: The crew of the Diana of Hull kill and process two right whales worth £200K (2023) in Melville Bay, off northwestern Greenland
• 10 January 1867: Short of fresh provisions amid Arctic ice, the surgeon of the Diana of Hull decides to blame (Yorkshire) tea for symptoms of scurvy among the crew
• 30 March 1866: On Good Friday, lost northwest of Jan Mayen in the Arctic Ocean and battered by old sea ice in a terrible gale, the crew of the whaler Diana of Hull stoically awaits death
• 5 June 1866: Crew members of the whaler Diana (Hull) climb an Arctic hillside and leave a memento of home
• 3 July 1837: The Swan, a Hull whaler, returns from the dead (the ice of the Davis Strait) bearing three whales
• 19 October 1775: Mayor Joseph Outram lays the first stone of Hull’s first dock and customs quay, dooming the town’s walls and commencing its great expansion
• 23 January 1640: Andrew Marvell’s father drowns in the Humber at Hull