On 31st October 1640, the gentry of Cottingham, Swanland and other villages petitioned Sir John Conyers to remove his regiment to other quarters, as they were eating up all their cattle fodder and supplies, and many other ‘insupportable damages and dangers’. Many troops had already been removed from Hull into the surrounding villages for similar reasons. The petition was not successful, although the troops did look for other quarters.
On 31st October 1646, Sir Robert Hildyard of Patrington was fined £610 as a Royalist (delinquent) in order to recover his goods which had been sequestered by Parliament. He was a member of the King’s Privy Council.
On the same day, Michael Wharton of Beverley was fined £1,600 for the same reason. He had been a captain in the Royalist army.
On 31st October 1793, John Woodhead, mason, was killed at work on the building site of the Neptune Inn, Whitefriargate. Hull Trinity House gave his widow a gratuity of £5 5s.
On 31st October 1833, the Humber pilots’ work for that day included taking men from Trinity House to relay the Bull buoy.
On 31st October 1929, George Jackson Bentham died suddenly, while boarding a train home, in the company of a young lady not his wife. Hull city councillor, JP, and MP for Gainsborough, he was the son of the founder of Wm Jackson & Son, and the company’s managing director. He changed his name by deed poll to that of his Liberal hero, Jeremy Bentham.
Hull & East Yorkshire History Calendar 