Mr Wilberforce's Mulberries

I made clear my views on Mr Wilberforce political choices the other day, so putting that to one side here's a look at his choice of garden plants. You know how it is you have a small town house with a busy bustling river out the back and little space for a garden but you just have to  put a bit of green out there to lighten the mood, in modern parlance you want to create "an outdoor room" away from the hurly burly of getting filthy rich ... I suspect that Mr Wilberforce did not plant this or anything hereabouts since he lived in London for most of his adult life but let us, like good little tourists,  pretend, shall we? So a couple of small mulberries would be just dandy, hmmm  only now they're not small and, despite nursery rhymes, were never bushes. Whoever planted them Wilberforce House has two fine mulberry trees front and back that really fill the place and are quite spectacular. I wonder what the fruit tastes like, maybe go back later in the summer and find out ... if the birds and silkworms don't get them first.

The little brown sign warns the unwary visitor that the fruits from the tree may make the pavement slippy on a cold and frosty morning.

Mr Wilberforce's Figs

"Mr Wilberforce is far from being a hypocrite, but he is we think, as fine as specimen of moral equivocation as can well be conceived"

                                                            William Hazlitt

Mr Wilberforce is celebrated in these parts by those who get some solace (and income no doubt) in spreading the word that, gosh and golly! the guy who "stopped the slave trade" came from these parts. You see it regularly used almost as a weapon, to defend, as if it needed it, the town of Hull from those who think it not the very heaven upon earth. So we get guff like this: "he devoted his life’s work to leading the abolition of slavery in the UK." a recent example from Twitter ( there was, of course no slavery in the UK, and the young excited student just displays ignorance in exuberance; a common trait these days ) ... that He, the sainted one, was born here though that ... that must MEAN something, mustn't it?

Folk who really should know better make pilgrimage to the palatial (for Hull) house on High Street. A whole industry has sprung up just because wee Willy (he weighed under 100lbs) was born to parents from Kingstown upon the good old river Hull. It is acceptable, indeed folk are intensely relaxed these days, to point out  that WW was filthy rich, so rich he bought  the Parliamentary seat of Kingston upon Hull, that was just the style in those times in England, the Mother of Parliaments. Having bought the one seat it was no trouble to buy the seat for Yorkshire some time later. Pecunia non olet ... He always claimed to be an independent member of Parliament but whenever Mr Pitt whistled his rich puppy Wilberforce came running adoringly to vote for some of the most oppressive legislation and abuse of human rights this country has ever seen and that is saying something. The Anglican Wilberforce, I won't call him a Christian that would insult too many decent people, the Anglican W. considered saving the souls of African slaves far above saving the lives of poor English working folk, they could have habeus corpus suspended, the right to association denied, the right to meet in gatherings of more than fifty denied, they could be chopped down by the yeomanry in Manchester, they could be transported to Tasmania for trade union activity, they could be tried and sentenced to death for seditious libel just for distributing pamphlets that they could not even read,  their children could be denied education and put to work by their equally uneducated parents. Mr W. would whine against the war with France but vote for all the supply measures and the burdensome, impoverishing taxation that was imposed on the English poor so as to kill the French poor; "Oh, In old England very hard times ..." As Hazlitt put it witheringly: "Mr. Wilberforce's humanity will go all lengths that it can with safety and discretion: but it is not to be supposed that it should lose him his seat for Yorkshire, the smile of Majesty, or the countenance of the loyal and pious. He is anxious to do all the good he can without hurting himself or his fair fame."
All this, though, is so much mud in the Humber for the Wilberforce fan club. The cant of the Clapham Sect was born here, on this street, this is his fig tree and these are his clay feet on a marble statue made fifty years after he died, he was here and that must surely MEAN that here is IMPORTANT and by extension Hull MEANS something and our lives in this small town in Yorkshire on the elbow of the Humber are just so much the better because of that ever elusive something ...

The Virtual Saint Wilberforce

In Paragon Station, tucked away behind the Larkin Statue there's a machine which displays a video of this green coated 3D monstrosity claiming to be one living breathing up-to-date William Wilberforce ("I'm Hull through and through!"; "So, with others, I set about creating a movement, the first human rights movement in the world." gives you a flavour). It's supposed to be a tour-de-force of modern graphic wizardry, actually it's quite poor quality and the damn thing doesn't even come close to looking like Wilberforce and has more the look of Mr Potato Head. But that is only the beginning. All day long this ghastly display gives a repetitive narrative of self-encomiums. It's good job he's facing forward as the sunlight shining from his backside would be blinding. It is a truly awful thing to behold. It's also an absolute bugger to photograph as well which is why if you care to peer at this guy's armpit you will see my own balding potato head, basking in reflective glory.

WW on Chants Ave

I'd seen this Wilberforce thing on Chanterlands Avenue before but never had a camera handy so today armed with a new-to-me Fuji I was prepared.

The man with the golden scroll

There was idle talk sometime back of moving this column back to its original place by Monument Bridge but, surprisingly, wise heads prevailed and it's staying where it is. However this being the year of culture the scroll, held for so many years in old William Wilberforce's right hand, has been given a coating of gold leaf. So if your click on the picture to enlarge it and peer, possibly with the help of a magnifying glass, you might just about make out the most useless adornment to a statue in many a long year.

Wilberforce Monument

I have shown this monument to William Wilberforce before but not, I think, from close up and personal. There were rumours of a move back to its original position on Monument Bridge but that is now considered unlikely. Lots of things that were proposed last year are now considered unlikely but that is a story for another day.

The weekend in black and white is here.

Monumental Memorial Madness

Way back in 1935 this thing (well, it is an ugly, phallic monstrosity when all said and done) was rightly considered to be a nuisance and a hazard to traffic and so Hull City Council spent £1,500 moving it from the end of Whitefriargate to the eastern end of Queens Gardens ( see here ). There it stands out of everyone's way, a focal point, if you like, for the view along the gardens. And there you might think it would stay but you would have reckoned without the all pervading madness that has overcome the City of Culture. The recently announced city facelift that I mentioned some days back includes, if  funds from the National Lottery can be found, a plan to put this darn thing back where it was. I am put in mind of the rearrangement of deckchairs on the Titanic ... oh, the cost, I forgot to mention the cost, well multiply the old cost by a thousand and you have it.

Alignment

Around the corner from the Charterhouse is Bourne Street which has nothing much to boast about other than a view of  this alignment of columns and towers. From left to right: the Wilberforce monument, the spire of St Mary, Lowgate, the old Records Office and finally the Guildhall.

Wise Reflections

I know nothing of what this building is for so, as a wise man once said, if you have nothing to say, say nothing.

This is the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation, part of the University of  Hull. You'll find it on High Street right next door to Wilberforce's house. There's almost certainly a website but you're all grown up now and know how to use Google™, so I'll leave to your own devices.

Am I not a Man and a Brother?

I know very little about this statue, who made it or when. Clearly  it's related in some way to the abolitionist medallion made by Wedgewood entitled "Am I not a Man and a Brother". It is to be found in the garden of Wilberforce House.

Wilberforce Museum

At the top of the High Street in Hull's old town stands the Wilberforce Museum in the house where William Wilberforce lived. Three years ago there was a big celebration of the bicentenary of the passage of the Slave Trade Act with signs attached to every lamppost in the city urging people to sign an anti-slavery petition. A film "Amazing Grace" was made about the struggle to pass the legislation. I'm not sure what good all this did and the cynic in me thinks it was just an excuse to waste public money on entertaining celebrities.
If you go to the museum you can tell me what it's like since I've never been inside the place.

Hull College & Wilberforce Monument