Description

Admin History:

Records relating to the collecting of dues payable to the corporation by ships using the port. The origin of the dues is obscure and is assumed to have been included in the grant of the port in the charter of Richard.

The water bailiffs were officers appointed by the Corporation of Hull to collect various dues on shipping owed to it as the owner of the port. The dues were levied on ships using the port and on certain goods imported and exported from it. Freemen from the town were exempt of all the dues except jettage (dues levied on a vessel for the use of a jetty or pier).

Accounts from the period before 1770 survive in the form of isolated items which are described individually in the following list. From 1770 to 1820 a system of accounting which reflects the nature and incidence of dues was in use:

i) Jettage and anchorage accounts. Recorded sums due from British Ships on these accounts

ii) Foreign Ships accounts. Recorded sums due from foreign ships for jettage, anchorage, hostage and ballastage

iii) Imports accounts. Recorded payments in respect of imports

iv) Exports accounts. Recorded payments in respect of exports

v) Wool Accounts. Recorded payments in respect of wool imported

vi) Cash accounts. In which the sums collected were balanced with the expenses of collection.

These accounts were made up quarterly and the feasts which give their names to the quarters were those which marked their itemisation. These were:- Lady Day (25 March), Midsummer Day (24 June), Michaelmas Day ( 29 September) and Christmas Day (25 December).

After 1849 the accounts were similar in content to those of 1770-1820 and the accounts of 1840-1874 are nearly complete. It will be seen from the detached description of the records that they give a comprehensive picture of the shipping using the port: the size of the vessels, the names of the masters; and the ports both coastal and foreign with which Hull did its trading

Description:

Accounts, 1592-1602, 1607-8, 1693-1874 (broken series); out port accounts for Gainsborough, Keadby, Selby and Goole for various dates, 1849-70; Bills of entry, 1860-62 (gaps); correspondence, 19th century