Yorkshire Philosophical Society

Event Information

Nine Lives of Hungate: The history of a poor York neighbourhood through the biographies of its builders, residents and workers (c.1800-1930)

Joint lecture with the York Archaeological Trust

Dr Jayne Rimmer, York Archaeological Trust

The large-scale urban regeneration project at Hungate marks the beginning of a new chapter in the development of this local area and the city of York at large. Land redevelopment and urban renewal are re-occurring themes in the long-term  history of the Hungate neighbourhood as its physical landscape, community, and identity have undergone considerable change in response to wider social and economic processes such as urbanisation and industrialisation.

This lecture will focus in on a distinctive period in the history of the Hungate neighbourhood (c. 1800-1930) when rapid urbanisation in York led to the transformation of the area into a high-density residential neighbourhood  labelled a ‘slum’ by Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree in his social study of York at the turn of the 20th century.

The exploration of the biographies of nine Hungate residents within the wider social and economic context of the period brings into view the neglected lives and experiences of the neighbourhood, providing new perspectives on the complexities of community relationships and the personal experiences of poverty.

Report

The Hungate excavations, begun in 2006, have been York’s biggest since Coppergate. Rapid urbanisation after 1800 had transformed the area into a high-density residential neighbourhood called a slum by Seebohm Rowntree in 1901. Dr Rimmer challenged that label. She used the extensive documentary evidence available for the 19th and early 20th centuries – particularly census returns and official local records in the City Archives – to offer us nine mini-biographies: three men, a house builder, a gasworks manager, and a joiner; three women, a lodging-house keeper, a laundress and an alleged child-murderer (the most poignant tale); and three children, an apprentice bootmaker, a miller’s daughter, and a 1930s schoolboy, to paint a much more varied picture of the area. These otherwise neglected lives revealed successful business careers and working-class respectability, as well as people living in poverty and desperation, providing new perspectives on the complexities of community relationships.

Bob Hale

Download a poster here