Welcome
Welcome to the May 2022 edition of the East Riding Archives e-newsletter! We hope that you enjoy reading about what we have been busy cataloguing, preserving and promoting across the past few weeks.
In this issue:
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News & Updates- Over 50 Minecrafters make their mark on history with the East Riding Blockdown project.
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What's On?- 'Archives Up Close: Books on Wheels' display; and 'Birds, Books and Belfries' Treasure House exhibition.
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Collections spotlight- We highlight a dispute conducted in the form of public handbills, the first female Justice of the Peace for the East Riding, WW1 letters of the Peck family, Hungarian refugees in the 1950s, and the Victoria Buffet in Bridlington.
- Concluding with our Explore Your Archive guest blog feature on 'Untold Stories'.
Best wishes from the East Riding Archives and Local Studies Team
News & Updates
 Image: Participants taking part in the East Riding Blockdown project at in-person events
Over 50 Minecrafters Make Their Mark on History
A fascinating collection of COVID-19 lockdown experiences are now catalogued and preserved in our digital archives, thanks to over 50 participants, aged 5-16, who have taken part so far in the East Riding Blockdown project. Shout-outs go to those who attended our Archiverse Minecraft events at Beverley and Bridlington, our workshop at Springhead Primary School in Anlaby, and the YOIKS Teenage Reading Group (Beverley)- well done for contributing your lockdown experiences to history!
The collection ‘ERBP- East Riding Blockdown Project’ contains images of written and built creations, each telling a personal story about the COVID-19 lockdown, crafted in the “digital LEGO” game of Minecraft.
Know of a Minecraft-obsessed young person?
The East Riding Blockdown project is ongoing and open to new participants who would like to tell us their lockdown story. Have a look at the project website, www.eastridingblockdown.org
 The East Riding Blockdown is supported by The Audience Agency’s Digitally Democratising Archives project thanks to funding from DCMS and the National Lottery, as part of The National Lottery Heritage Fund’s Digital Skills for Heritage initiative.
What's On?
Archives Up Close: Books on Wheels
May-July 2022, Treasure House Museum
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Don't miss our free, quarterly-changing display located in the Treasure House Museum.
Archives Up Close is a great opportunity to shine a light on a few of the thousands of documents held in the East Riding Archives. This time, our Books on Wheels display showcases documents relating to mobile libraries in the East Riding.
Image: Travelling Van photograph c.1950s (DDX1282/49/3)
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Birds, Books and Belfries: An East Yorkshire Parson-Naturalist
Open now until 24 September 2022, The Treasure House
Birds, Books and Belfries explores the remarkable life and work of Reverend Francis Orpen Morris (1810-1893), wildlife campaigner, writer and vicar of Nafferton and Nunburnholme.
The exhibition centres on Morris’ beautiful natural history books held in East Riding Archives which were printed by Benjamin Fawcett of Driffield. Contemporary film footage of the bird colonies at RSPB Bempton Cliffs shows the habitats Morris campaigned to protect.
 Exhibition Open Morning
Saturday 21 May, 10am to 1pm. Treasure House, Beverley. No need to book, just turn up.
Pop into the gallery space and find out more about the exhibition. The Treasure House curator and conservator, a private collector of Morris and Fawcett books, and staff from RSPB Bempton Cliffs will all be on hand to share their knowledge and answer questions.
Walkaround Tours
The Treasure House curator will be running walkaround tours of Birds, Books and Belfries in June and September. Take a closer look at some of Morris’ books on display and hear information that couldn’t be squeezed in – such as how much the books would cost to buy in today’s money. No need to book, meet in the exhibition space.
Dates are:
- Wednesday 8 June 10.30am to 11am
- Tuesday 14 June 2pm to 2.30pm
- Saturday 18 June 10.30am to 11am
- Wednesday 7 September 2pm to 2.30pm
- Friday 9 September 10.30am to 11.00am
Collections Spotlight
“This vile and contemptible wretch” Gillyatt Sumner vs John Dawson
These interesting handbills printed by W B Johnson date from 1836 and show evidence of a very public disagreement between Gillyatt Sumner, Antiquarian, and John Duncan Dawson, Currier and Leather Seller, relating to a petition concerning Beverley pastures. The petition was supposedly sent to Henry Burton MP for presentation in the House of Commons. W B Johnson printed the handbills for both parties. Sumner threatened legal action and eventually accepted an apology after being publicly insulted as a "vile and contemptible wretch" and "scoundrel" by Dawson.
 Image: Handbill part of DDBC/23
 Image: Handbill part of DDBC/23
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Pioneering Women: Julia Eyre, the First Female Justice of the Peace in the East Riding
On 23 December 1919 the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act became law. This meant that, for the first time, women were able to become jurors, barristers, solicitors and magistrates. The first woman to take up a post as Justice of the Peace in the East Riding of Yorkshire, Julia Philadelphia Eyre (née Cayley), did so ten months later. She had a keen interest in politics and local affairs.
Although women were not allowed to vote in parliamentary elections until 1918, Julia had been listed as a voter in county and parochial elections from at least 1911, after the death of her first husband in a car crash in Dieppe, France. By 1920 she had remarried and was living in Bishop Burton Hall, which landed estate and interest qualified both her and her second husband for the post of justice of the peace.
QJQ/2/42 in our collections preserves the names of the men and women who took the oath to become a justice of the peace in this period.
 Image: Oath Roll (QJQ/2/42)
In 1921-2 five more women became justices of the peace, but after the initial inclusion of six women, things ground to a halt in the East Riding. It was not until the second half of the 1930s that the number of women JPs increased to about a third of the intake and female JPs came to regularly sit in court.
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An Insight Into the Letters of the Peck Family of Beverley
A recent addition to the Archives is a leather wallet with ‘J Thornton 5th Yorks Reg’ written on the outside cover, containing miscellaneous correspondence dating from the First World War.
 Image: First World War letters to Jack [Peck], Beckside, Beverley, in leather wallet, 1916 (DDX2405)
The Peck family resided at 68 Beckside, Beverley and the letters reflect day to day matters concerning the family and friends in Hull and Canada. However, one letter highlights the situation for young men who had yet to ‘join up’. It states:
‘Jack is still keeling, and I hope he will stop so, I think they are taking some of the young keelmen and they are rounding all shows and picture palaces to see if anybody is shirking, and they all have to show there [sic] exemption cards, or else they march them right away’.
Conscription was introduced in Jan 1916 with the Military Service Act for single men between 18 and 41. Exemptions were allowed for the medically unfit, clergymen, teachers and certain classes of industrial worker and by the May, conscription was extended to married men.
Interestingly the wallet also contains two packets of unsmoked Woodbines cigarettes, the brand of choice for the soldier. With the wallet protecting the packets from daylight, they look brand new and as though they were purchased only yesterday.
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1950s East Riding Welcomes Hungarian Refugees
The East Riding has provided a safe haven for refugees from the Continent on many an occasion. Most of us are probably aware of the Belgian refugees who came here during the First World War, and the Jewish refugees who arrived during the Second World War. But in the late 1950s, another, smaller, group of refugees made their way to Britain, and the East Riding became a refuge for Hungarian people fleeing a vicious regime propped up by the Soviet Union.
 Image: This British Red Cross minute book refers to Hungarian refugees in 1957 (DDX1901/3/2)
In 1956 many Hungarians rose up against their tyrannical government which was being led by a staunch Stalinist and close ally of the Soviet Union. Hoping for greater freedom and change in their country, they appealed to the west for help. But western countries were fearful of a full-blown war with the Soviet Union. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev sent tanks and troops to brutally repress the uprising. Thousands of Hungarians died and hundreds of thousands fled the country.
Medical and other supplies such as food and blankets were airlifted from the East Riding to Austria in aid of the Hungarian refugees. But the Riding did one better and provided shelter, too. DDX1901/3/2, a Minute Book of the British Red Cross, notes the arrival of 101 Hungarian refugees at the RAF camp at Catfoss due on 29 Mar 1957, and the imminent arrival of more people. The refugees who came to the East Riding were eventually to emigrate to Canada.
 Image: March 1957, from British Red Cross minute book (DDX1901/3/2)
 Image: May 1957, from British Red Cross minute book (DDX1901/3/2)
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A Snapshot of Bygone Bridlington: The Victoria Buffet
Who would have thought an administration file could provide such a rich visualisation into places from the past? In 1926 the Victoria Buffet in Garrison Street, Bridlington, was transferred from the tenant, Frederick James Holland of Dewsbury, to John Nordin Middlebrough and Tom Blakebrough of Selby.
A list of fixtures and fittings formed part of a later schedule of 1933-1934 which appears to transfer the Buffet back to Bridlington Corporation.
 Image: Fixtures list from 1933 part of an Administration file (BOBR/2/15/9/53)
The list is itself a fascinating snapshot of a building from a bygone age. The contents were valued at £160 2s 6d. Everything was listed from furniture to locks and keys. It even hints at a fire in the building when it mentions that the wiring and fittings as installed ‘being the residue after the Fire’.
 Image: Fixtures list from 1933 part of an Administration file (BOBR/2/15/9/53)
The Victoria Buffet is mentioned elsewhere in the collection of Bridlington Borough. An architectural competition took place around the late 1940s offering up a chance to submit designs for a new building on the Victoria Buffet site as part of a bigger plan which involved the redesigning and development of Royal Princes Parade. This can be found in our collections under the reference BOBR/2/15/4/1583.
And finally...we've been featured!
 Hurray! We have been featured on Explore Your Archive's blog!
If you've been following our social media channels lately, you may have noticed that we have been taking part in Explore Your Archive's April challenge called '#Archive30', where we post on a different archives topic every day.
In this guest post we take a closer look at the '#Archive30' theme of Untold Stories revealed by the Archives team, volunteers and young people.
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