Kingston upon Hull

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Kingston upon Hull. Yorkshire port at the junction of the river Hull with the Humber, usually called just ‘Hull’. It originated as a monastic wool-exporting port, but was acquired and renamed by Edward I (1293). Its huge Holy Trinity church, and its Trinity House for mariners, testify to its late medieval importance. Henry VIII made it a fortified base, crucial enough for its control to become the flashpoint for civil war in 1642. Hull's MPs included Andrew Marvell in the 17th cent. and William Wilberforce in the 18th. By 1800 it was the third British port (measured by volume of trade) after London and Liverpool. The city (as it became in 1897) was hard hit by Second World War bombing, and by the collapse of its fishing industry in the 1970s.

David M. Palliser

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Kingston upon Hull

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Kingston upon Hull