BARTON UPON HUMBER is a neat and well-built market town, pleasantly situated on gently rising ground near the south shore of the river Humber., where there is an ancient ferry, boy steam and sailing packets to and from Hull, the distance between the two places being about six miles, and here is a ferry across the river to Hesle on the opposite shore. Barton has now a Railway Station at the terminus of a branch from New Holland, so that its ferry is not so much used as formerly.

Barton Town is about half a mile from the station and the large Inn at the ferry, 6 miles SW of Hull, 34 miles N by E of Lincolns and 167 miles N of London.

It is one of the polling places for the Parts of Lindsey and is in two parishes – St Mary’s and St Peter's, which contain 6740 acres of land and had only 1709 inhabitants in 1801, but in 1811, they had increased to 2204, in 1821 to 2496, in 1831 to 3233 and in 1851 to 3866 souls, of whom 2048 were in St Mary’s and 1818 in St Peter’s Parish.

The town has many neat modern houses, and several broad, but irregularly built stre

Its market, held every Monday, is well supplied with corn and provisions, and once a fortnight it is a great cattle or fat stock mart.

Here is also an annual fair on Trinity Thursday, for cattle, etc. and on the two following days for pleasure. 

A hiring of servants is held on the Wednesday after old May-day.

The Corn Exchange and Butter Cross were erected in 1851.

A great trade in corn, malt and flour is carried on here. There are in and near the town several corn mills, malt and lime kilns, brick and tile, and tan and fellmongers yards, a ship yard, a coarse pottery and manufacturers of whiting, rope, sail cloth, etc.

Being at the northern termination of the Wolds, the country around Barton is fertile and picturesque, the hills abound in fine chalk limestone of which the best whiting is made, the lower grounds have excellent  clay for bricks, tiles and coarse earthenware, and there is a fine stream of water flowing northward through the town to the Humber, diverted into a  mill-race, and crossed in various places by bridges, mills and other buildings.

About 35,000 tons of chalk stone are sent annually from Barton Cliff.

Though is now has a modern appearance, Barton is a place of great antiquity, and was once surrounded by a rampart and fosse, traces of which are seen in the Castle Dikes, as the rivulet and mill-race are generally styled.

It is mentioned in the Domesday Book as containing a church, a priest, two mills of 40s value, a market, and a ferry of £4 value.

At the Norman conquest, it was a corporate town, with a mayor, aldermen, etc, and it was one of the principle ports of the Humber, till the foundation of Hull in the reign of Edward I.

For the invasion of France, it furnished Edward III, with three ships and 30 men, or according to another account, with five ships and 99 men.

The manor with part of the soil, belongs to the Crown and is held on lease by George Charles Uppleby Esq, of Barrow, with the impropriate rectory.

The Tombleson, Barton, Lunn, Clark, Hewitson and other families have estates here, and in the manor are many smaller free and copyholders.

A Court Leat and Baron is held yearly, but the Court of Requests, formerly held here under and act of the 47 th of George III, has given place to a County Court, now held here monthly, for the twenty parishes, etc, noticed with the Brigg union. This Court is in the Hull Circuit. William Raines Esq is the judge, Robert Brown Esq, clerk, and William L Morley, high bailiff. Petty Sessions are held at Barton every alternate Monday at the police station built in 1847. Rt Brown Esq is clerk to the magistrates.

Gas works were constructed here in 1845 by a company of shareholders, who supply about 200 consumers at the rate of 5s per 1000 cubic feet.

The County Court is held in the Lecture Hall of the Temperance Hall, which is used also for concerts, exhibitions, etc, but public meetings, balls, etc are generally held in the Corn Exchange.

There are two churches in the town, but the benefices are united and the two parishes support their poor conjointly, as one township.

St Peter’s is considered the mother church, and is a spacious fabric, chiefly in the decorated style of English architecture, with a massive tower, the lower part if which is Saxon and the upper part Norman architecture. The body consists of a nave, with aisles and a chancel.

In the east window, are two figures in stained glass, one representing a pilgrim and the other said to be an effigy of that famous warrior, Lord Beaumont, to whom Edward II, granted the manor of Barton.

There were several brasses on the floor, but all are gone except one, inscribed to William Cannon, who died in 1401.

A beautiful stained glass window has recently been inserted in the chancel, in memory of the Rev George Uppleby, the late vicar.

The organ was given in 1856 as a memorial to the late Richard Eddie Esq, surgeon.

St Mary’s is a handsome structure of the fourteenth century, said to have been built by the merchants of Barton, as a chapel of ease. It has a nave, chancel, side aisles and tower. It is in the early English style, with later insertions, and has an organ purchased by subscription in 1856.

The north aisle is divided from the nave by one pointed and five circular arches, the latter ornamented with zigzag mouldings and supported by round massive pillars. The arches of the south side are pointed and supported by alternate clustered pillars.

In the chancel floor is a figure in brass, inscribed to Simon Seman, Lord Mayor of London, who died in 1433.

From the mixed character of its architecture, this church is supposed to have been partly built out of the remains of some religious house, though there is no evidence to show that there was a monastery in Barton.

The vicarage of St Peter’s, with that of St Mary’s annexed to it….in the incumbency of Rev G W Holt. G C Uppleby Esq, is patron and impropriator of the rectory which is appropriated to Bardney Abbey, by William de Gant, in the reign of Henry 1, but after the dissolution of that monastery it feel to the Crown and was granted to lay-proprietors.

At the enclosure of the parish in 1792, 950 acres were allocated in lieu of the rectorial tithes, to the late Mrs Uppleby or Bardney Hall, a neat mansion on the manorial estate, now occupied by Mr Mary Uppleby, widow of he late vicar.

Allotments were also awarded at the enclosure in lieu of most of the vicarial tithes…were allocated to the parish clerk, in lieu of lands said to have been given by an old lady, in condition that the clerk should ring one of the bells from seven to eight o’clock every evening, from the barley harvest till Shrovetide.

Here is a Wesleyan Chapel built in 1816, and enlarged in 1839, an Independent Chapel, erected in 1806, a Primitive Methodist Chapel erected in 1838, and a Catholic Chapel opened in 1842.

The Free School in Queen Street, is endowed with £27 per annum, arising from the charities of Long, Beck and Fountain, but it has had no free scholars during the past ten years, the trust being subject of litigation.

In 1722, William Long left £200 to be vested in land for the education of poor children of Barton.

In 1728, Richard Beck bequeathed to Barton the following yearly rent charges out of the Barrow water mill – viz £2 2s for schooling six poor children, 10s 6d to buy them books and £1 10s for the sick and lame poor. He left similar rent-charges out of the same mill to Barrow and Winterton.

Mrs Magdalene George, in 1729, bequeathed the said mill, and some of the adjoining land and tenements, for the purpose of providing gray cloth for the poor of Barton, but subject to the said rent charges amounting to £13 8s per annum.  She also left £100 to be vested at interest and the yearly proceeds to be distributed as coals.

In 1725, Nicholas Fountain left £50 towards the better maintenance of the free school.

The property belonging to these four charities became vested in trust with the Graham family, and was so mixed up with their own property that £500 was spent in litigation from 1818 to 1822.

The property has seen been vested on new trustees and now produced £52 per annum, of which £27 2s is paid to the schoolmaster, 10s 6d for books and the remainder in distributed among the poor according to the wills of the donors.

In 1679 John Tripp bequeathed certain lands here and directed that the rents be distributed yearly in Blue Clothing among poor men and women. The estate was exchanged at enclosure, in 1792, for an allotment of 64a 2r and 24p, now let for £135 per annum, which furnishes clothing for about 70 poor men and women.

The poor parishioners have also the following yearly doles, which are distributed by the overseers – viz £3 6s 8d left by Sir William Wray in 1597 out of land at Winterton, £22 from 4 acres of land and some tenements formerly called Humber mill, left by Ralph Signe in 1664, £2 (with £4 for the vicar)  left by Ann Rand in 1683 our of an estate at Goxhill, and £2 (together with £5 for weekly doles of bread,, and 10s for the vicar) left by William Gildas, out of the rectory. About £30 arising from these charities is distributed yearly in coals. The interest of £300 left by Alice Ingle in 1830 is distributed in monthly doles of bread.

In 1669, Thomas Holland bequeathed an almshouse, for the residence of poor widows, and charged an acre of land adjoining called Paradise Close, with the reparation of the building and the yearly payment of £2 10s for equal divisions among the inmates.

In 1701, Christopher Benton bequeathed the Chantry House in Barton, as an almhouse for the poor, but it was converted into a workhouse in 1749 and the overseers afterwards spent about £200 on various charity moneys in enlarging it.

The Town Houses have belonged to the poor from time immemorial and consist of some ancient tenements at the Ferry, now let for £15 a year (which is carried in the poor rates) the tenant covenanting to keep the premises in repair and to also to repair the jetty and on every Tuesday and Friday night, against the return of the tide ‘to set forth a light upon some proper place for lighting the ferry boat from Hull unto the haven at Barton.’

In 1840, the late John Tombleson gave a yearly rent charge of £5 to provide books for the Sunday scholars.

The National Schools in Queen Street were built in 1845 at a cost of £1,500 and are attended by 170 children.

A monthly newspaper, called the Lindsey Observer, is published here by Mrs M Ball.

Here is a Horticultural Society, of which the Earl of Yarborough is president, and Mr W Wilkinson, secretary.

Barton Saving Fund and Equitable Loan Society was established some years ago for the benefit of the industrious classes and Mr J Gee is its secretary.

Barton Old Friendly Society was established in 1774 and has about 40 members. The New Friendly Society has 130 members.

In the town are two Lodges of Odd Fellows, and some other provident institutions.

BARTON DIRECTORY

Post office at Wm Morley’s. Letters are despatched to Boston and the east at 3.35pm; to London and all parts at 5.15pm; and to Hull and the west at 7.30pm. Money orders granted and paid.

Thomas Adamson                     law clerk

Wm Andrew                            gent

Mr Wm Ashton

Mrs Mgt Astrop

Wm Austin                               tea dealer

Wm Henry Ball             stamp distributor, picture framer, etc

John Barley                              master mariner

Rev Rd Baty MA                     rector of Worlaby

Rev Thomas Preston Norwell Baxter MA         curate

Isaiah Beecroft             smith and springmaker

George Beck & Co                  machine owners

Samuel Benson             cutler

Fredk Blenkin                           whiting mft; h Hull

Mr Thos Bratkin

Mrs Eliz Brice

Mrs M A Bord

David Brown                            tax collector

Geo Beale Brown                     merchant, sloop owner & whiting mfr, Bank Mills

James Brown                            cattle dealer

Thomas Wm Brown                 merchant

George Brumby                        carrier, Priestgate

Rev Geo Lawrence Burge (Cath)

Elizabeth Burnett                       coffee house

Mrs Harriet Bust

Mr Jas Clapson

Joseph Carlile                           master mariner

Henry Charlton             glover

Francis Clapson                        fellmonger

Mrs Alice Cook

Mrs Sarah Eddie

Wm Dannatt                             gent

Mrs Sar Everett

Charlotte Ellis                           stay maker

John Elston                               carrier, etc

Miss Susan France                  

John Gee                                  clerk

John Hewitt Galloway   Esq

John Girdley                             carter

Wm Grassby                            cooper

John Gresham   Esq                  barrister

Thomas Hague Esq                   Barton House

John Hall & Co                        sail cloth, net, rope, etc, manufacturers

Mr Robert Hall

Mr Hy Handson

John Hamilton                           constable

John Hattersley             wine and spirit merchant, etc

Mr Thos Hill

Mrs Han Hudson

George Hill                               ship and boat builder

Martha Hinds                           stay maker

Charles Holgate Esq                 gent      & the Misses

Rev Geo Wm Holt                    vicar and surrogate

Wm Hopkin                             inland revenue officer

Robert Houghton                      temperance hotel

George Ingram             land agent and brick & tile maker    Elmtree House

Wm Ingram                              mason

George Jackson                        nail maker

Thomas Jameson                      relieving officer

Mrs Mary Johnson

Misses Kitching

Mr Duffield Legard

Rev Evan Lewis (Independent)

Mrs Harriet Mackrill

Miss Meggitt

John Millfield                            farrier

Wm Morley & Son                   auctioneers, etc

Wm Morley                              postmaster, etc

Wm Lawson Morley                 stone merchant, high bailiff, etc

Wm Morris                              linseed cake & tillage merchant

John Nowell                             gentleman

John Oldridge                           vessel owner

Alexander Percival                    master mariner

Mr Wm Porter

Mrs Shiner

Wm Rension                             horse-breaker, etc

Mrs Eliz and Mrs Mary Robinson

Wm Rodgers                            bank manager

Mrs Ann Skinner                     

Geo Stow                                 gent

James Smith                             eating house

Robert Smith                            machine owner

Lieut George Thomas Smyth RN

Matthew Stow                          cowkeeper

Henry S Strahan                       tobacconist

Robert Taylor                           station master

Robert Taylor                           woolstapler

John Thorsby                            police superintendent

John Tock                                gas works manager

Charles Spilman Todd             gent      Hall

Wm Goodlad Todd                  gentleman

Thos Tombleson Esq                Providence House

Mars Mary Uppleby                 Bardney Hall

Mr Saml Wardle

Mrs Dinah Wells

Wesleyan ministers                   Revs R Bond, Hy Kirkland, Wm Allen

James Willford              sanitary pipe, flower pot, etc, manufacturer        Pottery

Ths Wilkes                               gent

Miss Ann Wilson

John Wilkinson             gent, manor steward and chief constable

Robt Wilkinson                     insurance agent, etc

John Willingham                        parish clerk

Webster Wilson                        fellmonger

Mr John Winterbottom

Mr John Wood

Hy Wood                                 whsmn

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