This film made by Kingston Upon Hull Education Committee gives a good indication of the strong connection between Hull and its maritime history. This connection between Hull and the sea remains very strong, but has undoubtedly declined since this film was made in the early 1960s. The College now no longer exists, and there are no specifically maritime courses now available in Yorkshire; the nearest now being the Maritime College, part of South Tyneside College, in South Shields.   A School...

This film made by Kingston Upon Hull Education Committee gives a good indication of the strong connection between Hull and its maritime history. This connection between Hull and the sea remains very strong, but has undoubtedly declined since this film was made in the early 1960s. The College now no longer exists, and there are no specifically maritime courses now available in Yorkshire; the nearest now being the Maritime College, part of South Tyneside College, in South Shields.  

A School for Fishermen was started in 1895 by Reuben Manton FRGS, Headmaster in St Andrews Hall, on the west side of the Boulevard. This moved in 1914 when Hull Education Committee established the Nautical College and High School for Nautical Training, also on the Boulevard just off Hessle Road; although it wasn’t until 1920 that the School admitted boys from 12 to 14 ages to train officers for the Merchant Navy. By the mid 1920s it was renamed the Boulevard Nautical School to include boys interested in joining the merchant navy, and later became known as Hull Nautical College. It replaced the earlier Hull Municipal Technical School for Fishermen at No.1 Harrow Street and its remit was to give young men a rounded education as well as the skills required for a life at sea. Hull Nautical College moved to new premises on George Street in 1973 – when the school merged with another to form Trinity House School – and closed in 1986. The building is now Hull Youth Service's Boulevard Resource Centre. See also A Family Affair which also features the Nautical College, made about the same time. 

Many of the practises and equipment seen in the film have been superseded, although perhaps a surprising number have remained. Among the skills shown being taught that no doubt remains an essential part of seaman training today, is semaphore (anyone who has seen Monty Python’s version of Wuthering Heights in semaphore may have difficulty suppressing a smile whenever this is seen). Also still going are Seven Oceans emergency rations and the Wessex line throwing appliance, albeit updated. Perhaps the biggest change is in navigation technology, now of course using computers and satellites.  

Perhaps as fascinating as the formal instruction in the College are the rather comical athletic scenes. Even allowing for the fact that these aren’t professional athletes, this shows just how much technique in athletics has come on since the early 1960s (it was not long after this film was made, in the early 1960s, that Dick Fosbury started doing his new high jump technique, the ‘Fosbury Flop’). A similar thought occurs with the camping. Canvas tents, which as anyone who has carried one any distance will testify, were very heavy. Their advantage, even when lighter tents come onto the market, was that they could be bought relatively cheaply in ex Army and Navy Stores.

Like a number of other films of Hull from around this time on YFAO, A Matter of Course shows some of the ships that would frequently come into Hull. It is not always that easy to find out was happened to a ship in the meantime. A case in point is the ship featured here, ‘Rollo’. This is often made more difficult by the fact that several ships often have the same name. In this case the first Rollo was built in 1870 by C&W Earle in Hull, for the Wilson Line, scrapped in 1909. Another one was built 1928, this time for the renamed Ellerman Wilson Line, later laid up at Hull, and eventually scrapped at Copenhagen in 1932. Perhaps someone knows of the fate of this particular ship. For anyone wishing to find details of a ship the best place to start looking is the Lloyd's Register of Shipping (copies of this are held at Hull Central Library), or Jane's Merchant Ships (Birmingham Central Library holds these).

The film gives a good flavour of what it must have been like to study at the Nautical College: both the intellectual and physical demands, as well as some of the camaraderie. What it cannot show are the emotional consequences of being away from family and friends for long periods at sea, or just how dangerous an occupation this was(and still is, though to a lesser extent). Nor can it reproduce the sheer excitement many feel being out on the open sea. As the narrator puts it at one point: “There is a great thrill in taking a ship, even on paper, over long distances.”

References

The School for Fishermen, Hull
The Merchant Navy Training Board
The Merchant Navy Association
The Marine Society
Research guide C10: The Merchant Navy: World War Two