Humber Ferry

The Norse-derived names of North Ferriby and South Ferriby suggest a ferry between them across the Humber Gap.

The first record of a ferry across the Humber dates from 1315 when the Warden and Burgesses of Hull were granted a charter by King Edward II to run a ferry between Hull and Barton in Lincolnshire.^[1] Pedestrians were halfpenny each, horses one penny and a cart with two horses twopence.

The Corporation of Hull purchased the leases for £3,000 in 1796 (£266,020 in 2015)^[2] and both were relet in 1815.

In 1826 a new service started by the New Holland Proprietors between Hull and New Holland. In 1832 they launched a paddle steamer called Magna Charta.^[3] In his A Picturesque Tour to Thornton Monastery, John Greenwood writing in 1835 records that the steam packet leaves Hull at seven, a quarter past eleven and four o’clock, and leaves New Holland at nine, two and seven o’clock in the evening.^[4]

In 1845 the Great Grimsby and Sheffield Junction Railway bought out the ferry services for £10,000 (£892,207 in 2015).^[2] The Barton upon Humber service was withdrawn in 1851.

The railway company built a new pier at New Holland some 1,500 feet (460 m) in length with the railway station, allowing direct connection with the ferry service. New Holland Pier railway station opened on 1 March 1848.^[5]

The management transferred to the British Transport Commission in 1948 and on 1 January 1959 management of transferred to Associated Humber Lines.

The Hull to New Holland ferry service finished on 24 June 1981 with the opening of the Humber Bridge.^[6]

This list is not complete. There was an additional ship introduced in the 1970s which was diesel powered, DEPV Farringford. She was previously used as a ferry between the mainland and the Isle of Wight.

The vessels operated by the Humber Ferry service – all paddle steamers to cope with the shallow shifting sands of the Humber – were: