The Hero of the Humber | Page 3

have for more than five centuries blessed the mariners of the port, and
which is now represented by alms-houses, so numerous, so large, so
externally beautiful, and so trimly kept as to be both morally and
architecturally among the noblest ornaments of the town. There is the
Port of Hull Society, with its chapel, its reading-rooms, its orphanage,
its seaman's mission, all most generously supported. There is that
leaven of ancient pride which also may be classed among the
institutions of the place, and which operates in giving to a population
by no means wealthy a habit of respectability, and a look for the most
part well-to-do. But among none of these will be found the institution
to which we are about to refer. The institution that we are to-day
concerned to honour is compact, is self-supporting, is eminently
philanthropic, has done more good with very limited means than any
other, and is so much an object of legitimate pride, that we have
pleasure in making this unique institution more generally known. A
life-saving institution that has in the course of a few brief years rescued
about fifty people from drowning, and that has done so without
expectation of reward, deserves to be named, and the name of this

institution is simply that of a comparatively poor man--John
Ellerthorpe, dock gatekeeper, at the entrance of the Humber Dock.'
Such was the strain in which the Sheffield Daily Telegraph, in a Leader
(March 17th, 1868), spoke of the character and doings of him whom a
grateful and admiring town entitled 'The Hero of the Humber.'
[Sidenote: HIS NATIVITY.]
He was born at Rawcliffe, a small village near Snaith, Yorkshire, in the
year 1806. His ancestors, as far as we can trace them, were all
connected with the sea-faring life. His father, John Ellerthorpe, owned
a 'Keel' which sailed between Rawcliffe and the large towns in the
West Riding of Yorkshire, and John often accompanied him during his
voyages. His mother was a woman of great practical sagacity and
unquestionable honesty and piety, and from her young John extended
many of the high and noble qualities which distinguished his career.
Much of his childhood, however, was passed at the 'Anchor' public
house, Rawcliffe, kept by his paternal grandmother, where he early
became an adept swearer and a lover of the pot, and for upwards of
forty years--to use his own language--he was 'a drunken blackard.'
When John was ten years of age his father removed to Hessle. About
this time John heard that flaming evangelist, the Rev. William Clowes,
preach near the 'old pump' at Hessle, and he retired from the service
with good resolutions in his breast, and sought a place of prayer. Soon
after he heard the famous John Oxtoby preach, and he says, 'I was truly
converted under his sermon, and for sometime I enjoyed a clear sense
of forgiveness.' His mother's heart rejoiced at the change; but from his
father, who was an habitual drunkard, he met with much opposition and
persecution, and being but a boy, and possessing a very impressionable
nature, John soon joined his former corrupt associates and cast off, for
upwards of thirty years, even the form of prayer.
[Sidenote: HIS LOVE OF THE WATER.]
Ellerthorpe was born with a passion for salt water. He was reared on
the banks of a well navigated river, the Humber, and, in his boyhood,

he liked not only to be on the water, but in it. He also accompanied his
father on his voyages, and when left at home he spent most of his time
in the company of seamen, and these awakened within him the tastes
and ambition of a sailor. He went to sea when fourteen years of age,
and for three years sailed in the brig 'Jubilee,' then trading between Hull
and London. The next four years were spent under Captain Knill, on
board of the 'Westmoreland,' trading between Hull and Quebec,
America. Afterwards he spent several years in the Baltic trade. When
the steam packet, 'Magna Charter,' began to run between Hull and New
Holland, John became a sailor on board and afterwards Captain of the
vessel. He next became Captain of a steamer that ran between Barton
and Hessle. He then sailed in a vessel between Hull and America. In
1845, he entered the service of the Hull Dock Company, in which
situation he remained up to the time of his death.
[Sidenote: HIS YOUTHFUL CAREER.]
Fifty years ago our sailors, generally speaking, were a grossly wicked
class of men. A kind of special license to indulge in all kinds of sin was
given to the rough and hardy men whose occupation was on the mighty
deep. Landsmen, while comfortably seated round a winter's fire,
listening to the storm and tempest raging without, were