Before 1836, the number of migrants travelling to the UK via the port of Hull was negligible and was not mentioned in the minutes of either the municipal authority or private businesses. The trade was small and insignificant, with less than one thousand Scandinavian migrants arriving annually. Most of those who came did so for predominantly commercial reasons and settled in the urban areas of Hull, York, Manchester or Liverpool. Although some did travel through Hull en route to Canada and the US, the small numbers who made the journey reflected the size and infrequency of the vessels that plied the North Sea route. These sailing vessels were cramped, their timings irregular, and the frequency of the North Sea crossings rendered them unsuitable for the movement of substantial numbers of transmigrants. Whether the emigrants originated from Germany, Russia or Scandinavia, the experience of the voyage from mainland Europe to the UK was the same - an ordeal. The journey varied in length depending on the weather and the captain of the vessel, but generally took between 3 and 4 days – considerably less than the 2-3 months it took to travel direct from mainland Europe to America and making a significant difference for people not used to travelling by sea.

After 1848, we begin to see the gradual emergence of emigrant passenger services via the UK. What started off as limited services by the founding steamship companies in Hull, Leith, Hamburg and Gothenburg quickly developed into regular services operating on regular routes. The steamships not only shortened the time taken to travel between mainland Europe and the UK, but due to the Royal Mail postal contracts that they held, they offered services throughout the year and not just during the now established 'emigrant season'. From Norway and Sweden, the Wilson Line of Hull began operating steamship services as early as 1843 and was joined by the North Europe Steam Navigation Company in 1853 who quickly built up a fleet of nine steamers to ply the Christiania and Gothenburg route. For each company, the 'human cargo' they now transported offered easy revenue, supplementing their existing services to the various ports of northern Europe. Although the N.E.S.N.C. ceased operations in 1858, the Wilson Line and a few other Norwegian lines continued to develop the routes between Scandinavia and the UK and between them transported all of the transmigrants.

By 1858, Wilson's virtually monopolised the Scandinavia to Hull route, although they faced increased competition from the transatlantic steamship companies which transported the migrants directly from Scandinavia to the US. Though Wilson's held the monopoly as far as emigrant traffic was concerned, this did not lead to a development in the quality and standard of the service provided for the emigrants. Throughout the period 1860 to 1870, the Hull Board of Health wrote frequently to the Wilson Line concerning the poor and unacceptable standards of accommodation offered to the emigrants. In one instance alone, on board the s.s Argo, they described the migrants as second class passengers treated more like cattle than humans. In another they described human excrement running down the side of the ships and sticking to the side of the vessel upon which 200 migrants were to be housed for the next 4 days, until their train for Liverpool was ready. Something had to be done, and that action, in Hull, was introduced through the local sanitary authority.

The Kingston upon Hull Sanitary Authority had been created in 1851 as a direct result of the General Health Act of 1848. The aim of the Act was to improve the unsanitary condition of the town and port of Hull. This was achieved over the ensuing decades by a series of local bylaws and special Acts of Parliament, such as the Kingston upon Hull Improvement Act of 1854. Although a significant amount of the work they carried out concerned the general sanitary conditions in the town, a large part of their responsibility was also to limit the detrimental effects of the thousands of transmigrants passing through the town. Through the Sanitary Committee's Inspectors of Nuisances, Quarantine Officers and Medical Officers, they did not just highlight and report poor standards and overcrowding in the emigrant ships, houses and railway stations, but also sought to enforce the corrective action needed to prevent such conditions continuing.

One of the most significant changes brought about through the intervention of the Inspector of Nuisances concerned the procedures for the landing of emigrants. Up to 1866, the male emigrants had been free to walk around the town once the steamship had docked in Hull. Although the women and children remained on board throughout, the men were free to walk wherever they liked until evening when they had to return to the ship. After 1866, as a preventative measure brought about by the outbreak of cholera in most of the European ports the railway company, the North Eastern Railway, agreed to have railway carriages brought around to the landing area of the Victoria Dock to pick up the emigrants immediately upon landing. They were then taken around the town by train, rather than being allowed to pass through the town on foot as they had done previously. Although only a small measure, the change alleviated the risks posed to both the emigrants and inhabitants of Hull alike - preventing the emigrants from coming into contact with unscrupulous racketeers who preyed on travel weary migrants and halting the spread of disease between the migrants and the inhabitants of Hull.

Because of the risks to the town's health from the large numbers of European migrants passing through the port, the North Eastern Railway Company built a waiting room near Hull Paragon Railway Station in 1871. This waiting room had facilities for the emigrants to meet the ticket agents, wash, use the toilet and take shelter from the weather. At no time throughout the age of mass migration did the authorities in Hull provide purpose built emigrant lodging houses for the migrants. Although 20 emigrant lodging houses were given licenses by the Town Council in 1877 alone, the emigrant lodging houses differed from other common lodging houses only by their description and size (the emigrant lodging houses licensed after 1877 holding between 20 and 80 people at a time). Most emigrants only stayed in these lodging houses when necessary and most arrived in and departed from Hull within 24 hours. Although the majority of emigrants were only in Hull for a short period of time, the emigrant waiting room at Paragon Railway Station was doubled in size in 1881 due to the numbers of transmigrants passing through the town. The extension provided a separate waiting room for the women and children and more extensive toilet and washing facilities than had initially been provided. A second emigrant railway platform was built in 1885, but this was by the Hull & Barnsley Railway Company who had built the facilities as part of their new dock - the Alexandra Dock. This was the first purpose-built railway platform for emigrants, with deeper docks to cater for larger steamships and a longer platform for the large numbers of emigrants who needed to board the long emigrant trains to Liverpool.

"The Emigrant Waiting Room of the North Eastern Railway Company at the Hull Paragon Railway Station. The waiting room was built for the Scandinavian transmigrants who passed through Hull in 1871 and then extended in 1882. [Photograph copyright of the Nicholas Evans Collection, © 2000]".

Most of the emigrants entering Hull travelled via the Paragon Railway Station and from there travelled to Liverpool via Leeds, Huddersfield and Stalybridge (just outside Manchester). The train tickets were part of a package that included the steamship ticket to Hull, a train ticket to Liverpool and then the steamship ticket to their final destination - mainly America. Sometimes so many emigrants arrived at one time that there would be up to 17 carriages being pulled by one steam engine. All the baggage was stored in the rear 4 carriages, with the passengers filling the carriages nearer the front of the train. The trains took precedence over all other train services because of their length and usually left Hull on a Monday morning around 11.00 a.m., arriving in Liverpool between 2.00 and 3.00pm.

In 1904 the number of emigrants travelling through the UK via Hull was so great that the Wilson Line leased a separate landing station from 1904 called Island Wharf. Island Wharf was located just outside the Humber Dock in Hull and was one of 4 separate landing stations used by emigrants to enter Hull. After 1905 the numbers of emigrants travelling via the UK was severely restricted by the Aliens Immigration Act. This new law limited the number of Europeans who had previously entered the UK as immigrants, even though the latter largely left the UK as emigrants via the same ports as transmigrants. Despite the passing of the Act, the numbers passing through Hull continued to rise in 1906. The transmigrational business was so great that in 1906 the Wilson Line formed a separate company with the North Eastern Railway Company to transport migrants direct to Liverpool. This new company, the Wilson and North Eastern Railway and Shipping Company, made even greater profits by shipping and then transporting by rail the thousands of emigrants they brought to the UK each year. The new joint company limited the numbers who travelled via any other shipping or railway company and ensured a degree of continuity in the journey from steamship to quayside not seen at any other UK port of entry. Although it was the White Star, Union and Castle and Cunard shipping Lines who sold tickets throughout rural and urban Scandinavia to would-be migrants For travel to America, it was Wilson ships which brought almost all the migrants to the UK - thus generating huge profits for their owners. The Wilson Line was at the time the largest privately owned shipping line in the world and its size accounts for the dominant role it held over the migration of thousands of Scandinavian emigrants between 1843 and 1914.

By 1914 the level of migration via Hull had declined. With the outbreak of the First World War and the passing of immigration acts in South Africa and America, the era of mass transmigration via the UK, and from Europe at large, ended overnight. Although transmigration on a smaller scale did resume after 1918, it would never be of the volume witnessed in the period now known as that of mass migration. Between 1836 and 1914 a revolution in transport occurred in which the steamships became 'trains on water', linking Europe with America or Canada, transporting thousands of would-be migrants in ever shorter periods of time. Without this revolution in transport millions may not have made the decision to venture from their homes in Scandinavia to a new life in the west.

The head office of Thomas Wilson, Sons & Co. Limited, Commercial Road, Hull. The offices were located next to the Railway Dock in Hull and it was from this site that the world-wide operations of the Wilson Line were managed by the Wilson family. [Photograph copyright of the Nicholas Evans Collection, © 2000].

This article was written by Nicholas J. Evans who has lived in Hull for most of his life. He is currently studying at the University of Hull to complete a Ph.D. on the history of European Transmigration via the UK between 1836 and 1914. In June 2000 he was appointed as the Caird Doctoral Fellow of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich to enable him to work full time on research into European migration. He was also awarded the Kaarle Hjalmar Lehtisen Award (2000) by the Institute of Migration in Finland in recognition of his research into Finnish Migration.

Any information on emigrants who travelled via Hull or any of the UK ports of arrival would be very welcome. If you have such information please contact Nick Evans or the web master. Or alternatively you can send a letter to:

For more information on Transmigration through Britain see another of Nick's articles "Indirect Passage from Europe. Transmigration via the UK, 1836-1914" in the Journal for Maritime Research.