History is replete with examples of humans moving to uninhabited lands in order to pursue new opportunities. It was the case with the opening of North America to European settlers in the 1600s, the migration of leagues of people into continental Europe during the Migration Period beginning in the first century AD, and the movement of people across Europe thousands of years ago at the beginning of this latest interglacial warm period. All of these events were impacted by natural phenomena.

On a more modest scale, though, Sunk Island in East Yorkshire is a textbook example of lands being created by natural processes right next door to already populated areas and within relatively recent, recorded history. The area is located along the southern side of the Holderness Peninsula and was a beneficiary of material eroded from its North Sea margins, carried around Spurn Head and re-deposited as mud flats in the Humber estuary.

Sunk island physical development
An island in the Humber estuary was recognised and included on published maps of the 17th and 18th centuries (Figure 1). Many of these also illustrated the mudflats and shoals accumulating in the inlet. Over the decades they grew by accretion of more sediment, gradually being covered and stabilised by vegetation. Eventually farmers found it to be a favourable area to cultivate.

Possession of the island was granted by King Charles II around 1666, to Col. Anthony Gilby, the governor of Hull. By then it apparently had three houses on it along with a few inhabitants. In 1668 Gilby was granted a 31-year lease, at £5 per annum, of what was described as an area containing 3500 acres. This was replaced by a 99-year lease to Mr Gilby in 1675.

By 1771 records show that 1500 additional acres had been reclaimed as farmland. Various other leases were executed by the Gilby and other families over the next century as lands continued to be embanked and drained. A survey conducted in 1833 showed cultivated lands comprised 5959 acres divided into 15 farms.

Sunk Island reached is present size by the end of the 19th century. Presently Sunk Island extends over 8000 acres but the topography does not rise above 13 feet over mean sea level. Cultivatable land continues to be added to the habitable inventory with embankment and drainage along its eastern edge.

Sunk Island community development
The Sunk Island area contained few families until it was large enough to accommodate several farms. Censuses taken in the 19th century listed inhabitants as follows:

(* Notes on the 1811, 1821 and 1831 census summaries found at www.histpop.org state, “Sunk Island was recovered from the sea previous to the year 1811.” No information on population is available for the area for years prior to 1811.)

A chapel was built in 1802 to serve the community’s needs however most baptisms, marriages and burials continued to be performed at nearby parish churches. Records of baptisms, marriages and burials began to be kept in 1820. In 1831 a new church was constructed and a burial ground set aside.

Parish register entries between 1820 and 1871 record 307 baptisms (average 5.9 per year). Between 1833 and 1871 there were 75 marriages (average 1.9 per year) and 176 burials (average 4.5 per year). The numbers reflect the small population.

Most farm workers and labourers came from outside Sunk Island, a great many from Lincolnshire across the estuary. There were always many more males than females residing on the island as a result of the need to fill these kinds of jobs. Census records from 1851 onward show many labourers were from Ireland. It is possible these were refugees from the Irish Famine that had decimated the region in the 1840s. A few individuals can be found on several consecutive censuses, generally working on the same farms, indicating they were seeking a permanent home.

The 1851 census is the first that shows how many inhabitants were actually born on the island. Of the total population then of 285, 81 (28%) were born there: one before 1800, five between 1801 and 1809; eight between 1810 and 1819; and 11 between 1820 and 1829. Fourteen families were new to the area that year.

The Sunk Island community really grew up and expanded as land suitable for cultivation became available. This happened in stages with successive embankments constructed and salt marshes drained.

Stabilisation of population and families
At the time of the 1841 census, nine farms were in operation, ranging in size from about 220 to 600 acres. By 1851 there were 12 farms, five of them operated by men born on Sunk Island. There were also many individuals who tended smallholdings of a few acres while presumably also working at other occupations. Over the decades parts of some farms were sold off while others grew by acquisition of new lands, either through purchases or by reclamation. Several farms were passed down to succeeding generations into the early 20th century.

Bleak House Farm is one of those properties that did not exist at the time the 1851 census was taken. It is located on the eastern side of Sunk Island on lands that were reclaimed between 1826 and 1859 (Figure 4). At the time of the 1861 census, the farm was operated by George Meadley. George farmed the lands until his death in 1873 at which time it was taken over by his son, George Junior.

George was born in 1813, in Keyingham, a village about three miles to the north west of Sunk Island, to parents George (Senior) and Rebecca (Malton) Meadley. George Sr and Rebecca raised their family in Keyingham. George was a butcher by trade and training. He married Betsy Wright Suddaby on Sunk Island on 11 January 1838. Betsy had been born in Albrough, East Yorkshire, but at the time of their marriage was living with her farming parents, Michael and Betsy Suddaby, on Sunk Island, where they operated Wood Farm.

For a while following their marriage George and Betsy lived with Betsy’s parents on Sunk Island. They are shown on the Suddabys’ Wood Farm in 1841, with their one-year-old daughter, Harriet, who had been baptised there. They removed to Keyingham where they had five more children baptised between 1842 and 1854. Three other children, while born at Keyingham, were baptised at Sunk Island, in 1853, 1856 and 1857. Six of these children died as infants or toddlers in Keyingham.

Betsy died in 1857, in Keyingham, shortly after their last child was born, A short time later, George relocated to Sunk Island. Perhaps he needed the support of his in-laws to care for his young children. By 1861 he had taken over Bleak House Farm on newly reclaimed land. He remarried Eleanor Ruth Richardson, a Sunk Island widow, in 1864. Eleanor was the daughter of Sunk Island farmers, William and Elizabeth Johnson, and had married another local farmer, William Richardson of South Farm, in 1859. William died in 1861, before the couple had any children. George and Eleanor continued to operate Bleak House Farm for several years.

Only three of the nine Meadley children survived to adulthood although a daughter, Betsy Wright (Meadley) Blashill, died at the age of only 27, just a couple of years after the birth of her second child. Two sons became farmers on Sunk Island: George Jr at Bleak House Farm and Michael at White House Farm. Bleak House Farm had grown to over 1000 acres by 1891. Robert Meadley, the second son of George Jr took over Bleak House Farm prior to 1911 and appears to have worked it until his death in 1960. The oldest son of George Jr, another George, operated Middle Farm from about 1900.

Three of George’s brothers also migrated to Sunk Island:

• John Meadley, a blacksmith, married Mary Ann Watkin on Sunk Island in 1862 They lived for most of their married lives along Village Road, near White House Farm. All of their nine children were born on the island.
• Malton Meadley, a small farmer, married Elizabeth Bedell, in Halsham in 1854. The couple also resided on Sunk Island for many years.
• Robert Meadley was an agricultural labourer. He married Jane Storr in Patrington in 1862. He had moved back to Keyingham prior to his marriage.

Most of the Sunk Island area was held by occupants under long-term leases of Crown Estate lands. These are holdings belonging to the British monarchy as a ‘corporation sole’. As the lands had been created through reclamation of offshore areas, they remained under ownership of the Crown.

In an extensive last will and testament (Figure 5), proved on 10 June 1873, George’s estate was valued at £16,000, which would equate to over £1,300,000 today. The details of the will indicated George had control of lands in several areas besides Sunk Island. Sunk Island was a relatively small and close-knit community as shown by who George chose for his executors and trustees. They included two Sunk Island farmers, one of whom, William Johnson, was his wife’s brother and the father of one daughter-in-law. The other was Robert Vickerman, practically a next-door neighbour at Channel Farm. A third trustee was John Blashill, a resident of Patrington, across the canal to the north. John was also the father of both a daughter-in-law and son-in-law of George.

George’s wife, Eleanor Ruth, was left whatever household effects she desired as well as a yearly annuity in the amount of £100. When George died, son George Jr had just married and had no children. His other son, Michael Suddaby, was still single. George’s two granddaughters, children of his daughter, were provided for, by payments of £1,000 in cash upon their maturity, as well as £40 per year for their support and education until those dates. One unfortunately died only two years later.

George directed his trustees to “pay assign transfer and deliver all and singular my money securities for money bonds bills notes goods chattels and effects of housekeeping implements of husbandry crops of corn grain hay and live and dead agricultural stock and produce whatsoever and wheresoever and all and singular my Personal estate and effects whatsoever hereinbefore bequeathed to them as aforesaid and all substitutions and accumulations thereof to my said two Sons George Meadley and Michael Suddaby Meadley in equal shares and portions to be a vested interest in each Son on his attaining the age of twenty one years.”

In the meantime, George’s wife and trustees were to manage the properties and she would reside on the Bleak House Farm for as long as she wished. She did move to Hull prior 1881, probably shortly after both sons had reached the age of twenty-one and taken over the Sunk Island farms. Eleanor died and was buried on Sunk Island in 1897. George had been buried in Keyingham, presumably in a Meadley family plot, with his first wife and children.

Upon his death in 1928, George Meadley Jr left an estate valued at £30,805. Michael Suddaby Meadley left an estate valued at £12,348 in 1945. Both estates likely included interests in land on Sunk Island.

For over a hundred years, almost from its creation, Bleak House Farm was owned by members of the Meadley family. Theirs is one of the stories of a family whose future and prosperity came about through the creation of new lands along the shoreline of an old estuary.

References
Poulson, George (1841). The History and Antiquities of the Seigniory of Holderness, Volume II. Hull: Thomas Topping, Bowlalley-Lane.

Shepheard, W Wayne (2018a). Surviving Mother Nature’s Tests: The effects climate change and other natural phenomena have had on the lives of our ancestors. St. Agnes, South Australia: Unlock the Past.

Shepheard, Wayne (2018b). Losing the land of our ancestors. Family Tree. October Issue, 34(13), pp 41-45.

Sheppard, Thomas (1912). The Lost Towns of the Yorkshire Coast. London: A Brown & Sons, Limited.