The Hull Connection

The family’s links with High street and the old town of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire England can be traced back beyond the 16^th century.

Family documents and wills include a Henry Horncastell, Beer brewer, who lived in High Street until his death on the 28^th of November in the year 1566.(Most people being illiterate in those days, the name was often spelt as it sounded and depended on the vicar, or whoever was literate for its interpretation.)

Others include one Isabella Horncastle of NorthFerry Staithes, who died in 1637 when Hull was suffering its largest outbreak of the plague.

By the time the plague had ended in 1639 2,000 Hull people had died from it.

Numerous wills and documents show that the Horncastles were involved in the life of the then town throughout the centuries, and many family names are recorded in the registers of St Mary’s lowgate, and the Holy Trinity Church.Hull..

During the Jacobite rebellion of 1745, the Mayor asked the Trinity House to help in the defence of the Town by forming an artillery company. Later in 1794, in the war against France, a similar company was formed for internal defence of the Town and neighbourhood.

The company was formed with the Warden as Captain and Messrs Woolf, Horncastle and Bershall as lieutenants. This was at the request of the Duke of Richmond.

The company consisted of four commissioned officers, eight non-commissioned officers, four drums and fifes, sixteen bombardiers and eighty first and second-class gunners. The officers wore cocked hats, black stockings, blue coats lined with white, scarlet facings, gilt artillery buttons, two gold epaulettes, a white waistcoat, long trousers in nankeen or white. The sword gorger, sash belt and cartouche box the same as regular officers.

They were trained at the garrison on the East Side of the river Hull and were disbanded inl802.