Edmund Gibson (1669 – 1748) was Dr. Woodward’s next topographer (s.p.b.s). Although he basically just re-published the text of Camden’s Britannia (s.p.b.) he added sufficient further information to qualify it as a new publication.
Before coming to Hull Gibson expanded on Camden’s description of Beverley ‘For Antiquities Beverley is the most considerable place hereabouts’. Beverley, he stated, was ‘of late much improved’. Beverley, the county town of East Yorkshire, has a wealth of surviving Georgian domestic buildings including a few that Gibson may have seen in 1695 (that said, it is not clear whether Gibson actually saw for himself or whether he collated information provided by others). Dr. Ivan Hall published Historic Beverley as well as Georgian Hull and Burton Constable Hall: a century of patronage (these now out of print but available from book wholesalers).
Gibson relates the story that in the reign of James II Governor Langdale of Hull, being a Catholic, planned to cause problems for William of Orange should he choose to cross the German Ocean to Hull in his quest for the Crown. He ordered the chain to be put across the mouth of the River Hull and was ready to open local sluice-gates whereby all the lower Hull valley floodplain land around Hull would be flooded. However, he and his supporters were captured and held in the Garrison – each year thereafter ‘town taking day’ being celebrated (see K. MacMahon A History of Hull, ch. 15).
Gibson, like most writers then and now, liked to hone in on curiosities such as, then, an effigy of a ‘native of Groenland’ in his canoe and hanging from the ceiling of the workroom at Trinity House complex of buildings. The photo above shows a group of Inuit, early 20th century (downloaded from Wikipedia).
Gibson describes the then one bridge over the River Hull (where North Bridge now is) ‘consists of 14 arches, and goes over into Holderness’. Such a bridge must have been a considerable hindrance to shipping between Hull and Beverley.