I didn't realise it was such a recent addition to the city centre, I remember going when I was quite young but I wasn't as young as I thought, as I was already eleven when it opened. From 1912 to 1974, it was called the Museum of Fisheries and Shipping and was situated in Pickering Park... please log in to view this image https://www.facebook.com/groups/278450892200994/
I remember it there. It actually fronted on Hessle High Road. Whalebone arch above your head as you went in. The old Dock Offices conversion was a good stroke of idea.
This might bring back some memories for you lads then, apparently the original museum building is still there... please log in to view this image
My Grandpa and Grandma used to take me there, after that we went into the park and walk round the rock garden that had a fish pond.
It was originally The Dock Offices(the offices of the Hull Dock Company), but I think they shut a long time ago, I'm not sure if it had another use between then and the museum opening. Anyone?
I used to live in the prefabs directly opposite the original museum. Also my late father worked in the Dock Offices. I think docks and railways were run together in those days so I used to get cheap and some free travel on the railways and Humber ferry until I left full time education.
Between the years 1966 to 1972 when I worked for a shipping company, I used to go to the Dock Offices (now the Maritime Museum) and pay Dock Dues there. If you stand at the bus stops on Monument Bridge and look across the road at The Maritime Museum(Dock Offices) you will see a door with the sign "Wharfage" above it. This was the entrance you would go in to pay the Dock Dues. In my day it was a revolving door. Old Harbour and Conservancy dues where paid at the Conservancy building down Whitefriargate, which was down an alleyway next to Boots Chemist. As far as I am aware when the Dock Offices closed it was not used for anything else, other, than to become The Maritime Museum.
I remember the prefabs, as far as I remember the railways/docks were part and parcel of the same organisation. I worked on the fish dock and the transport police used to cover both the railways and the docks.
So it was still dock offices until 1972, which means it almost certainly went straight from that to being the Maritime Museum, interesting, thanks for that.
Taken there when I was about 10 by my dad who was a dock electrician. When we came to Hull in 2010 my wife was keen to visit the museum after reading novels by Val Woods which were set in and around Hull. The first(The Hungry Tide) featured the old whaling industry and associated dockland - my wife is a prolific reader(about 3-4 a week) and has read all 18 novels by Woods.
