Remembering Humberside Exhibition
The county of Humberside was abolished on 1 April 1996, after a short and controversial existence. A new touring exhibition, Remembering Humberside, explores its place in local memory and identity.
Remembering Humberside opened at the Hull History Centre and North Lincolnshire Museum on 6 May, and will tour the former county of Humberside until the end of 2026. It will be displayed simultaneously north and south of the Humber. Future venues include Scunthorpe Central Library, Beverley Treasure House, Cleethorpes Library, Withernsea Centre, Baysgarth Library (Barton Upon Humber), Goole Library, Hedon Museum, and North Bridlington Library.
In each location, exhibition boards will be accompanied by objects held by local museums, archives, and libraries. Eveline van Breeman, Senior Curator of the North Lincolnshire Museum said: ‘Preparations for the exhibition saw us reflect on what types of objects we hold in our collections that speak to the history of Humberside. Our volunteer team curated two cases of objects. For our volunteer team, selecting objects was also an opportunity to consider how this period shaped their relationship to our local area, and for some sparked memories.’
The exhibition shows that while Humberside did face a great deal of both open hostility and bemused indifference, there were some pockets of support, particularly among younger generations, some of whom saw it as a hopeful new identity. As Hull City Archivist, Martin Taylor put it: ‘Humberside’s achievements tend to be overlooked and its legacy is contested, but for some of us who grew up in Humberside, it educated us, and gave us libraries, film theatres and youth services. We can remember it with affection.’
Although it was initially imaged as a tool for regional economic development, there were also deliberate efforts to create a shared cultural identity across the county. The exhibition gathers material on the festivals, songs, and plays that were part of this effort. These include a competition to find the new county’s first baby, and a piece of classical music commissioned by the BBC to mark the opening of the Humber Bridge.
The exhibition also explores the much longer cultural and economic history of Humberside, or Humber-side. Long before the county existed, communities on both banks of the Humber recognised the importance of the estuary in shaping their working and social lives. And lingering traces of Humberside persist 30 years after its abolition. From medieval sagas to today’s Humber Freeport, the exhibition explores how the region has been understood through time.
Remembering Humberside has been curated by a group of researchers, who grew up in different parts of the county of Humberside, but now live and work across England. They noticed that their experiences of Humberside were often not reflected in wider national stories about history and culture. The exhibition is their attempt to think about what it means to be from this part of the world. It is the start of a wider project, which the team hopes will lead to a book in 2028.
The project grew out of the recent exhibition about the sunken medieval island of Ravenser Odd, which toured Hull, East Yorkshire, and NE Lincolnshire in 2024-25. Prof. Emily Robinson, who co-curated both exhibitions, said: ‘I grew up in Humberside and it made complete sense to me that the history of Ravenser Odd was a Humberside story – as meaningful to Grimsby and Cleethorpes as to Hull and the East Yorkshire coast. But it soon became obvious that this was quite a controversial idea. That started me thinking about what it meant to be from Humberside – another place that, like Ravenser Odd, no longer exists.’
Humberside was part of everyday life for over twenty years. The exhibition is an invitation to think about what it meant – both good and bad – to those who lived in it. What lessons has it left us? How should we remember it today?
