Hull Maritime Museum Hull Maritime Museum, Queen Victoria Square, Hull HU1 3DX, United Kingdom

The Hull Maritime Museum is a museum in Kingston upon Hull, England, that explores the seafaring heritage of the city and its environs. The museum's stated mission is "To preserve and make available the maritime history of Hull and east Yorkshire through artefacts and documents".

The collections are divided into three main categories whaling; fishing and the merchant trade. They concentrate on Hull's maritime activities from the late eighteenth century to the present.

Whaling originally began in the sixteenth century but really took off from c.1760.  By the 1820s there were more than 60 whalers sailing out to the Arctic every season which brought back the produce, oil and baleen (whalebone), of some 600 Greenland whales. The oil was used for lamp fuel, softening coarse woolen cloths and various industrial processes including tanning.

The displays are remarkably comprehensive, showing the skeletons of various species of whale as well as the whole range of harpoons and tools used in the trade. Journals, logbooks and contemporary paintings of the ships are to be found as well as the largest collection of scrimshaw this side of the Atlantic. These decorated pieces of whalebone, walrus tusks and sperm whale teeth are the folk art of the whaler produced in his spare time aboard ship or after his return home.

The Maritime Museum is right in the city centre of Hull in Queen Victoria Square. It is near the Ferens Art Gallery and Hull City Hall.

Parking

• There is on street parking on Savile Street and 9 designated disabled parking spaces on Paragon Street (behind City Hall).

Assistance Dogs

• Assistance dogs are welcome.

Wheelchair access

• For access to the museum please ring the bell at the main entrance and a member of staff will show you to the side entrance. A wheelchair accessible lift is available to all levels of the museum.

Facilities

• There is an accessible toilet (including baby change facility) on the ground floor .
• The nearest Changing Places toilet is in the Wilson Centre, to the left as you go in the Queens Gardens entrance. There is an additional Changing Places toilet at the Guildhall. Please ask at the reception for directions.

Resources

• We have a manual wheelchair available to borrow.

Gift shop

• Our gift shop offers a large variety of maritime gifts from affordable children's toys through to nautical themed gifts for the more discerning customer.  We also have a wide range of maritime and local history books available.