The land of Philip Larkin, William Wilberforce, The Ferens Gallery and the HouseMartins has been named as the country’s next capital of culture.
It beat off Swansea Bay, Dundee and Leicester to the title this morning and will be hoping to emulate the success of the last two capitals Derry and Liverpool.
The city, proud of its tradition of independence and freedom lays claim to being the opening battleground of the English Civil War when its military governor refused to let the Royalists and Charles I into the city.
The abolition of the Slave Trade has its roots in the city, its MP, William Wilberforce was leader of the movement and the city has turned his birthplace into a museum telling the story of the Transatlantic slave trade and modern day slavery and holds an annual Freedom Festival, which began in 2007 to mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade.
The poet Philip Larkin Larkin lived there for 30 years working as a librarian at the University when he found fame and would produce most of his published poetry while living in the city.
More recently, the city’s Ferens Art Gallery broke visitor records with a Da Vinci exhibition last year, and a David Hockney exhibition in 2011 featuring his bright East Yorkshire landscapes also attracted thousands of visitors.
The gallery recently bought 14th Century masterpiece Christ between Saints Paul and Peter by Italian artist Pietro Lorenzetti. The £1.6m deal was described as the gallery’s most significant in more than 50 years.
