Hedon

Coordinates: 53°44′22″N 0°11′41″W / 53.7395°N 0.1948°W / 53.7395; -0.1948

Hedon is a small town and civil parish in Holderness in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is situated approximately 5 miles (8 km) east of Hull city centre. It lies to the north of the A1033 road at the crossroads of the B1240 and B1362 roads. It is particularly noted for the parish church of St. Augustine, known as the 'King of Holderness', which is a Grade I listed building.

According to the 2011 UK census, Hedon parish had a population of 7,100, an increase on the 2001 UK census figure of 6,322.

Hedon is not mentioned in the Domesday Book which leads to the belief that it was a new town created by the Normans as a port. Hedon was at its most prosperous in the 12th and 13th centuries and at one time was the 11th largest port in England. The decline of the port came with the development of the port of Hull and the building of larger ships which were unable to get up the small river to Hedon.

Hedon was given its first charter by Henry II in 1158 and was granted improved ones by King John in 1200 and Henry III in 1248 and 1272. Edward III granted the most important charter which gave the town the right to elect a mayor.

Pleasure

Pleasure describes the broad class of mental states that humans and other animals experience as positive, enjoyable, or worth seeking. It includes more specific mental states such as happiness, entertainment, enjoyment, ecstasy, and euphoria. The early psychological account of pleasure, the pleasure principle, describes it as a positive feedback mechanism, motivating the organism to recreate in the future the situation which it has just found pleasurable and to avoid situations that have caused pain in the past.

The experience of pleasure is subjective and different individuals will experience different kinds and amounts of pleasure in the same situation. Many pleasurable experiences are associated with satisfying basic biological drives, such as eating, exercise, hygiene, sex or defecation. Other pleasurable experiences are associated with social experiences and social drives, such as the experiences of accomplishment, recognition, and service. The appreciation of cultural artifacts and activities such as art, music, dancing, and literature is often pleasurable.

Hedon (UK Parliament constituency)

Hedon, sometimes spelt Heydon, was a parliamentary borough in the East Riding of Yorkshire, represented by two Members of Parliament in the House of Commons briefly in the 13th century and again from 1547 to 1832.

History

The constituency consisted of the market town of Hedon, in Holderness to the east of Hull, which had been of some importance in medieval times but which by 1831 had dwindled to 217 houses and a population of 1,080, and the borough was disfranchised in the Great Reform Act of 1832.

The right of election in Hedon was vested in the burgesses generally, meaning that a high proportion of the male population had the vote. In 1826, when the election was contested, 331 burgesses recorded their votes. Nevertheless, the result was rarely in doubt, Hedon being a classic example of a pocket borough where the influence of the landowner or "patron" was substantial if not absolute. At first the influence seems to have been shared between two families of important local landowners, the Constables of Burton Constable and the Hildyards of Winestead. The patron at the start of the 18th century was Henry Guy; he bequeathed it to his protégé William Pulteney, who not only sat for the borough himself for much of his career but made the other seat available to his cousin and his brother. After Pulteney's death the borough passed to the distinguished admiral Lord Anson, who used his patronage to provide seats for some of his naval colleagues; one of these, Admiral Sir Charles Saunders, inherited the patronage in turn when Anson died.