Hull
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50 free Hull trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Hull likes to do things its own way. The port city on the north bank of the estuary has its own phone company, its own takeaway seasoning, a street with a name nobody can explain, and a week-long funfair that has outlasted wars and riots. A visiting writer once called it the most poetic city in England, and the list of famous poets from Hull, or shaped by it, is long enough to back him up. This quiz covers the city the way locals talk about it: the poets, the Old Town pubs and the story of Hull Brewery, Hull Fair, the trawlermen and the docks they sailed from, including the derelict Lord Line building. There are questions on the Civil War, the Blitz, rugby league and football, and on bands, actors and inventors with roots in the city. It is pitched for anyone with a little local knowledge, whether you grew up there, studied at the university or just visited for a weekend. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will leave with a few stories worth retelling in the pub.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Hull's independent phone network, unique in the UK, is famous for telephone boxes of which colour?
Cream
Cream kiosks are the mark of KCOM, which began in 1902 as a telephone department of the city council and left Hull as the only place in the UK not served by BT.
Q 02The George Hotel in Hull's Old Town is known for having what may be the world's smallest what?
Window
The window is a mere slit in the wall, which the George Hotel's gatekeeper once used to look out for arriving stagecoaches and customers.
Q 03Which band of two University of Hull students took its name from a local furniture shop's slogan?
Everything but the Girl
Everything but the Girl was a slogan used by Turner's Furniture on Beverley Road, and Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt borrowed it when they met as students in the city.
Q 04Which Hull-born pilot became the first woman to fly solo from Britain to Australia, in 1930?
Amy Johnson
Amy Johnson flew 11,000 miles from Croydon to Darwin in a second-hand Gipsy Moth she had named Jason, after her father's business trademark.
Q 05Which anti-slavery campaigner was born in Hull in 1759 and became the town's MP at the age of 21?
William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce led the parliamentary fight against the slave trade for 20 years, and died three days after hearing that the act abolishing slavery itself was assured.
Q 06Hull's Scale Lane footbridge was the world's first to let pedestrians do what while it swings open?
Stay on and ride it
Stay on and ride it: the apostrophe-shaped span rotates to let boats pass on the River Hull, and people can even walk on and off while it is moving.
Q 07In 2010, forty giant models of which animal lined Hull's streets in tribute to a local poet?
Toads
Toads were chosen because the poet had made the creature his image for the daily grind of work; the fibreglass sculptures were later auctioned for charity.
Q 08Hull Fair, one of Europe's largest travelling funfairs, takes over Walton Street in which month?
October
October has been Hull Fair's month for centuries: the fair holds a royal charter from 1279 and is opened by the Lord Mayor, normally at 5 pm on a Friday.
Q 09Which Hull band topped the UK chart in 1986 with an a cappella cover of Caravan of Love?
The Housemartins
The Housemartins named their debut album London 0 Hull 4, a football-score nod to singer Paul Heaton's claim that they were only the fourth best band in their home city.
Q 10Which poet ran the University of Hull's library for thirty years and wrote The Whitsun Weddings?
Philip Larkin
Philip Larkin produced the greater part of his published work while university librarian in the city, and turned down the post of Poet Laureate in 1984.
Q 11Hull City's black and amber striped shirts gave the football club which animal nickname?
The Tigers
The Tigers were founded in 1904, after rugby league's popularity in the city had foiled earlier attempts to start a football club, and played their first matches at a rugby ground.
Q 12Hull-born guitarist Mick Ronson found fame in the Spiders from Mars, the backing band of which singer?
David Bowie
David Bowie recruited Ronson from the Rats, then Hull's top local band, and the two went on to produce Lou Reed's album Transformer together.
Q 13Norman Cook, who played bass in a chart-topping 1980s Hull band, later became famous under which DJ name?
Fatboy Slim
Q 21Which poet, born on De La Pole Avenue in Hull, is best known for Not Waving but Drowning?
Stevie Smith
Stevie Smith left the city at the age of three, when her mother moved the family to Palmers Green in north London, where she lived for almost the rest of her life.
Q 22Hull-born Ebenezer Cobb Morley is regarded as a father of which sporting body, whose first laws he drafted in 1863?
Football Association
The Football Association grew out of an 1863 meeting at which Morley, a solicitor who had founded Barnes Football Club the year before, was elected its first secretary.
Q 23Which Hull-born actress became a household name as Beatie in British Telecom's 1980s television adverts?
Fatboy Slim was the name Cook settled on after moving to Brighton to pursue dance music, having first founded Beats International, Pizzaman and Freak Power.
Q 14In 1642 Hull's governor Sir John Hotham shut the town gates on which king, helping to spark civil war?
Charles I
Charles I wanted the weapons stored in the town; Hotham kept him out at Beverley Gate, yet was later executed by Parliament for treachery to its own cause.
Q 15Which arts title, awarded once every four years, did Hull hold throughout 2017?
UK City of Culture
UK City of Culture went to Hull as only the second holder, after Derry, and the year opened with a firework display watched by a crowd of 25,000.
Q 16What kind of visitor attraction is The Deep, the Terry Farrell-designed landmark on Hull's waterfront?
Aquarium
The Deep is an aquarium holding 2.5 million litres of water, built as a Millennium project on Sammy's Point, a site once partly occupied by Hull Castle.
Q 17Hull's deep-sea trawling industry went into decline after the 1970s Cod Wars, fought against which country?
Iceland
Iceland came out on top, and the terms that ended the dispute began the port's economic decline; in 1976 the Hull trawler Arctic Corsair rammed an Icelandic patrol vessel.
Q 18Which Hull-born logician gave his name to the overlapping-circle diagrams used in logic and set theory?
John Venn
John Venn also built, with his son, a machine that could bowl a spinning cricket ball; in 1909 it bowled out one of the Australian team's star batsmen.
Q 19Which nautical name did Hull Brewery give the strong export beer it launched in 1949 for ships' provisions?
Anchor
Anchor Export was designed to keep and travel well at sea and was sold in bottles and cans; the brewery itself was taken over by Northern Dairies in 1972.
Q 20Which metaphysical poet, author of To His Coy Mistress, attended Hull Grammar School and became the town's MP?
Andrew Marvell
Andrew Marvell came to the town as a boy when his father was appointed lecturer at Holy Trinity Church, and was first elected its MP in 1659.
Maureen Lipman
Maureen Lipman first played the doting grandmother in 1987, and the role was still being referred to by politicians 25 years later.
Q 24Which Hull-born actor, the son of a fish-dock boat painter, starred in Billy Liar and Doctor Zhivago?
Tom Courtenay
Tom Courtenay earned an Oscar nomination for Doctor Zhivago, and had first played Billy Liar on the London stage, taking over the title role from Albert Finney.
Q 25Which Deputy Prime Minister under Tony Blair represented Hull East in Parliament for 40 years?
John Prescott
John Prescott held the seat from 1970 to 2010, having worked as a ship's steward and as a National Union of Seamen official before entering Parliament.
Q 26Reckitt & Sons, founded in a rented Hull starch mill, launched which antiseptic brand in the 1930s?
Dettol
Dettol was launched in the same year that the firm bought Harpic, and the company that started with starch in 1840 went on to own Nurofen, Strepsils and Durex.
Q 27Which electrical chain began in Hull in 1933 as a business recharging the batteries of wireless radios?
Comet
Comet began with founder George Hollingbery and one employee charging batteries for a small weekly fee; the chain had 240 stores when it closed in 2012.
Q 28Which band did Paul Heaton form in 1988 after his first Hull group split, reaching number two with Song for Whoever?
The Beautiful South
The Beautiful South was a sarcastic name, chosen by Heaton and Dave Hemingway as a comment on their own staunch Northern roots.
Q 29Hull Kingston Rovers, the rugby league club from the east of the city, are known by which bird nickname?
The Robins
The Robins take their name from the club's traditional red and white colours, and in their early days the team were nicknamed the redbreasts.
Q 30Which High Street pub, licensed since 1729, is regarded as Hull's oldest licensed premises?
Ye Olde Black Boy
Ye Olde Black Boy was a Victorian wine merchant's until a 1926 refit turned the old office into the front smoke room, a layout the pub still keeps.