Hartlepool on the north east coast was a quiet market town, its heart beating in time with the agricultural community it served. A little further up the coast, the Tyne and Wear was exporting thousands of tons of coal to the hungry growing urban areas of early 19th century Britain and the Continent.
Robert Wood, in his book West Hartlepool – The Rise and Development of a Victorian New Town, in effect places at the feet of the Quakers of Darlington the sequence of railway developments that led to West Hartlepool becoming one of the great ports of the east coast. The challenge was how to bring coal from the Durham coalfields to waiting ships at the lowest cost. In the early days, transport was by packhorse, but, without the benefit of turnpike roads, at a cost that would double the price of coal every two miles travelled (p6). The alternative of a rail track along which coal wagons could be pulled by horses dramatically reduced the cost of carriage. It is hardly surprising that this incentive created stiff competition and thus a number of competing railway lines were built, the Stockton and Darlington being the best known and I write about this in my blog on Middlesbrough. In time, horses were replaced by steam locomotives and the commercial imperative to rationalise led to amalgamations of railway companies; the name George Hudson entered the picture with his North Eastern Railway.
For West Hartlepool manufacturing, the massive growth in its port business led to shipbuilding with the major player being Pile, Spence and Co, and ironworks run by West Hartlepool Rolling Mills. Much of the development of West Hartlepool had been financed by banks and the collapse of Overend and Gurney in 1866 resulted also in the closure of Pile.
The resilience of Victorian shipbuilders was such that the Pile yard was taken over and enlarged, and two well known names enter the story. Samuel Plimsoll, a Bristol man, was travelling round the shipbuilding areas of the country arguing for regulations to govern the loading of merchant vessels, something that resulted in the Plimsoll line. It was a Hartlepool builder Denton, Gray which devised the well-deck design which improved the stability of the ship. These ships were screw-steamers built of iron. In time steel would take the place of iron and engines would increase in both power and efficiency. The other name was Marcus Samuel who wanted ships to transport the oil he discovered and which would be traded under the Shell name. The Denton, Gray yard was pipped at the post by Armstrongs in Newcastle for the accolade of building the world’s first oil tanker. Denton, Gray continued to build to the specification laid down by the newly opened Suez Canal. Shipbuilding at Hartlepool reached its height just before the First World War. Gray continued in business until the sixties.
Iron and Steel was the other industry to take root in Hartlepool. The source was the same as Middlesbrough and Consett: the Cleveland Hills. Thomas Richardson, an iron master and engineer, moved to the Hartlepool Iron Works in 1847 and built a substantial business. The Furness shipping company combined with the Hartlepool shipbuilder Edward Withy to form Furness Withy and this in turn in 1898 formed the South Durham Steel Company to buy Stockton Malleable Ironworks and West Hartlepool Steel and Iron. The ensuing story is one of the rule of the economic cycle combined with the need constantly to upgrade and improve. Steel making in West Hartlepool survived and received much need investment after the Second World War to become a major player in steel plate production. After the sixties, the world of steel began to change with the British industry suffering greatly. The South Durham Steel and Iron Co closed in 1977.
Furness Withy later focused on transport and containerisation.
Further reading:
- Robert Wood, West Hartlepool – the Rise and Development of a Victorian New Town (West Hartlepool Corporation, 1967)
- J.C. Carr and W. Taplin, History of the British Steel Industry (Oxford: Blackwell, 1962)
- How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World and Vehicles to Vaccines.
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