Newcastle's Industrial Revolution

1900 years of building Newcastle in one picture, This site was used for the Roman Fort and Bridge and evolved as the centre of the town until the Victorian era.
photo: Tom Yelowley

Merchant Ventures that funded the Tyne's first industrial developments gave way to a new breed of adventurous engineers that soon became the first industrial millionaires as their talent, skill and knowledge was in demand throughout the world. The old order changed more rapidly than ever before and this revolution affected every level of power and government, and as the smokestacks grew along the banks of the Tyne the elite retired to their country estates or new suburban villas.

A map of 1830 will show Tyneside much the same as it had been for the previous 500 years but it is deceptive as a fundamentally new era had begun. Each new map from 1850 charts the growth of a massive industrial and urban sprawl as river banks, meadows and fields became shipyards, docks, factories, mines, urban housing and finally suburbia.
Grey Street, Theatre Royal and Grey's Monument 2008

Grainger and Clayton set out to create a modern imperial City that demonstrated its wealth and power with a vision that looked back to the Romans while seeing Newcastle as a powerhouse of a new British Empire.
High Level and Swing Bridge with the Guild Hall in the foreground, Newcastle upon Tyne 2009

The opening of Robert Stephenson's High Level Bridge not only linked Edinbrough and London by Rail but opened the city and the river to a wider world. This brought a rapid influx of investment and people that fuelled industrial development beyond local control into an explosion of urban expansion and exploitation that would itself wain by exporting its own wealth and talent out of the region. But the City fathers could not see the future or act to repair their own neglect of the river which forced the formation of the Tyne Commissioners as an authority to manage and develop the river. Up to 1860 the river had silted up to point that it was often unavigable for sea going ships.

As a river Authority with the support of all Local governments and the Admiralty the Tyne Commissioners undertook massive civil engineering works that reshaped the river and its entrance. Millions of tons of rock, sand and silt were moved to create a safe Harbour and a channel that could cope well with ocean going ships for 13 miles of the tidal river.

In the late 19th Century the Tyne was second only to the Thames for trade and a world leader in Ship building.

The new railway industry demanded technical execellence,better communications and even the synchronisation of clocks! Steam ships had to be bigger and faster to compete with rail. Advances in steel making made modern warships and a heavy armaments industry possible. The Steam Turbine came to generate electricity and propel ships. A new Electrical industry was born and Newcastle became the world's largest manufacturer of photographic dry plates. Tyneside made the first Locomotives for Germany and America, built warships for the Japanese Navy, Guns for Italy, and so the great Industrial Revolution looked set to create wealth forever; but this first growth of modern technology would not regenerate on Tyneside.

As industrial ideas left Tyneside so did whole Industries and there could be no more significant departure than the transfer of the Headquarters of the North Eastern Railway from Gateshead to York, and therefore from the end of the Victorian era Tyneside locomotive works ceased to be world class innovators and became mere subcontractors.

Fortunately a new electrical industry was built on inventions by Parsons, Swan and Armstrong and the worlds first Steam Turbine driven Power Station began generating Power at Forth Banks Newcastle in 1888.
( this was close to the Forth where the Coal industry was first licensed by Henry 111)

When the Mauretania first sailed it was promoted as 'The City of the Seas' as such it was very advanced with electric lighting, radio, elevators and refrigeration.
This cutaway section is set against an early New York skyline

Tyneside's Industrial Revolution peaked with the launch of her finest ship the Mauritania in 1907, her turbines made her the fastest passenger ship on the Atlantic for 21 years and by the building of the famous steel arch of the Tyne Bridge in 1928, at the end of the Mauritania's reign, Tyneside's industrial decline was established.

Children collecting coke from a Tyneside gasworks during the 1926 Strike - photo R W Swinburn

The Depression and poverty that sparked the Jarrow March was a legacy that hung over Tyneside for the rest of the 20th Century, The Coal and Steel Industry the ship construction yards, the locomotive works faded away but not completely as in the 1970's North Sea Oil demanded heavy manufacturing skills to build rigs and service ships and modules for the oil and gas industry.
But the tide has turned and the river is now returning to being a more attractive place to live and work, the environment is now vastly improved in comparison with the sad worn out state of the 1950's and there are outstanding opportunities to recreate a river which is more attractive than suburbia, naturally beautiful and vitally alive.

next - post war to the future

- An overview - the river and the City

Exhibition - 16th April - 8th May

at Newcastle Arts Centre 2010

Text and Pictures ©: Mike Tilley 2010
venue@newcastle-arts-centre.co.uk