Middlesbrough Information

Middlesbrough (/ˈmɪdəlzbrə/ (listen) MID-əlz-brə) is a large post-industrial town in the North East of England on the south bank of the River Tees in the county of North Yorkshire, England, founded in 1830. The local council, a unitary authority, is Middlesbrough Borough Council. The 2011 Census recorded the boroughs total resident population as 138,400 and the wider urban settlement with a population of 174,700. Middlesbrough is part of the larger built-up area of Teesside which had an overall population of 376,333 at the 2011 Census.

Middlesbrough became a county borough within the North Riding of Yorkshire in 1889. In 1968, the borough was merged with a number of others to form the County Borough of Teesside, which was absorbed in 1974 by the county of Cleveland. In 1996, Cleveland was abolished, and Middlesbrough Borough Council became a unitary authority within the county of North Yorkshire. Erimus ("We shall be" in Latin) was chosen as Middlesbroughs motto in 1830. It recalls Fuimus ("We have been") the motto of the Norman/Scottish Bruce family, who were lords of Cleveland in the Middle Ages. The towns coat of arms is an azure lion, from the arms of the Bruce family, a star, from the arms of Captain James Cook, and two ships, representing shipbuilding and maritime trade.

In 686, a monastic cell was consecrated by St. Cuthbert at the request of St. Hilda, Abbess of Whitby and in 1119 Robert Bruce, Lord of Cleveland and Annandale, granted and confirmed the church of St. Hilda of Middleburg to Whitby. Up until its closure on the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII in 1537, the church was maintained by 12 Benedictine monks, many of whom became vicars, or rectors, of various places in Cleveland. The importance of the early church at "Middleburg", later known as Middlesbrough Priory, is indicated by the fact that, in 1452, it possessed four altars.

After the Angles, the area became home to Viking settlers. Names of Viking origin (with the suffix by) are abundant in the area – for example, Ormesby, Stainsby, Maltby and Tollesby were once separate villages that belonged to Vikings called Orm, Steinn, Malti and Toll, but now form suburbs of Middlesbrough. The name Mydilsburgh is the earliest recorded form of Middlesbroughs name and dates from the Anglo-Saxon era (AD 410–1066), while many of the aforementioned villages are recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086.

Other links persist in the area, often through school or road names, to now-outgrown or abandoned local settlements, such as the medieval settlement of Stainsby, deserted by 1757, which amounts to little more today than a series of grassy mounds near the A19 road.

In 1801, Middlesbrough was a small farm with a population of just 25. During the latter half of the 19th century, however, it experienced rapid growth.

The Stockton and Darlington Railway (SandDR) had been developed to transport coal from Witton Park Colliery and Shildon in County Durham, to the River Tees in the east. It had always been assumed by the investors that Stockton as the then lowest bridging point on the River Tees would be suitable to take the largest ships at the required volume. However, as the trade developed, and with competition from the Clarence Railway which had established a new port on the north side of the river at Port Clarence, a better solution was required on the south side of the river.

In 1828 the influential Quaker banker, coal mine owner and SandDR shareholder Joseph Pease sailed up the River Tees to find a suitable new site down river of Stockton on which to place new coal staithes. As a result, in 1829 he and a group of Quaker businessmen bought the Middlesbrough farmstead and associated estate, some 527 acres (213 ha) of land, and established the Middlesbrough Estate Company. Through the company, the investors set about the development of a new coal port on the banks of the Tees nearby, and a suitable town on the site of the farm (the new town of Middlesbrough) to supply the port with labour. By 1830 the SandDR had been extended to Middlesbrough and expansion of the town was assured. The small farmstead became the site of such streets as North Street, South Street, West Street, East Street, Commercial Street, Stockton Street and Cleveland Street, laid out in a grid-iron pattern around a market square, with the first house being built in West Street in April 1830. The town of Middlesbrough was born. New businesses quickly bought up premises and plots of land in the new town and soon shippers, merchants, butchers, innkeepers, joiners, blacksmiths, tailors, builders and painters were moving in. By 1851 Middlesbroughs population had grown from 40 people in 1829 to 7,600.

The first coal shipping staithes at the port (known as "Port Darlington") were constructed just to the west of the site earmarked for the location of Middlesbrough. The port was linked to the SandDR on 27 December 1830 via a branch that extended to an area just north of the current Middlesbrough railway station. The success of the port meant it soon became overwhelmed by the volume of imports and exports, and in 1839 work started on Middlesbrough Dock. Laid out by Sir William Cubitt, the whole infrastructure was built by resident civil engineer George Turnbull. After three years and an expenditure of £122,000 (equivalent to £9.65 million at 2011 prices), first water was let in on 19 March 1842, and the formal opening took place on 12 May 1842. On completion, the docks were bought by the SandDR.

The Iron and Steel industry dominated the Tees area since Iron production started in Middlesbrough during the 1840s. In 1841, Henry Bolckow, who had come to England in 1827, formed a partnership with John Vaughan, originally of Worcester, and started an iron foundry and rolling mill at Vulcan Street in the town. It was Vaughan who realised the economic potential of local ironstone deposits when he discovered Ironstone in the Eston Hills in 1850. Pig iron production rose tenfold between 1851 and 1856 and by the mid 1870s Middlesbrough was producing one third of the entire nations Pig Iron output. It was during this time Middlesbrough earned the nickname "Ironopolis".

In 1875, Bolckow, Vaughan and Co opened the Cleveland Steelworks in Middlesbrough beginning the transition from Iron production to Steel and by the turn of the century, Teesside had become one of the major steel centres in the country and possibly the world. In 1900, Bolckow, Vaughan and Co had become the largest producer of steel in Great Britain. In 1914, Dorman Long, another major steel producer from Middlesbrough become the largest company in Britain employing a workforce of over 20,000 and by 1929 becomes the dominant steel producer on Teesside after taking over Bolckow, Vaughan and Co and acquiring its assets. It is possibly the largest Steel producer in Britain. The steel components of the Sydney Harbour Bridge (1932) were engineered and fabricated by Dorman Long of Middlesbrough. The company was also responsible for the New Tyne Bridge in Newcastle. The importance of the area to the steel trade gave it the nickname "The Steel River", referring to the River Tees and the transition from Iron to Steel.

On 21 January 1853, Middlesbrough received its Royal Charter of Incorporation, giving the town the right to have a mayor, aldermen and councillors. Henry Bolckow became mayor, in 1853.

On 15 August 1867, a Reform Bill was passed, making Middlesbrough a new parliamentary borough, Bolckow was elected member for Middlesbrough the following year.

Several large shipyards also lined the Tees, including the Sir Raylton Dixon and Company, which produced hundreds of steam freighters including the infamous SS Mont-Blanc, the steamship which caused the 1917 Halifax Explosion in Canada.

Middlesbroughs rapid expansion continued throughout the second half of the 19th century (fuelled by the iron and steel industry), the population reaching 90,000 by the turn of the century. The population of Middlesbrough as a county borough peaked at almost 165,000 in the late 1960s, but has declined since the early 1980s. The 2011 Census recorded the boroughs total resident population as 138,400 and the urban settlement as 174,500.

The 1871 census of England and Wales showed that Middlesbrough had the second highest percentage of Irish born people in England after Liverpool. This equated to 9.2% of the overall population of the district at the time. Due to the rapid development of the town and its industrialisation there was much need for people to work in the many blast furnaces and steel works along the banks of the Tees. This attracted many people from Ireland, who were in much need of work. As well as people from Ireland, the Scottish, Welsh and overseas inhabitants made up 16% of Middlesbroughs population in 1871.

Once dominated by the steelmaking, shipbuilding and chemical industries, business in Middlesbrough has changed significantly since its foundation. Since the demise of much of the heavy industry in the area, newer technologies have since begun to emerge e.g. in the digital sector.The area is still home to the nearby large Wilton International industrial site which until 1995 was largely owned by Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI). The fragmentation of that company led to many smaller manufacturing units being owned and operated by a number of multinational organisations. The last part of ICI itself completely left the area in 2006 and the remaining companies are now members of the Northeast of England Process Industry Cluster (NEPIC).

The port of Teesport, owned by PD Ports, is a major contributor to the economy of Middlesbrough and the port owners have their offices in the town. Teesport is 1 mile (2 km) from the North Sea and 4 miles (6 km) east of Middlesbrough, on the River Tees. The port currently handles over 4,350 vessels each year and around 27 million tonnes of cargo with the estate covering approximately 779 acres. Steel, petrochemical, agribulks, manufacturing, engineering and high street commerce operations are all supported through Teesport, in addition to the renewable energy sector – in both production and assembly facilities.

Middlesbrough also remains a stronghold for engineering based manufacturing and engineering contract service businesses. To help support this, the new TeesAMP advanced manufacturing park is designed to accommodate businesses associated with advanced manufacturing and emerging technologies.

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