Middlesbrough
Coordinates: 54°34′26″N 1°14′00″W / 54.5740°N 1.2334°W / 54.5740; -1.2334
Toponymy
Although the town is often thought of as a relatively recent settlement without much history, the name Middlesbrough can be traced back a long way. Mydilsburgh is the earliest recorded form of the name. The element '-burgh', from the Old English burh (meaning 'fort') denotes an ancient fort or settlement of pre-Anglian origin. The spelling brough sets Middlesbrough apart from other English towns, which typically use the spelling borough .
It is solely by retrospective conjecture that the first element of the name, Mydil , has come to be identified as a development of the Old English middel (subsequently morphing into middle and supposedly a tribute to the settlement's position between the great Christian centres of Durham and Whitby). The burgh, though, may have included a monastic cell and was probably situated on the elevated land where the Victorian church of St Hilda's (demolished in 1969) was later built.
Early history
In 686 a monastic cell was consecrated by St. Cuthbert at the request of St. Hilda Abbess of Whitby and in 1119 Robert Bruce 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 and it is argued by some that 'old' Cleveland has the highest density of Scandinavian parish names in Britain. Names of Viking origin (with the suffix by ) are abundant in the area - for example, Thornaby, Ormesby, Stainsby, Lackenby, Maltby and Tollesby were once separate villages that belonged to Vikings called Thormad, Orm, Steinn, Hlakkande, Malti and Toll, but now form suburbs of Middlesbrough. Lazenby was the village belonging to a Leysingr - a freeman; Normanby, a Norseman's village and Danby (in neighbouring North Yorkshire), a Dane's village. The name Mydilsburgh is the earliest recorded form of Middlesbrough's name and dates to Anglian times (400 to 1000 AD), while many of the aforementioned villages appear in the Domesday Book of 1086.
Other links persist in the area, often through school and/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 1952 Stainsby Secondary Modern School, now renamed Acklam Grange Secondary School, was named for this village.
Industrial history
In 1801 Middlesbrough was a hamlet with a population of just 25 people living in four farmhouses. During the latter half of the 19th century, however, it experienced a growth unparalleled in England. Development began with the purchase of the farm in 1829 by a group of Quaker businessmen, headed by Joseph Pease the Darlington industrialist, who saw the possibilities of Middlesbrough becoming a port for the transport of north-east coal. Four initial streets, leading into the Market Square, were duly laid out. This cause was facilitated by an 1830 extension of the Stockton and Darlington Railway to the site, which all but erased the logistical obstacles to ongoing development of the town. Before this, the shipment of coal had been problematic owing to the shallow waters around Stockton-on-Tees. The opening of the Clarence Railway, in 1833, which shared some of the Stockton and Darlington Railway's track, also provided the stimulus for the growth of Port Clarence on the opposite side of the river to Middlesbrough.
From 1840 to 1842 the civil engineer George Turnbull built Middlesbrough Dock which was then bought by the Stockton and Darlington Railway Company.
When William Ewart Gladstone visited the town, he stood under the roof of the original (1846) Town Hall and famously dubbed Middlesbrough 'an infant Hercules' in 'England's enterprise'.
At the very moment when early fortunes showed signs of giving way to decline, another great leap forward took place, with the discovery of ironstone in the Eston Hills in 1850. 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. Pig-iron production rose tenfold between 1851 and 1856. On 21 January 1853, Middlesbrough received its Royal Charter of Incorporation, giving the town the right to have a mayor, aldermen and councillors. Bolckow became mayor in 1853 and Middlesbrough's first Member of Parliament (MP). The first ten mayors of Middlesbrough were:
- 1853: Henry William Ferdinand Bolckow
- 1854: Isaac Wilson
- 1855: John Vaughan
- 1856: Henry Thompson
- 1858: John Richardson
- 1859: William Fallows
- 1860: George Bottomley
- 1861: James Harris
- 1862: Thomas Brentnall
- 1863: Edgar Gilkes
On 15 August 1867, a Reform Bill was passed, making Middlesbrough a new parliamentary borough, Bolckow was unanimously elected member for Middlesbrough the following year.
The population of Middlesbrough, as county borough, peaked at almost 165,000 in the late 1960s but has been in decline since the early 1980s. From 2001 to 2004, however, the recorded population jumped significantly, from 134,000 to 142,000, then to 147,000 in 2005, with 2006 estimates were approximately 190,000.
The Bell brothers opened their great ironworks on the banks of the Tees in 1853. Steel production began at Port Clarence in 1889 and an amalgamation with Dorman Long followed. After rock salt was discovered under the site in 1874, the salt-extraction industry on Teesside was founded. By now Bell Brothers had become a vast concern employing some 6,000 people. Isaac Lowthian Bell's own eminence in the field of applied science, where he published many weighty papers, and as an entrepreneur whose knowledge of blast furnaces was unrivalled, led to universal recognition. He was the first president of the Iron and Steel Institute, and the first recipient of the Bessemer Gold Medal in 1874. Bell was Lord Mayor of Newcastle in 1854–1855, and again in 1862–1863. He served as MP for Hartlepool in 1875–1880.
For many years in the 19th century Teesside set the world price for iron and steel. The steel components of the Sydney Harbour Bridge (1932) were engineered and fabricated by Dorman Long of Middlesbrough. Fittingly, the words MADE IN MIDDLESBROUGH are stamped on the Bridge. "The golden rivet" was hammered in by Kenneth Johnson Esq, Mechanical Engineer, whose son Christopher was later a pioneer in the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry. The company was also responsible for the earlier New Tyne Bridge across the river at Newcastle.
Via a 1907 Act of Parliament the Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Company also built the great Transporter Bridge (1911) which spans the Tees itself between Middlesbrough and Port Clarence. At 850 feet (260 m) long and 225 feet (69 m) high, is one of the largest of its type in the world, and one of only two left in working order in Britain (the other being in Newport). The bridge remains in daily use and it is worth noting that, contrary to what is suggested by the plot of popular BBC drama/comedy Auf Wiedersehen, Pet , the bridge was not at any point dismantled and removed to Arizona. It is, indeed, a Grade II* listed building. Another landmark, the Tees Newport Bridge opened further along the river in 1934. Newport bridge still stands and is passable by traffic but it no can longer lift the centre section.
Several large shipyards also lined the Tees including the Sir Raylton Dixon & Company which produced hundreds of steam freighters including the infamous SS Mont-Blanc, the steamship which caused the 1917 Halifax Explosion in Canada.
The great steelworks, chemical plants, shipbuilding and offshore fabrication yards that followed the original Middlesbrough ironworks, have in the recent past contributed to Britain's prosperity in no small measure and still do to this day.
Middlesbrough had the distinction of being the first major British town and industrial target to be bombed during the Second World War when the Luftwaffe visited the town on 25 May 1940. Most notably in 1942 a lone Dornier 217 picked its way through the barrage balloons and dropped a stick of bombs onto the railway station.
Origin of motto "Erimus"
The rapid growth of the town saw the prophetic words (probably spoken by Pease), 'Yarm was, Stockton is, Middlesbrough will be' come true. Indeed, the motto chosen by the first body of town councillors was in fact 'Erimus' ; Latin for 'We shall be'. (See also the Pearson family grave at Crambe, which uses th
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