George Pyman

George Pyman (1 May 1822 – 22 November 1900) was a British shipping magnate born in Sandsend, in the Scarborough district of North Yorkshire, England.

At twelve he became an assistant to the store-keeper in Lythe, but returned to the sea as a bound apprentice a few years later, on a brig called the Endymion trading with America and in the Baltics.

His next step was to purchase part of a brig, and over the next few years he left the sea for good, settled in West Hartlepool and entered into a partnership with Thomas Scurr in 1854 as shipbrokers for the local collieries.

Away from his business, George was one of the driving forces behind the growth of West Hartlepool, being elected a Poor Law Guardian in 1861, an Improvement Commissioner in 1868, and sitting on the Durham County Bench from 1872.

In 1888 he was elected the second Mayor of West Hartlepool,[2] was granted a coat of arms in the 1880s, and was finally made an Honorary Freeman of the Borough in 1895.