History of Middlesbrough
Middlesbrough started as a Benedictine priory on the south bank of the River Tees, its name possibly derived from it being midway between the holy sites of Durham and Whitby.
[1] Robert Bruce, Lord of Cleveland and Annandale, granted and confirmed, in 1119, the church of St. Hilda of Middleburg to Whitby.
[2] 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.
Other names around Middlesbrough include the village of Maltby (of Malti) along with the towns of Ingleby Barwick (Anglo-place and barley-wick) and Thornaby (of Thormod).
Through the company, the investors set about a new coal port development (designed by John Harris) on the southern banks of the Tees.
[8][9] New businesses bought premises and plots of land in the new town including: shippers, merchants, butchers, innkeepers, joiners, blacksmiths, tailors, builders and painters.
[6][7] The port was linked to the S&DR on 27 December 1830 via a branch that extended to an area just north of the current Middlesbrough railway station, helping secure the town's future.
[10] 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.
These factors made the works an unprecedented success with Teesside becoming known as the "Iron-smelting centre of the world" and Bolckow, Vaughan & Co., Ltd became the largest company in existence.
[12][13] On 21 January 1853, Middlesbrough received its Royal Charter of Incorporation,[14] giving the town the right to have a mayor, aldermen and councillors.
Churches and chapels were the centres of Welsh culture, supporting choirs, Sunday Schools, social societies, adult education, lectures and literary meetings.
[25] Industrial Wales was noted for its "radical Liberal-Labour" politics, and the rhetoric of these politicians clearly won favour with the urban population of the North East.
[26][23] These sentiments had grown by 1900 when Samuel lost his seat after a Unionist complained publicly that the town had been "forced to submit to the indignity of being trailed ignominiously through the mire by Welsh constituents".
In 1875, Bolckow, Vaughan & Co opened the Cleveland Steelworks in Middlesbrough beginning the transition from Iron production to Steel and by the turn of the century.
Two months after the first bombing Prime Minister Winston Churchill visited the town to meet the public and inspect coastal defences.
122 Squadron, piloted by Sgt Hutton, crashed into rising ground near Mill Farm, Upsall, on the lower slopes of Eston Hills.
[34] On 15 January 1942, minutes after being hit by gunfire from a merchant ship anchored off Hartlepool, a Dornier Do 217 collided with the cable of a barrage balloon over the River Tees.
The blazing bomber plummeted onto the railway sidings in South Bank leaving a crater twelve feet deep.
[35] On 4 August 1942 a lone Dornier Do 217 picked its way through the barrage balloons and dropped a stick of bombs onto the railway station.
[37] The Green Howards was a British Army infantry regiment very strongly associated with Middlesbrough and the area south of the River Tees.
There is also a Territorial Army (TA) company at Stockton Road in Middlesbrough, part of 4 Yorks which is wholly reserve.
The original St.Hilda's area of Middlesbrough, after decades of decline and clearance, was given a new name of Middlehaven in 1986 on investment proposals to build on the land.
Also situated at Middlehaven is the "Boho" zone, offering office space to the area's business and to attract new companies, and also "Bohouse", housing.
