Middlesbrough (UK)
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Middlesbrough is a large post-industrial town on the south bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire, northeast England, founded in 1830. 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.
Ironstone was discovered 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. The importance of the area to the developing iron and steel trade gave it the nickname "Ironopolis".
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.
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. The company was also responsible for the New Tyne Bridge in Newcastle.
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.
Middlesbrough's rapid expansion continued throughout the second half of the 19th century (fuelled by the iron and steel industry).
Middlesbrough
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Grangetown
Grangetown is situated on the eastern outskirts of the borough of Middlesbrough, beyond South Bank between the town and west of the industrial chemical complex at ICI Wilton. It is approximately 3 miles east of Middlesbrough centre and 4 miles from Redcar. Although outside of the Middlesbrough authority, it forms part of the Middlesbrough settlement.
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It was historically part of the ancient wapentake of Langbaurgh West, which along with Langbaurgh East formed the Cleveland area of North Yorkshire, then the parish and urban district of Eston. Grangetown was brought into Teesside County Borough in 1968; from 1974 to 1996, it formed part of the County of Cleveland, and in 1996 it became part of the Unitary Authority of Redcar and Cleveland, which replaced the district of Langbaurgh-on-Tees.
Grangetown underwent a period of quite rapid expansion between 1914 and 1939. Both the steel companies and the local council built estates from Bolckow Road to and across the new A1085 Trunk Road. The population in 1939 was approximately 9,000. After the war, council house building was extended and in the 1950s reached Fabian Road.
The modern town has long since moved from its original location. Victorian terraced houses, nestled against the heavy industry along the River Tees have been replaced with the warehouses and depots of lighter industry. Some new houses have been built over the years, but Grangetown has lost the popularity of its heyday of the earlier part of the 20th century. The local authority, Redcar and Cleveland Council have embarked on the regeneration project named Greater Eston.
