A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



During the initial stages of its industrial 

 development the county of Durham owed much 

 to imported energy. The influence of the 

 Cooksons from the middle of the eighteenth to 

 the middle of the nineteenth century, and of the 

 Peases during the nineteenth century, cannot be 

 overrated ; but both these families belonged to 

 other counties — the one came from Cumberland, 

 the other from Yorkshire. 



The rapid growth of Sunderland was one of 

 the marvels of the early Victorian age. The 

 zeal with which Sunderland had espoused the 

 Parliamentary cause was prophetic, for it was as 

 a town free from gild or corporation restrictions 

 that later she was to appeal to England. It is true 

 that the Stallingers or 'the Freemen of the ancient 

 borough of Sunderland,' as they grandiloquently 

 styled themselves, appropriated various rights 

 often taken by gild fraternities or corporations ; 

 but a certain sense of incongruity in their 

 environment, and a knowledge of the slender 

 basis on which their pretensions rested, restrained 

 them from much active interference. No one 

 in Sunderland seems to have taken the Stallingers 

 very seriously except themselves. But at one 

 time Sunderland stood to England in the relation 

 that the Colonies do to-day. The restless son 

 of the Yorkshire dalesman, chafing at the restric- 

 tions of narrow country life, was attracted to 

 Sunderland by the somewhat lawless traditions 

 of the place, while the absence of all trade 

 restrictions naturally appealed to the Scots. 

 When the stolidity and caution of the York- 

 shireman was tempered by the strenuosity and 

 enterprise of the Scotchman, a type was pro- 

 duced whose tenacity of purpose is nowhere 

 more clearly shown than in the history of the 

 struggles to overcome the natural defects of the 

 River Wear. 



But not only does the removal of the impedi- 

 ments to navigation in the Wear show the energy 

 of Sunderland. Its iron bridge, designed by 

 Tom Paine, and executed by the enterprise of 



Roland Burdon, points the same moral. It was 



among the early iron bridges in England ; ^' built 

 in 1796, its single span of iron excited the 

 greatest wonder and some alarm. A local poet 

 celebrated thus the completion of the work : — 



Sunderland Bridge 



Ye Sons of Sunderland, with shouts that rival ocean's 



roar, 

 Hail Burdon in his iron boots, that strides from shore 



to shore. 

 O may ye firm support each leg, or much, O much 



I fear 

 Poor Roland may o'erreach himself in striding cross 



the Wear. 



A Patent quickly issue out, lest some more bold than 



he 

 Should put on larger boots, and stride across the Sea ! 

 Then let us pray for speedy peace, lest Frenchmen 



should come over, 

 And, following Burden's iron plan, from Calais stride 



to Dover.' 



As an engineering feat the building of the 

 Sunderland bridge at the time was rightly re- 

 garded as marvellous, and it still claims our admira- 

 tion as the symbol of the enterprising and pro- 

 gressive spirit that dominated the town. 



Stockton was once the centre of acorn-growing 

 district, and so fruitful was the land in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Hartlepool that ' Those of the cor- 

 poration afKrm that with six weeks' warning they 

 can provide corn for an army, and the like for 

 butter and cheese.' ^ 



Even as late as 1832 about one-third of the 

 labouring class of Durham were engaged in 

 agriculture, but these t'lings seem incredible as 

 one looks at the intersecting blast furnaces, 

 collieries, engineering works, shipyards, and 

 chemical works that extend in an almost un- 

 broken line from Jarrow, through South Shields, 

 Sunderland, Hartlepool, Stockton, and Clarence, 

 to the mouth of the Tees. 



IRON AND STEEL 



The heaps of iron scoriae which still remain 

 scattered over the west of the county of Durham, 

 far distant from any known iron works of modern 

 times, point to the working of iron at a very 

 early date.^ These mounds of slag are, it is 

 true, generally in the neighbourhood of known 

 Roman stations. The iron and steel discovered 



'' The first iron bridge was over the Severn, built 

 in 1779. ^- Cunningham, Grotvlh of English Industry 

 and Commerce ; Modern Times, 525. 



' The Bishoprick Garland. Collected by Sir Cuth- 

 bert Sharp, 1834. 



' S.P.Dom.Chas.I,Feb.i638-9, vol.4i2,No. 57. 



at Vinovium may possibly be of local manu- 

 facture ; still, in the absence of the discovery 

 of tools or coins of Roman origin among 

 the slag, it remains an open question whether 

 the ore was worked during the period of 

 the Roman occupation, or not until mediaeval 

 times. 



The evidence of the Pipe Rolls of Richard I 

 and John disprove Scrivenor's statement that the 



' Sir Isaac L. Bell, ' Manufacture of Iron,' Industrial 

 Resources of Tyne, Tees, and Wear, 82 ; W. H. D. 

 LongstafFe, ' Durham before the Conquest,' Proc. 

 Arch. Inst. Newcastle, 1852, p. 72. 



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