INDUSTRIES 



Mr. Softley, and the trade developed so rapidly 

 under his sole management that by 1881 exten- 

 sions in the yard became necessary. In 1905 

 the firm, J. Readhead & Sons, turned out eight 

 vessels of the average size of 3,530 tons. 



J. P. Rennoldson & Sons, who started the 

 first engineering works at South Shields in 1826, 

 are also shipbuilders. Their special line is tugs 

 of 200 or 300 tons. They built seven of these 

 during 1905. 



J. T. Eltringham & Co. are another ship- 

 building firm at South Shields, but they are 

 better known as makers of marine boilers. 



South Shields was the birth-place of the life- 

 boat. To settle the exact question of the man 

 to whom the invention was really due is almost 

 impossible. Greathead is described as the inven- 

 tor on his tombstone in Saint Hilda's churchyard. 

 He received a parliamentary grant of 1,200 

 guineas, 100 guineas from Trinity House, 

 60 guineas and their silver medal from the 

 Society of Arts, and a diamond ring from the 

 Emperor of Russia for his work. But many 

 people defend Mr. Woulhave's claim, and still 

 more think that the invention was really due to 

 suggestions from various sources. Many facts in 

 connexion with the building are fortunately in- 

 controvertible. It was built at South Shields by 

 subscription, under the inspection of a committee 

 of whom Nicholas Fairies was chairman, by 

 Mr. Greathead, to whom the idea of a curved 

 keel was entirely due. 



The terrible catastrophe, the wreck of the 

 Adventure at South Shields in September, 1 789, at 

 the entrance to the harbour, when the men 

 dropped from the rigging, exhausted by cold 

 and hunger, into the sea before the eyes of 

 thousands of helpless spectators, was the imme- 

 diate cause of the effort to build a boat that 

 would live in the stormiest sea. It was first 

 used on 30 June, 1790, when several sailors 

 were saved. Whatever doubt hangs over the 

 real inventor, no one has ever disputed that 

 South Shields was the home of the invention.* 7 



In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries 

 Hartlepool was the best-known port on the 

 north-east coast. In the list of the fleet before 

 Calais drawn up in 1346, 'Hartilpole has con- 

 tributed five ships and 145 men." 8 In 1565 it 

 possessed one ship, the Peter, belonging to John 

 Brown and George Smith, also three five-men 

 boats and seventeen small cobbles. 1 * As late as 

 1614 it is spoken of as the only port town within 

 the county of Durham, although some twenty 

 years later the three travellers from Norwich 

 allude to it even then as only interesting on 

 account of its antiquity. 



every twelve howers. This hath been formerly a 

 brave stately and well fortifyed Towne, now only a 

 sea land habitation for Fishermen." 



But Hartlepool is completely overshadowed 

 by West Hartlepool, an entirely nineteenth-cen- 

 tury growth. When Queen Victoria came to 

 the throne, a mill and a farm-house were the 

 only buildings where the populous town now 

 stands. Ralph Ward Jackson founded West 

 Hartlepool, as some say, with the idea of having 

 a port in Durham to rival Liverpool. The 

 docks were begun in 1845 in connexion with 

 the Stockton and Darlington Railway, and though 

 it has not grown with the rapidity some of its 

 promoters expected, it is now an important ship- 

 building centre with a total gross tonnage of 

 128,898 tons. 



The oldest firm, Messrs. William Gray & Co., 

 was begun at Old Hartlepool by Mr. William 

 Gray, in partnership with Mr. Denton, who had 

 opened a shipbuilding yard there in 1836. In 

 1864 the new firm, Denton, Gray & Co., 

 launched their first iron steamer. Five years 

 later the firm removed to the yard in West 

 Hartlepool that had been worked since 1853 b X 

 Pile Spence & Co. When in full work about 

 six thousand men are employed. The firm have 

 six times headed the list with the greatest output 

 in the United Kingdom ; the last time they held 

 the blue ribbon was in 1900. In 1901, although 

 their total tonnage, 82,262, was a few hundred 

 tons greater than in 1 900, they were beaten by 

 a Belfast firm and have not yet regained their 

 supremacy. In 1883 it was determined to add 

 an engineering department ; the marine engine 

 works were opened in 1885 ; they have since 

 been extended, and now cover almost ten acres 

 of ground. 



Another enterprising shipbuilding firm at 

 West Hartlepool is that of Messrs. Furness, 

 Withy & Co., who were the first to adopt the 

 use of electricity as a motive power throughout 

 their shipyard. They have built to the order 

 of the Wilsons and Furness-Leyland Line, the 

 Chesapeake and Ohio S.S. Co., the Hamburg- 

 American and Allan Line. In 1905 they built 

 ten vessels, average size 4,459 tons. The chair- 

 man, Sir Christopher Furness, is also chairman of 

 Irvine's, the third shipbuilding yard at West 

 Hartlepool. 



Bishop Pudsey, fired with the desire to go on 

 the crusades, had, according to Hutchinson, a 

 large vessel built either at Hartlepool or Stock- 

 ton," but he did not carry out his intentions. 

 In the history of the Exchequer the further 

 career of the ship is narrated. 



Likewise that ancient decayed Coast Towne wch it 

 surrounded some halfc a mile with the maine Sea 



17 J. Salmon, op. cit. I f-i 5. 



" R. Hakluyt, rtjagti, i, 124. 



" S.P. Dom. Eliz. Addenda, loc. cit. 



37 



Et in reparatione Magnae Navis quae fuit Epis- 

 copi Dunclemensis xij xv/. iijV. ob. . . . Et in 



10 'A Relation of a Short Survey of 26 Counties, 

 1634.' Lansd. MSS. 213, fol. 320. Printed, Stuart 

 Sfr. vii. " Hutchinson, Hist. e/Dttr. i, 175. 



