188 The Metallurgical Industry of Cleveland. [April, 



offered to them for the exploration of the district, so that they 

 might have an opportunity of studying those features which had 

 given to the district a history which, though brief, is perhaps the 

 most eventful and interesting in the whole annals of the iron manu- 

 facture. 



That history may be said, in a measure, to have commenced in 

 the year 1829, when the site of modern Middlesbrough was chosen 

 as a coal-exporting place, owin^ to its closer pro x imity to the sea 

 than the town of Stockton, which was then the eastern terminus of 

 the famous Stockton and Darlington Railway, by means of which 

 the South Durham coal-field was connected with the river Tees. 

 Since then the district of Cleveland and its capital, [Middlesbrough, 

 have had a most extraordinary career, and have acquired a won- 

 derful importance, whether regarded from a social, industrial, or 

 scientific point of view. About the time just mentioned the site 

 of Middlesbrough had only one solitary farmhouse, while at the 

 present time the municipal borough and its immediate belongings 

 contain a population of about 50,000 inhabitants. 



While the first stage of Middlesbrough history commenced in 

 1829, as already mentioned, the connection of the town with the 

 great national industry of iron-making only began in the year 

 1840-41, when a rolling-mill and other works were erected for 

 the manufacture of malleable iron on a small scale by Mr. Bolckow 

 and the late Mr. John Taughan. The former is a German, a native 

 of Mecklenburg, and the latter was a man of indomitable perse- 

 verance and unflinching industry, whose practical acquaintance with 

 iron-making had been gained while he was a workman at the world- 

 famous ironworks of Dowlais, South Wales. At the time just 

 mentioned, and for some four or five years longer, Messrs. Bolckow 

 and Yaughan brought their pig-iron from a distance and trans- 

 formed it into bars, rails, castings, &c. ; but in the year 1845 or 

 1846 they erected several small blast furnaces at Witton Park, near 

 Bishop Auckland, where they expected to secure a suitable supply 

 of ironstone to keep their furnaces employed. The supply soon 

 failed, and then they resorted to what was then known as Whitby 

 ironstone, which they obtained on the Yorkshire coast, at Skinnin- 

 grove, some ten or twelve miles from Whitby. For a time they 

 continued to work this Skinningrove ironstone, and carry it by ship 

 and by rail, and at considerable expense, all the way to Witton 

 Park to be smelted. 



The third period of the history of Middlesbrough and Cleve- 

 land began about the end of the year 1850, when the town of 

 Middlesbrough had a population of not more than 7000 inha- 

 bitants. It began with the discovery of the same deposit of iron- 

 stone almost as far inland from Skinningrove as Skinningrove is 

 distant from Whitby, and quite within sight of Middlesbrough. 



