Hartlepool

Hartlepool is an industrial port town in County Durham, England. It is governed by a unitary authority borough named after the town. The borough is part of the devolved Tees Valley area with an estimated population of 92,600.
The old town was founded in the 7th century, around the monastery of Hartlepool Abbey, on a headland. As the village grew into a town, in the Middle Ages, its harbour served as the County Palatine of Durham's official port. The new town of West Hartlepool was created, in 1835, after a new port was built and railway links from the South Durham coal fields and from Stockton-on-Tees were created. A parliamentary constituency covering both the old town and West Hartlepool was created, in 1867, called The Hartlepools. The two towns were formally merged into a single borough called Hartlepool, in 1967. Following the merger, the name of the constituency was changed from The Hartlepools to just Hartlepool, in 1974. The modern town centre and main railway station are both at what was West Hartlepool; the old town is now generally known as the Headland.
Industrialisation and the start of a shipbuilding industry in the later part of the 19th century meant it was a target for the Imperial German Navy at the beginning of the First World War. A bombardment of 1,150 shells on 16 December 1914 resulted in the death of 117 people in the town. A severe decline in heavy industries and shipbuilding following the Second World War caused periods of high unemployment until the 1990s when major investment projects and the redevelopment of the docks area into the Hartlepool Marina saw a rise in the town's prospects. The town also has a seaside resort called Seaton Carew.

History

The place name derives from Old English heort, referring to stags seen, and pōl, a pool of drinking water which they were known to use. Records of the place-name from early sources confirm this:

649: Heretu, or Hereteu.
1017: Herterpol, or Hertelpolle.
1182: Hierdepol.
Town on the heugh

A Northumbrian settlement developed in the 7th century around an abbey founded in 640 by Saint Aidan upon a headland overlooking a natural harbour and the North Sea. The monastery became powerful under St Hilda, who served as its abbess from 649 to 657. The 8th-century Northumbrian chronicler Bede referred to the spot on which today's town is sited as "the place where deer come to drink", and in this period the Headland was named by the Angles as Heruteu. Archaeological evidence has been found below the current high tide mark that indicates that an ancient post-glacial forest by the sea existed in the area at the time.
The Abbey fell into decline in the early 8th century, and it was probably destroyed during a sea raid by Vikings on the settlement in the 9th century. In March 2000, the archaeological investigation television programme Time Team located the foundations of the lost monastery in the grounds of St Hilda's Church. In the early 11th century, the name had evolved into Herterpol.

Hartness

During the Norman Conquest, the De Brus family gained over-lordship of the land surrounding Hartlepool. William the Conqueror subsequently ordered the construction of Durham Castle, and the villages under their rule were mentioned in records, in 1153, when Robert de Brus, 1st Lord of Annandale became Lord of Hartness. The town's first charter was received before 1185, for which it gained its first mayor, an annual two-week fair and a weekly market. The Norman Conquest affected the settlement's name to form the Middle English Hart-le-pool.
By the Middle Ages, Hartlepool grew into an important market town. One of the reasons for its growing wealth was that its harbour was the official port of the County Palatine of Durham. With fishing as the main industry, Hartlepool became one of the primary ports on England's Eastern coast.
In 1306, Robert the Bruce was crowned King of Scotland, and became the last Lord of Hartness. King Edward I confiscated the title to Hartlepool, and began to improve the town's military defences in expectation of war. In 1315, before they were completed, a Scottish army under Sir James Douglas attacked, captured and looted the town.
In the late 15th century, a pier was constructed to assist in the harbour's workload.

Garrison

Hartlepool was once again militarily occupied by a Scottish incursion, this time in alliance with the Parliamentary Army during the English Civil War, which after 18 months was relieved by an English Parliamentarian garrison.
In 1795, Hartlepool artillery emplacements and defences were constructed in the town as a defensive measure against the threat of French attack from seaborne Napoleonic forces. During the Crimean War, two coastal batteries were constructed close together in the town to guard against the threat of seaborne attacks from the Imperial Russian Navy. They were entitled the Lighthouse Battery and the Heugh Battery.
Hartlepool, in the 18th century, became known as a town with medicinal springs, particularly the Chalybeate Spa near the Westgate. The poet Thomas Gray visited the town in July 1765 to "take the waters", and wrote to his friend William Mason:
A few weeks later, he wrote in greater detail to James Brown:

Town by the strand

By the early nineteenth century, Hartlepool was still a small town of around 900 people, with a declining port. In 1823, the council and Board of Trade decided that the town needed new industry, so the decision was made to propose a new railway to make Hartlepool a coal port, shipping out minerals from the Durham coalfield. It was in this endeavour that Isambard Kingdom Brunel visited the town in December 1831, and wrote: "A curiously isolated old fishing town – a remarkably fine race of men. Went to the top of the church tower for a view."
But the plan faced local competition from new docks. to the north, the Marquis of Londonderry had approved the creation of the new Seaham Harbour, while to the south the Clarence Railway connected Stockton-on-Tees and Billingham to a new port at Port Clarence. Further south again, in 1831 the Stockton and Darlington Railway had extended into the new port of Middlesbrough.
The council agreed the formation of the Hartlepool Dock and Railway Company to extend the existing port by developing new docks, and link to both local collieries and the developing railway network in the south. In 1833, it was agreed that Christopher Tennant of Yarm establish the HD&RCo, having previously opened the Clarence Railway. Tennant's plan was that the HD&RCo would fund the creation of a new railway, the Stockton and Hartlepool Railway, which would take over the loss-making CR and extended it north to the new dock, thereby linking to the Durham coalfield.
After Tennant died, in 1839, the running of the HD&RCo was taken over by Stockton-on-Tees solicitor, Ralph Ward Jackson. But Jackson became frustrated at the planning restrictions placed on the old Hartlepool dock and surrounding area for access, so bought land which was mainly sand dunes to the south-west, and established West Hartlepool. Because Jackson was so successful at shipping coal from West Hartlepool through his West Hartlepool Dock and Railway Company and, as technology developed, ships grew in size and scale, the new town would eventually dwarf the old town.
The West Hartlepool Harbour and Dock opened on 1 June 1847. On 1 June 1852, the Jackson Dock opened on the same day that a railway opened connecting West Hartlepool to Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool. This allowed the shipping of coal and wool products eastwards, and the shipping of fresh fish and raw fleeces westwards, enabling another growth spurt in the town. This in turn resulted in the opening of the Swainson Dock on 3 June 1856, named after Ward Jackson's father-in-law.
In 1878, the William Gray & Co shipyard in West Hartlepool achieved the distinction of launching the largest tonnage of any shipyard in the world, a feat to be repeated on a number of occasions. By 1881, old Hartlepool's population had grown from 993 to 12,361, but West Hartlepool had a population of 28,000. Ward Jackson helped to plan the layout of West Hartlepool and was responsible for the first public buildings. He was also involved in the education and the welfare of the inhabitants. In the end, he was a victim of his own ambition to promote the town: accusations of shady financial dealings, and years of legal battles, left him in near-poverty. He spent the last few years of his life in London, far away from the town he had created.

World Wars

Hartlepool during the First World War
File:Memorial to the first British soldier killed on British soil during the Great War - geograph.org.uk - 429905.jpg|thumb|In Hartlepool near Heugh Battery, a plaque in Redheugh Gardens War Memorial "marks the place where the first... struck... the first soldier was killed on British soil by enemy action in the Great War 1914–1918."
The area became heavily industrialised with an ironworks and shipyards in the docks. By 1913, no fewer than 43 ship-owning companies were located in the town, with the responsibility for 236 ships. This made it a key target for Germany in the First World War. One of the first German offensives against Britain was a raid and bombardment by the Imperial German Navy on the morning of 16 December 1914,
Hartlepool was hit with a total of 1150 shells, killing 117 people. Two coastal defence batteries at Hartlepool returned fire, launching 143 shells, and damaging three German ships: SMS Seydlitz, SMS Moltke and SMS Blücher. The Hartlepool engagement lasted roughly 50 minutes, and the coastal artillery defence was supported by the Royal Navy in the form of four destroyers, two light cruisers and a submarine, none of which had any significant impact on the German attackers.
Private Theophilus Jones of the 18th Battalion Durham Light Infantry, who fell as a result of this bombardment, is sometimes described as the first military casualty on British soil by enemy fire. This event is commemorated by the 1921 Redheugh Gardens War Memorial together with a plaque unveiled on the same day at the spot on the Headland. A living history group, the Hartlepool Military Heritage Memorial Society, portray men of that unit for educational and memorial purposes.
Hartlepudlians voluntarily subscribed more money per head to the war effort than any other town in Britain.
Hartlepool between the wars
On 4 January 1922, a fire starting in a timber yard left 80 people homeless and caused over £1,000,000 of damage. Hartlepool suffered badly in the Great Depression of the 1930s and endured high unemployment.
Hartlepool during the Second World War
Unemployment decreased during the Second World War, with shipbuilding and steel-making industries enjoying a renaissance. Most of its output for the war effort were "Empire Ships". German bombers raided the town 43 times, though, compared to the previous war, civilian losses were lighter with 26 deaths recorded by Hartlepool Municipal Borough and 49 by West Hartlepool Borough. During the Second World War, RAF Greatham was located on the South British Steel Corporation Works.