History of Ship Building in Hartlepool

[caption id="attachment_2029" align="alignnone" width="707" caption="Central Dock 1905"][/caption]

The history of Hartlepool and West Hartlepool is bound up with the sea. Local people have made their living, and sometimes their fortunes.

Modern shipbuilding began in Hartlepool in 1836, with the building of the Castle Eden by the Hartlepools General Shipping Company. It ended in 1961 with the Blanchland, the last ship built by William Gray and Company Limited. The years in between saw the change from wooden sailing ships to iron steamships to steel tankers, and the growth of an industry that would shape the town for over 120 years.

Thomas Richardson of Castle Eden and John Parkin of Sunderland established a shipyard at Old Hartlepool in 1835 and built The Castle Eden ship. The shipbuilding company of William Gray was established here in 1862 and Gray became one of the most influential men in the town. He was the first mayor of West Hartlepool in 1887.William Gray shipbuilders won the Blue Ribband prize for maximum output in 1878, 1882, 1888, 1895, 1898 and 1900. The yard closed in 1961.

West Hartlepool Docks were built for the Stockton and Hartlepool Railway Company as a way of avoiding charges for the use of Hartlepool Docks. The immediate success of the new harbour, controlled by the West Hartlepool Harbour and Railway Company from 1853 to 1865, led to the construction of further docks. The docks were amalgamated with those in Hartlepool in 1865 by the North Eastern Railway. 

Such were the docks’ importance, that during the First World War it was the first site on British soil to be attacked by German warships. It was also bombed during the Second World War.

There has been a fishing haven at Hartlepool since medieval times, but it was not until 1813 that the ‘Port of Hartlepool Commissioners was formed, and the first pier built. However, it was said that attempts to improve the natural harbour were ‘thwarted by fishermen’. Then, in 1832, the Hartlepool Dock & Railway Co was formed (later to become part of the North Eastern Railway) and in 1835, a railway from Haswell and Thornley in County Durham carried the first coals for shipment from Hartlepool.

The development of the harbour thereafter was remarkably rapid. The enclosed Victoria Dock was opened in 1842, the Hartlepool West Harbour & Dock Co was formed in 1844, with the aim of developing facilities at what became known as West Hartlepool so as to draw coal shipments away from the River Tees, opening the Jackson Dock in 1852 and the Swainson Dock in 1856.

By 1862 the harbour comprised some 44 acres, of which 32 acres were in the three deep water docks, and the port of Hartlepool had become one of the most successful coal exporters in the North East. Coal and coke exports peaked in the late 1920s, only to decline remorselessly thereafter, the last coal cargo leaving the port in 1971.