The Making Of The Tyne

Whilst the early modern period has long been recognized as witnessing a growth in trade and consumerism, the majority of studies to date have tended to focus upon London and southern England. In order to provide a more balanced understanding of the dynamics at work on a national level, this book explores the local economy and waterborne trades of Newcastle and the River Tyne, in North East England. Drawing upon a variety of primary sources - including parish records, probate inventories, Newcastle Exchequer port books and the previously unpublished diary of an apprentice hostman - none of which have been examined previously in this context, the study adds significantly to our understanding of the growing community in North East England. In particular, it underlines the expansion of a thriving middling class with an associated culture of consumption driving a rapid increase in the import, and often re-export of a wide range of luxury items of food, clothing and soft furnishings. As the coal trade and a flourishing general trade with London and other home and overseas ports grew, the book highlights the major impact upon the size and variety of work in the port, and the subsequent increasing size and complexity of the water trades community and its associated business networks.

This book is the product of the 2nd World Conference on Environmental History, held in Guimarães, Portugal, in 2014. It gathers works by authors from the five continents, addressing concerns raised by past events so as to provide information to help manage the present and the future. It reveals how our cultural background and examples of past territorial intervention can help to combat political and cultural limitations through the common language of environmental benefits without disguising harmful past human interventions. Considering that political ideologies such as socialism and capitalism, as well as religion, fail to offer global paradigms for common ground, an environmentally positive discourse instead of an ecological determinism might serve as an umbrella common language to overcome blocking factors, real or invented, and avoid repeating ecological loss. Therefore, agency, environmental speech and historical research are urgently needed in order to sustain environmental paradigms and overcome political, cultural an economic interests in the public arena. This book intertwines reflections on our bonds with landscapes, processes of natural and scientific transfer across the globe, the changing of ecosystems, the way in which scientific knowledge has historically both accelerated destruction and allowed a better distribution of vital resources or as it, in today’s world, can offer alternatives that avoid harming those same vital natural resources: water, soil and air. In addition, it shows the relevance of cultural factors both in the taming of nature in favor of human comfort and in the role of the environment matters in the forging of cultural identities, which cannot be detached from technical intervention in the world. In short, the book firstly studies the past, approaching it as a data set of how the environment has shaped culture, secondly seeks to understand the present, and thirdly assesses future perspectives: what to keep, what to change, and what to dream anew, considering that conventional solutions have not sufficed to protect life on our planet.

The Tyne Bridge, opened in 1928 by King George V, is one of Britain’s most iconic structures, a Grade II* listed building. Linking Newcastle and Gateshead, this symbol of Tyneside and the region is also a monument to the Tyne’s industrial past. Paul Brown’s popular history explores what the bridge means to the people of North-East England, and its deep connection with their heritage. Brown recounts the story of the bridge’s predecessors, from the Roman Pons Aelius–the first crossing over the Tyne–to the Victorian era. He then brings to life the individuals who built the modern bridge: Ralph Freeman, the structural engineer who also designed the Sydney Harbour Bridge; Dorothy Buchanan, the first female member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, who produced drawings and calculations; John Carr, the boatman who bravely rescued workers from the Tyne on dozens of occasions; and the scaffolder Nathaniel Collins, the only man not to survive construction of the arch, who fell from the bridge just weeks before its completion. This richly illustrated book charts the Tyne Bridge’s story right to the present, exploring how it remains a North-Eastern cultural emblem, in a region that has changed almost unrecognisably since its heyday in the late 1920s.

The development of the coalfield and the riparian manufacturing districts moulded new industrial landscapes; the growth of ports and conurbations demanded innovative approaches to government and administration; and the business strategies of North East entrepreneurs challenged conventional boundaries. The author concludes that riverside districts, on the Tyne, Tees and Wear, represented more viable working horizons than any 'regional' North East in this era, and raises important questions about the study of the English regions in their historical context."--Jacket.