page_title: North East England
section_title: Iron and steel
hierarchical_section_title: North East England / Industrial heritage / Iron and steel
caption_attribution_description: English: Small circular watercolour by John Bell (1814-1886) of Bell Brothers ironworks under construction at Port Clarence, Teesside, about 1853.
context_page_description: North East England is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of NUTS for statistical purposes. It covers Northumberland, County Durham, Tyne and Wear, and the area of the former county of Cleveland in North Yorkshire. The region is home to three large conurbations: Teesside, Wearside, and Tyneside, the last of which is the largest of the three and the eighth most populous conurbation in the United Kingdom. There are three cities in the region: Newcastle upon Tyne, the largest, Sunderland, also in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear; and Durham. Other significant towns include Barnard Castle, Berwick Upon Tweed, Darlington, Gateshead, Hartlepool, Hexham, Middlesbrough, South Shields, Stockton-on-Tees, Washington and Yarm.
context_section_description: Before 1846 Walbottle, Elswick, Birtley, Ridsdale, Hareshaw, Wylam, Consett, Stanhope, Crookhall, Tow-Law and Witton Park all had iron works but the discovery of a rich seam of iron ore to the south of the region gradually drew iron and steel manufacture towards Teesside.
  
  In 1850 iron ore was discovered in the Cleveland Hills near Eston to the south of Middlesbrough and Iron gradually replaced coal as the lifeblood of Eston. The ore was discovered by geologist John Marley and first utilised by John Vaughan, the principal ironmaster of Middlesbrough who along with his German business partner Henry Bolckow had already established a small iron foundry and rolling mill using iron stone from Durham and the Yorkshire coast, with the new discovery prompting them to build Teesside's first blast furnace in 1851. Many more iron works followed, such as those built in the region by Losh, Wilson and Bell (see Sir Issac Lowthian Bell) who in 1853 were operating 5 furnaces in the region.
  The success of John Vaughan and Henry Bolckow's first blast furnace meant that by 1873 Middlesbrough was producing 2 million tonnes of pig iron a year. Iron was in big demand in Britain in the late 19th century, particularly for the rapid expansion of the railways. More and more blast furnaces were opened in the vicinity of Middlesbrough to meet this demand such that by the end of the century Teesside was producing about a third of the nation's iron output. Middlesbrough, which became known by its nickname "Ironopolis", was visited in 1862 by then prime minister William Ewart Gladstone who said "This remarkable place, the youngest child of England's enterprise, is an infant, but if an infant, an infant Hercules"
  By the 1870s steel, a much stronger and more resilient metal, was in big demand and Middlesbrough had to compete with Sheffield as the major producer. In 1875 Bolckow and Vaughan opened the first Bessemer Steel plant in Middlesbrough and the River Tees then become known as  "The Steel River" leaving its old nickname "Ironopolis" behind. In 1881 Hugh Reid (Liberal politician) described how "The iron of Eston has diffused itself all over the world. it furnishes the railways of the world; it runs by neapolitan and papal dungeons; it startles the bandit in his haunt in cicilia; it crosses over the plains of Africa; it stretches over the plains of India. it has crept out of the Cleveland Hills where it has slept since Roman days, and now like a strong and invincible serpent, coils itself around the world"
  By 1929 the great depression began to effect Britain and the famous name of Bolckow-Vaughan merged with neighbour Dorman-Long & Co. who then became Britain's biggest iron and steel maker and employed 33,000 people. In 1954 the post-war boom saw Dorman-Long build a state of the art steelworks at Lackenby and then new blast furnaces at Clay Lane. 1967 saw Dorman-Long become part of the nationalized British Steel Corporation as production boomed in Britain and in 1979 the largest blast furnace in Europe was erected at BSC's new Redcar plant. This plant which was subsequently acquired and operated by Chorus, Tata Steel and then Sahaviriya Steel Industries (SSI) who are still the plant operating today.
caption: Watercolour painting of the Bell Ironworks under construction at Port Clarence, by John Bell, c. 1853
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