page_title: Newcastle upon Tyne
section_title: 16th to 19th centuries
hierarchical_section_title: Newcastle upon Tyne / History / 16th to 19th centuries
caption_attribution_description: Newcastle-upon-Tyne from New Chatham engraving by William Miller after Thomas Allom, published in Westmoreland, Cumberland, Durham &amp; Northumberland. Illustrated from original drawings by Thomas Allom etc. With historical &amp; topographical descriptions by Thomas Rose. Fisher Son and Co., London 1832
context_page_description: Newcastle upon Tyne, often shortened to simply Newcastle, is a city in Tyne and Wear, England. Located on the northern bank of the River Tyne, it is 8.5 mi from the North Sea. Newcastle is the most populous city in North East England and forms the core of the Tyneside conurbation, the eighth most populous urban area in the United Kingdom. It is a member of the UK Core Cities Group, as well as the Eurocities network of European cities. It was part of the county of Northumberland until 1400, when it became a county of itself, a status it retained until becoming part of Tyne and Wear in 1974.
  The regional nickname and dialect for people from Newcastle and the surrounding area is Geordie. Newcastle has two universities: Newcastle University, a member of the Russell Group, and Northumbria University. It is a member of the North of Tyne Combined Authority. The city developed around the Roman settlement Pons Aelius and was named after the castle built in 1080 by William the Conqueror's eldest son Robert Curthose. In the 14th century, the city grew as an important centre for the wool trade and later became a major coal mining area.
context_section_description: From 1530, a royal act restricted all shipments of coal from Tyneside to Newcastle Quayside, giving a monopoly in the coal trade to a cartel of Newcastle burgesses known as the Hostmen. This monopoly, which lasted for a considerable time, helped Newcastle prosper and develop into a major town. The phrase taking coals to Newcastle was first recorded contextually in 1538. The phrase itself means a pointless pursuit.
  In the 18th century, the American entrepreneur Timothy Dexter, regarded as an eccentric, defied this idiom. He was persuaded to sail a shipment of coal to Newcastle by merchants plotting to ruin him; however, his shipment arrived on the Tyne during a strike that had crippled local production, allowing him to turn a considerable profit.
  In the Sandgate area, to the east of the city, and beside the river, resided the close-knit community of keelmen and their families. They were so called because they worked on the keels, boats that were used to transfer coal from the river banks to the waiting colliers, for export to London and elsewhere. In the 1630s, about 7,000 out of 20,000 inhabitants of Newcastle died of plague, more than one-third of the population. Specifically within the year 1636, it is roughly estimated with evidence held by the Society of Antiquaries that 47% of the then population of Newcastle died from the epidemic; this may also have been the most devastating loss in any British city in this period.
  During the English Civil War, the North declared for the King. In a bid to gain Newcastle and the Tyne, Cromwell's allies, the Scots, captured the town of Newburn. In 1644, the Scots then captured the reinforced fortification on the Lawe in South Shields following a siege and the city was besieged for many months. It was eventually stormed ("with roaring drummes") and sacked by Cromwell's allies. The grateful King bestowed the motto "Fortiter Defendit Triumphans" ("Triumphing by a brave defence") upon the town. Charles I was imprisoned in Newcastle by the Scots in 1646–7.
  In the 18th century, Newcastle was the country's fourth largest print centre after London, Oxford and Cambridge, and the Literary and Philosophical Society of 1793, with its erudite debates and large stock of books in several languages, predated the London Library by half a century. Newcastle also became a glass producer with a reputation for brilliant flint glass.
  A permanent military presence was established in the city with the completion of Fenham Barracks in 1806.
  The Great fire of Newcastle and Gateshead was a tragic and spectacular series of events starting on Friday 6 October 1854, in which a substantial amount of property in the two North East of England towns was destroyed in a series of fires and an explosion which killed 53 and injured hundreds.
  The status of city was granted to Newcastle on 3 June 1882. In the 19th century, shipbuilding and heavy engineering were central to the city's prosperity; and the city was a powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution. This revolution resulted in the urbanisation of the city. In 1817 the Maling company, at one time the largest pottery company in the world, moved to the city. The Victorian industrial revolution brought industrial structures that included the 2 ¹⁄₂-mile (4 km) Victoria Tunnel, built in 1842, which provided underground wagon ways to the staithes. On 3 February 1879, Mosley Street in the city, was the first public road in the world to be lit up by the incandescent lightbulb. Newcastle was one of the first cities in the world to be lit up by electric lighting. Innovations in Newcastle and surrounding areas included the development of safety lamps, Stephenson's Rocket, Lord Armstrong's artillery, Be-Ro flour, Joseph Swan's electric light bulbs, and Charles Parsons' invention of the steam turbine, which led to the revolution of marine propulsion and the production of cheap electricity. In 1882, Newcastle became the seat of an Anglican diocese, with St. Nicholas' Church becoming its cathedral.
caption: An engraving by William Miller of Newcastle in 1832
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "400", "Image YResolution": "400", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2007:05:16 22:21:09", "Image ExifOffset": "176", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "314", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2495", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1686"}