The Industrial Revolution brought momentous change throughout the
country and shaped a significant industrial force in the Tees Valley.
How this transformation was achieved is revealed as the towns and
villages along the Tees are visited and the entrepreneurs, inventors and
innovators who drove the industrialisation are discussed. This book
takes the reader from Middleton in Teesdale, where the London Lead Co.
set up its headquarters, to Barnard Castle and its 'dark satanic mills',
Darlington's Quaker dynasties, the expanding port of Stockton-on-Tees
and the new town of South Stockton with its shipbuilders, potteries and
engineers. Then to Prime Minister Gladstone's 'infant Hercules',
Middlesbrough, where the discovery of ironstone in the local hills
brought the Cleveland 'gold rush'. Soon the banks of the river were
lined with blast furnaces producing the nation's iron. The Industrial
Revolution in the Tees Valley is packed with illustrations from the time
together with modern photographs highlighting how the area's heritage
can still be explored.