It’s part of the significance of the S&DR to understand how it built a region.
Our line, the S&DR, would never have existed as we know it without Tyneside engineering OR the business skill of Quakers. Their investment was existential to the 1825 line and to the 1830 Middlesbrough Estate, but then continued full speed under Sir Joseph Pease (1799-1872), whose companies are usually quoted as attaining 10,000 workers.
However, his story* is usually about Darlington, its grand houses and politics rather than the integrated business combine of railway extensions, new villages and mines in the Durham coalfield. The talk identifies his ten coal mines by 1869 with successive extensions of the S&DR rail companies, notably the 1858 route using more inclines to reach the Deerness valley at Esh Winning, one of the Quaker built villages where historians do find a better benevolent layout with schools etc.
*As in editions of the Northern Echo Memories and our Workshop at the Darlington Meeting House: https://www.sdr1825.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/The-Quaker-Line-Alan-Townsend-Ed.pdf
This free talk is part of the S&DR lecture series going on through the Summer. The talk is given by Professor Alan Townsend, Vice Chair Friends of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, Emeritus Professor of Geography, Durham University.
The Friends of the S&DR was set up in 2013 to safeguard and promote the heritage of the railway, amidst concerns that what remained of the line was under threat from neglect and redevelopment.
Formed from a wide range of people from all walks of life, with a shared passion for our railway heritage and significant individual expertise, the Friends have a wealth of knowledge of the history of the line.