Aspects of North East Regional Identity

Bill Lancaster dates the formation of the North East’s modern identity to the 1860s, when the region was at the height of its industrial success.  This generated images of industrial activity.  For example, William Bell Scott’s Iron and Coal (1861) is a famous painting of North East industry.  It presents a harsh, but heroic view of Newcastle quayside.  This is a scene of furious energy, rendered with a Pre-Raphaelite attention to detail.  You have heroic male workers striving over the blazing furnace.  In the background you can see the High Level Bridge, designed by the great engineer Robert Stephenson.  This also features in Get Carter.  The High Level Bridge stands as a monument to Tyneside industry.  There’s an equation between the hardworking men and the monuments of industry.   Here North East regional identity is forged from industrial myths.  The exchange of such images reached a peak in the 1860s.  

Iron and Coal by William Bell Scott

In this context, a highly significant building is Neville Hall in Newcastle (1869-72).  This was built as the headquarters of the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers.  This was the centre of the mining industry in the North East of England.  This was the place where local coal barons would meet.  The presence of this building defined Newcastle as the centre of the coal trade. 

Neville Hall

The interior features emblems of mining, such as a carved image of King Coal surrounded by the tools of the trade.  Coal helped to fuel the Industrial Revolution; coal was king in the North East.

Neville Hall interior

Victorian Newcastle was keen to celebrate its industrial heroes.  The monument to George Stephenson, who built the world’s first railway, is a case in point.  Stephenson was born into poverty in Wylam, Northumberland, but his statue presents him as an intellectual and visionary.  He is wearing a huge scarf over his Victorian clothes to make it look like he’s wearing a toga.  He looks like a Classical hero.  Allegorical figures recline on the stone base alongside emblems of the industries to which Stephenson contributed. 

Stephenson Monument

A monument was also built to Lord Armstrong, who was the richest and most powerful person in Newcastle’s history.  He was an arms manufacturer.  He sold guns to both sides of the American Civil War, and he built warships that were sold to the navies of Japan and Russia.  Armstrong’s Elswick Works was a huge industrial complex which extended along a two-mile stretch of river.  The monument celebrates Armstrong’s industrial achievements.  For example, he built the Swing Bridge over the Tyne, which is depicted here. 

Armstrong Monument

These images were controlled by Newcastle’s most powerful citizens, the people who profited from industry.  Newcastle was dominated by an elite class made up of coal barons and shipping magnates.  These figures also dominated local culture.