Tyneside
Tyneside
Geordieland Newcastle-Gateshead | |
---|---|
Built-up area | |
UTC+1 (BST) |
Tyneside is a
The population of Tyneside as published in the
Politically, the area is mainly covered by the
Settlements
The ONS 2011 census had 774,891 census respondents inside the "Tyneside Built-up Area" or "Tyneside Urban Area".[3] These figures are a decline from 879,996;[4] this loss was mainly due to the ONS reclassifying Hetton-le-Hole, Houghton-le-Spring, Chester-le-Street and Washington in the Wearside Built-up Area instead of Tyneside. In both the 2001 and 2011 census the area was given the following subdivisions; Gateshead, Jarrow and Tynemouth had boundary changes:
Subdivision | Population ( 2011 ) |
Population ( 2001 )
|
---|---|---|
Newcastle |
292,200 | 259,573 |
Gateshead | 120,046 | 78,403 |
South Shields | 75,337 | 82,854 |
Tynemouth | 67,519 | 17,056 |
Wallsend | 43,826 | 42,843 |
Jarrow | 43,431 | 27,525 |
Geordies
The people of Newcastle, called "Geordies", have a reputation for their distinctive dialect and accent. Newcastle may have been given this name, a local diminutive of the name "George", because their miners used George Stephenson's safety lamp (invented in 1815 and called a "Georgie lamp") to prevent firedamp explosions, rather than the Davy lamp used elsewhere. An alternative explanation relates that during the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745 the people of Newcastle declared their allegiance to the Hanoverian Kings of Great Britain, George I and George II; whereas the rest of the county of Northumberland, to the north, stood loyal to James Francis Edward Stuart.
Coal production
While Newcastle upon Tyne had been an important local centre since Roman times, and was a major local market town from the Middle Ages, the development of Newcastle and Tyneside is owed to
Steel and shipbuilding
The Derwent (valley), a major tributary of the Tyne that rises in County Durham, saw the development of the steel industry from around 1600 onwards. This was led by German immigrant cutlers and sword-makers, probably from around Solingen, who fled from religious persecution at home and settled in the then village of Shotley Bridge, near Consett.
The combination of coal and steel industries in the area was the catalyst for further major industrial development in the 19th century, including the
Professional competitive rowing on the Tyne
From early in the 19th century, it was a custom to hold boat races on the Tyne. The Tyne had a large number of keelmen and wherrymen, who handled boats as part of their jobs. As on the River Thames, there were competitions to show who was the best oarsman. As a wherryman did not earn very much, competitive rowing was seen as a quick way of earning extra money. Regattas were held, and provided modest prizes for professionals, but the big money was made in challenge races, in which scullers or boat crews would challenge each other to a race over a set distance for a side stake. The crews would usually have backers, who would put up the stake money, as they saw the chance of financial gain from the race. In the days before mass attendances at football matches, races on the river were enormously popular, with tens of thousands attending. Betting would go on both before and during a race, the odds changing as the fortunes of the contestants changed. Contestants who became champions of the Tyne would often challenge the corresponding champions of the River Thames, and the race would be arranged to take place on one of the two rivers.
Rivalry between the Tyne and the Thames was very keen, and rowers who upheld the honour of the Tyne became local heroes. Three such oarsmen, who came from humble backgrounds and became household names in the North East, were Harry Clasper, Robert Chambers and James Renforth. Clasper was a champion rower in fours, as well as an innovative boat designer and a successful rowing coach. Chambers and Renforth were oarsmen who excelled at sculling. Both held the World Sculling Championship at different times. The popularity of all three men was such that when they died, many thousands attended their funeral processions, and magnificent funeral monuments were provided by popular subscription in all three cases. At the end of the 19th century professional competitive rowing on the Tyne began a gradual decline and would die out entirely leaving the amateur version.[6]
Rapper dancing
Despite its rapid growth in the Industrial Revolution, Tyneside developed one peculiar local custom, the rapper sword dance, which later spread to neighbouring areas of Northumberland and County Durham.
Industrial decline and regeneration
During the 1970s and 1980s, there was major
From the late 1980s onward, an improving national economy and local regeneration helped the area to recover, and although unemployment is still a problem compared with some other areas of Britain, expansion of new industries such as
Economy
This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of Tyneside at current basic prices published by the Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British pounds sterling.[7]
Year | Regional gross value added[a] | Agriculture[b] | Industry[c] | Services[d] |
---|---|---|---|---|
1995 | 7,688 | 9 | 2,244 | 5,435 |
2000 | 9,930 | 8 | 2,567 | 7,356 |
2003 | 11,895 | 9 | 2,865 | 9,021 |
References
- ^ Pointer, Graham. "The UK's major urban areas" (PDF). statistics.gov.uk. Retrieved 8 April 2007.
- ^ "Mid-2012 Population Estimates". Gateshead.gov.uk. August 2013. Archived from the original on 29 April 2014. Retrieved 27 January 2014.
- ^ "2011 Census - Built-up areas". ONS. Archived from the original on 21 September 2013. Retrieved 1 July 2013.
- ^ "UK Government Web Archive". Archived from the original on 22 October 2012. Retrieved 3 October 2013.
- ISBN 0-900963-39-5.
- ISBN 0-901273-42-2.
- ^ Office for National Statistics. pp. 240–253 Archived 2007-12-01 at the Wayback Machine.