The Hartlepool 1 Line was a substantial family, the descendants of Robert G Farndale (1833-1900)(FAR00326) who became a master book maker and show maker of Hartlepool. His descendants included Henry Farndale (1869-1952)(FAR00495), acting Sergeant in Royal Filed Artillery WW1 and Robert Farndale (1877-1936)(FAR00552), hotel manager in Hartlepool.

Other Farndales associated with Hartlepool were: George Farndale (1820-1891(FAR00271), tile maker, ironstone worker and bricklayer; John H Farndale (FAR00302) miner of West Hartlepool for was killed aged 37 by a fall of iron stone at the Poston Mines, Ormsby, Middlesborough;

Ethel Farndale (FAR00590); Mary Hannah Farndale (FAR00596); Richard George Farndale (FAR00755) who lived in Stockton, Hartlepool and then Bradford who worked in the merchant navy and later ran a pub; Wilfred Farndale (FAR00766).

Hartlepool

Hartlepool is a town in the North East of England governed as part of the Borough of Hartlepool, a unitary authority in the ceremonial county of County Durham. Hartlepool is 12 km north of Middlesbrough and 27 km south of Sunderland. Hartlepool also forms part of the Tees Valley sub-region. The borough council also controls outlying villages such as Seaton Carew, Greatham, Hart Village, Dalton Piercy and Elwick.

Hartlepool Timeline

Seventh century

Hartlepool was founded in the 7th century, around the monastery of Hartlepool Abbey. The early history of Hartlepool is confined to the brief notices of the monastery of Heruteu, which occur in Bede's life of St. Hilda. “Heiu, the first female who took the veil in Northumberland, founded the monastery of Heruteu, and soon after, retiring to Kaelcacaester, was succeeded by Hilda, as Abbess of Heruteu.” The Victoria County History – Durham, A History of the County of Durham: Volume 3 Parishes: Hartlepool, 1928: The founder of Hartlepool was Hieu, a religious woman, who, under the direction of St. Aidan, established a monastery for men and women on the promontory about 640.

Ninth century

The Danes destroyed the monastery in the 9th century but the village of Hartlepool continued through the centuries.

1153

By 1153 Hartlepool was a small busy sea port.

The village grew in the Middle Ages and its harbour served as the official port of the County Palatine of Durham. The church of St Hilda was built in the late twelfth century.

1184

The people of Hartlepool obtained from their Lord, Adam de Brus II a Charter granting them the same privileges or customs as the burgesses of Newcastle upon Tyne.

1201

King John gave Hartlepool its first charter.

Franciscan friars came to Hartlepool in the thirteenth century.

1315

Walls were built around Hartlepool in the early fourteenth century, but the town was attacked by Scottish invaders before they were completed in 1315 and the town was sacked.

1569

During the Rising of the North, the rebels entered Hartlepool but fled when a royal army approached.

1644

In January 1644 a parliamentarian army occupied Hartlepool during the Civil War.

1823

By the early nineteenth century, Hartlepool was still a small town of around 900 people, with a declining port. In 1823 the council and Board of Trade decided that the town needed new industry, so the decision was made to propose a new railway to make Hartlepool a coal port, shipping out minerals from the Durham coalfield.

But the plan was faced by local competition from new docks. The Marquis of Londonderry had approved the creation of the new Seaham Harbour. To the south the Clarence Railway connected Stockton-on-Tees and Billingham to a new port at Port Clarence (opened 1833). Further south again, in 1831 the Stockton and Darlington Railway had extended into the new port of Middlesbrough.

The Durham, History and Antiquities, The History and Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham: Volume 3, Stockton and Darlington Wards Hartlepool, 1823: The Peninsula of Hartlepool forms one of the most striking features of the Eastern coast, connected with the main shore only by a narrow neck on the North, the land stretches to the South and South-west, assuming at high water the shape of a crescent, and forming within its curve a natural harbour, secure from the Eastern winds, which prevail with violence during a great portion of the year, and throw a heavy sea on the coast, increased by the strong current which sets into the Tees' mouth. The old decaying Borough of Hartlepool, now reduced to little more than a fishing town and place of summer resort, occupies the South-western portion of the peninsula, flanking its ruined haven. The cliffs of this semi-isle towards the main sea are bold and abrupt, and at some distance the whole appears like a rocky headland, crowned with a shattered diadem of mouldering towers, the wreck of its ancient strength.

1831

Isambard Kingdom Brunel visited the town in December 1831, and wrote: "A curiously isolated old fishing town – a remarkably fine race of men. Went to the top of the church tower for a view." In 1831 the population of Hartlepool was still only 1,300.

1832

Like all nineteenth century towns, Hartlepool was dirty and unsanitary. As a result, Hartlepool suffered outbreaks of cholera in the nineteenth century. An outbreak of cholera in Hartlepool in 1832 killed 57 people. The second outbreak in 1849 killed 161 people.

1833

The council agreed the formation of the Hartlepool Dock and Railway Company (“HD&RCo”) to extend the existing port by developing new docks, and link to both local collieries and the developing railway network in the south. In 1833, it was agreed that Christopher Tennant of Yarm establish the HD&RCo, having previously opened the Clarence Railway (“CR”). Tennant's plan was that the HD&RCo would fund the creation of a new railway, the Stockton and Hartlepool Railway, which would take over the loss-making CR and extended it north to the new dock, thereby linking to the Durham coalfield.

The first bank in Hartlepool opened in 1833.

1835

A railway link from the north was established from the South Durham coal fields, together with a new port. The new docks opened in 1835.

1836

From 1836 there was a gas supply for gaslight.

1838

The area became heavily industrialised with an ironworks (established 1838) and shipyards in the docks (established in the 1870s).

1839

After Tennant died, in 1839, the running of the HD&RCo was taken over by Stockton-on-Tees solicitor, Ralph Ward Jackson. Jackson became frustrated at the planning restrictions placed on the old Hartlepool dock and surrounding area for access, so bought land which was mainly sand dunes to the south-west, and established West Hartlepool. Because Jackson was so successful at shipping coal from West Hartlepool through his West Hartlepool Dock and Railway Company and, as technology developed, ships grew in size and scale, the new town would eventually dwarf the old town.

The railway and the docks made it possible to export coal from the Durham coalfield through Hartlepool. As a result, Hartlepool boomed.

1841

Hartlepool had a population of 5,236.

1847

Further expansion led to the new town of West Hartlepool. West Hartlepool began when the owners of the railway and the owners of the docks fell out. The owners of the railway decided to build their own docks South West of the town, The 8 acres West Hartlepool Harbour and Dock opened on 1 June 1847. Almost immediately a new town sprang up nearby. It was known as West Hartlepool.

1849

After 1849 Hartlepool had a piped water supply.

1851

Hartlepool’s population had reached 9,227.

1852

On 1 June 1852 the 14 acres Jackson Dock opened on the same day that a railway opened connecting West Hartlepool to Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool. This allowed the shipping of coal and wool products eastwards, and the shipping of fresh fish and raw fleeces westwards, enabling another growth spurt in the town.

1854

Christ Church near the railway station was built in 1854.

1856

The Swainson Dock was opened on 3 June 1856, named after Ward Jackson's father-in-law.

1865

St Hilda’s hospital opened in 1865.

1878

In 1878 the William Gray & Co shipyard in West Hartlepool achieved the distinction of launching the largest tonnage of any shipyard in the world, a feat to be repeated on a number of occasions.

1881

By 1881, old Hartlepool's population had grown from 993 to 12,361, but West Hartlepool had a population of 28,000.

Ward Jackson helped to plan the layout of West Hartlepool and was responsible for the first public buildings. He was also involved in the education and the welfare of the inhabitants. In the end, he was a victim of his own ambition to promote the town: accusations of shady financial dealings, and years of legal battles, left him in near-poverty. He spent the last few years of his life in London, far away from the town he had created.

1891

In 1891 the two towns had a combined population of 64,000. By 1900 the two Hartlepools were, together, one of the three busiest ports in England.

1914

By 1913, no fewer than 43 ship-owning companies were located in the town, with responsibility for 236 ships. This made it a key target for Germany in the First World War. One of the first German offensives against Britain was the Raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby on the morning of 16 December 1914, when units of the Imperial German Navy bombarded Hartlepool, West Hartlepool, Whitby and Scarborough. Hartlepool was hit with a total of 1150 shells, killing 117 people.

Two coastal defence batteries at Hartlepool returned fire, launching 143 shells, and damaging three German ships: SMS Seydlitz, SMS Moltke and SMS Blücher. The Hartlepool engagement lasted roughly 50 minutes, and the coastal artillery defence was supported by the Royal Navy in the form of four destroyers, two light cruisers and a submarine, none of which had any significant impact on the German attackers.

Private Theophilus Jones of the 18th Battalion Durham Light Infantry, who fell as a result of this bombardment, is sometimes described as the first military casualty on British soil by enemy fire. This event (the death of the first soldiers on British soil) is commemorated by the 1921 Redheugh Gardens War Memorial together with a plaque unveiled on the same day (seven years and one day after the East Coast Raid) at the spot on the Headland (the memorial by Philip Bennison illustrates four soldiers on one of four cartouches and the plaque, donated by a member of the public, refers to the 'first soldier' but gives no name). A living history group, the Hartlepool Military Heritage Memorial Society, portray men of that unit for educational and memorial purposes.

It is now considered as one of the first attacks by a foreign country on British soil since 1066.

1928

The Victoria County History – Durham, A History of the County of Durham: Volume 3 Parishes: Hartlepool, 1928: Hartlepool stands upon a rocky peninsula on the coast of Durham. The peninsula forms the east side of a large but shallow bay, the Slake, which extends inland in a north-westerly direction. A neck of land only 500 yards across at its narrowest point, formed of blown sand, connects with the shore the headland of magnesian limestone on which the town is built. It has often been asserted that Hartlepool was once a tidal island, but there is no proof of this. The east and south coasts of the peninsula are defended by cliffs between 30 ft. and 40 ft. high, and by rocks which extend out to sea for a considerable distance, but the harbour has a sandy shore, and from the earliest times must have been a refuge for ships, although its depth at high water, before the 19th century, was not more than 8 ft. or 10 ft. There was also a smaller but deeper natural bay, the inner harbour, formed by a promontory jutting out westwards from the end of the peninsula. The outer harbour, on the south of the promontory, was formed in the 15th century by means of a pier.

Links, texts and books

A brief history of Hartlepool

History of Hartlepool