Shipbuilding on the River Tees in 1968

Sunderland developed as a coal port but it was Sunderland's place as the largest shipbuilding town in the world that gave the town its fame. The first recorded shipbuilder was Thomas Menville at Hendon in 1346. By 1790 Sunderland was building around nineteen ships per year. It became the most important shipbuilding centre in the country in the 1830s and by 1840 there were 65 shipyards. Over 150 wooden vessels were built at Sunderland in 1850 when 2,025 shipwrights worked in the town. A further 2,000 were employed in related industries. Sunderland's first iron ships were built from 1852 and wooden shipbuilding ceased here in 1876. Sunderland Shipbuilders included Austin and Son 1826, William Pickersgill 1851 and William Doxford from 1840.

In 1678 Stockton was building ships of 200 burthen and Yarm had an early shipbuilding trade at around this time but it was in the late eighteenth century that shipbuilding really began to develop. Between 1790 and 1805 Thomas Haw of Stockton was a builder of ships for the Napoleonic wars but Middlesbrough shipbuilding did not begin until 1833 when a wooden sailing ship called 'The Middlesbrough' was built. Teesside's first iron ship was a screw steamer called 'The Advance built' at South Stockton (Thornaby)in 1854 and Teesside's first steel was 'Little Lucy' built in 1858. One famous Teesside built ship was the 377 feet long Talpore built by Pearse & Co of Stockton in 1860. It was a troop ship for the River Indus, and was the world's largest river steamer at the time.

Thomas Richardson of Castle Eden and John Parkin of Sunderland established a shipyard at Old Hartlepool in 1835 and built The Castle Eden ship. The shipbuilding company of William Gray was established here in 1862 and Gray became one of the most influential men in the town. He was the first mayor of West Hartlepool in 1887. William Gray shipbuilders won the Blue Ribband prize for maximum output in 1878, 1882, 1888, 1895, 1898 and 1900. The yard closed in 1961.

On Tyneside, South Shields born Charles Mark Palmer established a yard at Jarrow in 1851 and built its first iron collier 'The John Bowes' in the following year. It was the first ever sea-going screw collier and was built for John Bowes of Barnard Castle for shipping coal to London. Palmers were also famed for building the first rolled armour plates for warships in 1854. Other Tyneside yards included William Smith & Co who launched the 1600 ton Blenheim in 1848. W.G.Armstrong, the famous northern engineer gained interests in the Tyneside shipbuilding firm of Mitchells in 1882 and the company of W.G.Armstrong, Mitchell & Co was formed. The yard was built battleships as well as a ship called The Gluckauf, which was arguably the world's first oil tanker. It was launched by the yard in 1886.

Scotsman Charles Mitchell started building ships at Walker on Tyne in 1852 and purchased a 6.5 acre site at Wallsend in 1873 to soak up excess orders from his Walker shipyard. The new yard failed financially and was handed to his brother-in-law Charles Swan. Charles and his brother Henry were directors of the Wallsend Slipway Company, a repair yard established by Mitchell in 1871. In 1878 Charles arranged a partnership with Sunderland shipbuilder George Hunter but in 1879 Charles died after falling overboard on a channel steamer returning from the continent with his wife. Hunter went into temporary partnership with Swan's wife before becoming Managing Director in 1880. Swan Hunters built their first steel ship at Wallsend in 1884 and their first Oil Tanker in 1889.

Most early ships built at the Swan Hunter yard were smaller ships like colliers, and barges but in 1898 it built its first ocean liner 'The Ultonia'. It would build a further 21 liners in the period 1898-1903. The most famous ship ever launched was undoubtedly Mauretania, a transatlantic ocean liner launched on 20th September 1906. The ship was 790 feet long with a beam of 88 ft and a gross tonnage of 31,938 tons. It carried 2000 passengers on its maiden voyage on 16 Nov 1907 and captured the Blue Riband for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic. The record was held for twenty-two years.

A major pioneering development in marine engineering was the steam turbine invented by Charles Algernon Parsons. He patented the first steam turbine on Tyneside in 1884. Parsons, born in Ireland in 1854 was the youngest son of the Earl of Rosse and a keen inventor who worked as junior partner in the Tyneside engineering firm of Clarke Chapman. In 1894 Parsons' Marine Turbine Company launched 'The Turbinia', a famous vessel powered by electric turbines.

Shipyard closures in the twentieth century took place during economic slumps and occurred in two phases between 1909-1933 and 1960-1993. Early closures included Smiths Dock at North Shields in 1909 which became a ship repair yard, Armstrongs of Elswick in 1921, Richardson Duck of Stockton (1925), Priestman's of Sunderland (1933) and Palmers of Jarrow and Hebburn (1933). There were 28 North East closures in this period of which 14 were on the Tyne, 7 on the Wear, 6 on the Tees and 1 at Hartlepool. Six shipyards closed in the 1960s including W.Gray of Hartlepool (1961); Short Brothers of Sunderland (1964) and The Blyth Shipbuiding Company (1996). There were five closures in the region in the 1970s including the Furness yard at Haverton Hill near Stockton in 1979

In the 1980s and 90s there were nine remaining shipyards but closures continued with Hawthorn Leslie's Yard at Hebburn 1981. Further closures followed and in 1987 closure of the Smiths Dock Company Shipyard at Middlesbrough brought an end to shipbuilding on the Tees with a loss of 1,295 jobs. The following year shipbuilding ended in Sunderland with the closure of the Doxford Pallion and Austin Pickershill Yards. Tyneside's Neptune Yard was closed in the same year leaving only Swan Hunter Shipbuilders at Wallsend. This was the region's last shipyard and closed in 1993.