William George Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong, was an English engineer and industrialist who founded the Armstrong Whitworth manufacturing concern on Tyneside. He was also an eminent scientist, inventor and philanthropist. In collaboration with the architect Richard Norman Shaw, he built Cragside in Northumberland, the first house in the world to be lit by hydroelectricity. He is regarded as the inventor of modern artillery.
Newcastle upon Tyne, or simply Newcastle, is a cathedral city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is England's northernmost metropolitan borough, located on the River Tyne's northern bank opposite Gateshead to the south. It is the most populous settlement in the Tyneside conurbation and North East England.
Saysutshun Provincial Park, formally known as Newcastle Island Marine Provincial Park, is a provincial park located on a small island off the coast of Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada.
Timothy Dexter was an American businessman noted for his eccentric behavior and writings. He became wealthy through marriage and a series of improbably successful investments, and spent his fortune lavishly. Though barely educated or literate, Dexter considered himself "the greatest philosopher in the Western World", and authored a book, A Pickle for the Knowing Ones, which espouses his views on various topics and became notorious for its unusual misspellings and grammatical errors.
Flogging a dead horse is an idiom meaning that a particular effort is futile, being a waste of time without a positive outcome, e.g. such as flogging a dead horse, which will not compel it to do useful work.
The Royal Grammar School (RGS), Newcastle upon Tyne, is a selective British private day school for pupils aged between 7 and 18 years. Founded in 1525 by Thomas Horsley, the Mayor of Newcastle upon Tyne, it received royal foundation by Queen Elizabeth I and is the city's oldest institution of learning. It is one of seven schools in the United Kingdom to bear the name "Royal Grammar School", of which two others are part of the independent sector.
Wylam is a village and civil parish in the county of Northumberland, England. It is located about 10 miles (16 km) west of Newcastle upon Tyne.
The history of Newcastle upon Tyne dates back almost 2,000 years, during which it has been controlled by the Romans, the Angles and the Norsemen amongst others. Newcastle upon Tyne was originally known by its Roman name Pons Aelius. The name "Newcastle" has been used since the Norman conquest of England. Due to its prime location on the River Tyne, the town developed greatly during the Middle Ages and it was to play a major role in the Industrial Revolution, being granted city status in 1882. Today, the city is a major retail, commercial and cultural centre.
Marcus Samuel, 1st Viscount Bearsted,, known as Sir Marcus Samuel between 1898 and 1921 and subsequently as The Lord Bearsted until 1925, was a Lord Mayor of London and the founder of the Shell Transport and Trading Company, which was later restructured including a Netherlands-based company commonly referred to as Royal Dutch Shell.
Henry Fiennes Pelham-Clinton, 2nd Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne, KG, PC was born in London, the second son of the 7th Earl of Lincoln.
The Blyth and Tyne Railway was a railway company in Northumberland, England, incorporated by Act of Parliament on 30 June 1852. It was created to unify the various private railways and waggonways built to carry coal from the Northumberland coalfield to Blyth and the River Tyne, which it took control of on 1 January 1853. Over time, the railway expanded its network to reach Morpeth (1857/8), North Seaton (1859), Tynemouth (1860/1), Newcastle upon Tyne (1864), and finally Newbiggin-by-the-Sea (1872). It became part of the much larger North Eastern Railway in 1874.
Ashington is a town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, with a population of 27,864 at the 2011 Census. It was once a centre of the coal mining industry. The town is 15 miles (24 km) north of Newcastle upon Tyne, west of the A189 and bordered to the south by the River Wansbeck. Many inhabitants have a distinctive accent and dialect known as Pitmatic. This varies from the regional dialect known as Geordie.
The Incorporated Company of Hostmen of Newcastle upon Tyne, often called the Hostmen's Company of Newcastle, is a company incorporated by royal charter of 22 March 1599/1600. Analogous to a livery company of the City of London, it still exists. It is best known to economic historians as a cartel of businessmen who formed a monopoly to control the export of coal from the River Tyne in North East England. They were so known from the medieval practice of "hosting", whereby local businessmen provided visiting merchants with accommodation and introduced them to local traders. The Hostmen acted as middlemen with whom the coal producers and those who shipped the coal to London and elsewhere were forced to deal.
Tahlee is a heritage-listed former pastoral property of 68.8 hectares in the suburb of Tahlee situated on the north side of Port Stephens near Karuah in New South Wales, Australia. It is the original site of the Australian Agricultural Company and more recently the location of the former Tahlee Bible College. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
Archaeological evidence indicates that human beings have inhabited the area around Newcastle, New South Wales for at least 6500 years. In 2009, archaeologist uncovered over 5,534 Aboriginal artefacts, representing three occupation periods. In the 1820s, the Reverend Lancelot Threlkeld worked with local Awabakal man Biraban to record the Awabakal language. Since 1892, the Indigenous people of Newcastle have come to be known as the Awabakal.
There were two interlinked railways on the south shore of the Solway Firth.
The Brandling Junction Railway was an early railway in County Durham, England. It took over the Tanfield Waggonway of 1725 that was built to bring coal from Tanfield to staiths on the River Tyne at Dunston. The Brandling Junction Railway itself opened in stages from 1839, running from Gateshead to Wearmouth and South Shields. Wearmouth was regarded at the time as the "Sunderland" terminal.
The Carlisle Canal opened in 1823, linking Carlisle to the Solway Firth, to facilitate the transport of goods to and from the city. It was a short-lived venture, being replaced in 1854 by a railway which used the canal bed for most of its route.
A Pickle for the Knowing Ones is an 1802 autobiographical book written by American businessman Timothy Dexter. The book uses unorthodox spelling and grammar conventions, and contains almost no punctuation. Dexter was a rich businessman and eccentric, known for gaining his wealth through lucky investments like sending coals to Newcastle at the time of a miners' strike. The book includes complaints about things such as politicians and the clergy, while Dexter praises his own glory and even says that he should be the emperor of the United States. The second edition is noted for containing pages of punctuation in the appendix.
