Background
Thomas Richardson, a bill broker and Quaker from Stamford Hill, London, was the cousin of Edward Pease. [2] Pease proposed the Stockton & Darlington Railway (S&DR) in 1818, and Richardson invested in the scheme, owning fifty £100 shares by 1823. [3] Elected to the S&DR management committee, [4] Richardson also became a partner in the locomotive manufacturers Robert Stephenson & Co. in 1823. [5] The S&DR suffered financial difficulties in the first few years of operation, Richardson guaranteeing £10,000 of the debt in October 1825. [6] By 1830 Richardson owned 141 S&DR shares; [7] Richardson was also director of companies such as the Middlesbrough and Redcar and Wear Valley Railway, which were formed to expand the S&DR. [8]
Stamford Hill is an area of Inner London, England, located about 5.5 miles north-east of Charing Cross. The neighbourhood is a sub-district of Hackney, the major component of the London Borough of Hackney, and is known for its Jewish Chasidic community, the largest concentration of Charedi Hasidic Jews in Europe.
Edward Pease, a woollen manufacturer from Darlington, England, was the main promoter of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, which opened in 1825. He is sometimes referred to as the "Father of the Railways".
Soon after opening the export of coal had become the S&DR main business, but the facilities at the port in Stockton proved inadequate. A branch to a new port at Middlesbrough, south of the Tees, was approved by S&DR shareholders on 26 October 1827. [9] Before May 1929 Richardson had bought 500 acres (200 ha) near Port Darlington from William Chilton of Billingham, and with Joseph and Edward Pease and others he formed the Owners of the Middlesbrough Estate to develop it. [10] [11] Middlesbrough had only a few houses before the coming of the railway, [12] but a year later had a population of over 2,000 and at the 2011 census had over 138,000 people. [13] [14]
Stockton-on-Tees is a market town in County Durham, England. The town has a population of 105,682, with a population of 238,000 in the wider borough, according to 2017 estimates.
Middlesbrough is a large industrial town on the south bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire, northeast England, founded in 1830. The local council, a unitary authority, is Middlesbrough Borough Council. The 2011 Census recorded the borough's total resident population as 138,400 and the wider urban settlement with a population of 174,700, technically making Middlesbrough the largest urban subdivision in the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire. Middlesbrough is part of the larger built-up area of Teesside which had an overall population of 376,333 at the 2011 Census.
The River Tees is in northern England. It rises on the eastern slope of Cross Fell in the North Pennines, and flows eastwards for 85 miles (137 km) to reach the North Sea between Hartlepool and Redcar near Middlesbrough.
In 1844 he retired to North Riding of Yorkshire, selling all but 10 shares in the S&DR. [7]
The North Riding of Yorkshire is one of the three historic subdivisions (ridings) of the English county of Yorkshire, alongside the East and West ridings. From the Restoration it was used as a lieutenancy area, having been part of the Yorkshire lieutenancy previously. The three ridings were treated as three counties for many purposes, such as having separate quarter sessions. An administrative county was created with a county council in 1889 under the Local Government Act 1888 on the historic boundaries. In 1974 both the administrative county and the Lieutenancy of the North Riding of Yorkshire were abolished, being succeeded in most of the riding by the new non-metropolitan county of North Yorkshire.
