How Worsall's Role As a Port Came to an End ; My Singer Father

Evening Gazette › September 19, 2009

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Summary

Company was founded in 1812 to operate seven schooners between the town and London. In 1821 no less than 34,000 pack-horse loads of lead, equating to 3,000 wagon loads, headed to the Tees via Richmond, but production diminished in latter decades due to the increased costs of mining deteriorating, veins of galena (lead ore) and foreign competition. The innovation of Stockton's railway in 1825 was ultimately to prove terminal to shipping in the navigable upper reach of the Tees, though Peirseburgh had finally ceased operations in 1820. Despite the advent of the nearby railway, in the mid-1800s it was claimed that "Yarm maintains a considerable trade, principally carried on the River, by means of barges of 40-60 tons burden. There are also vessels of 80-100 tons which trade from Yarm to Boston (Lincolnshire) and various Scottish ports, vessels which draw seven feet of water proceeding from Stockton to Yarm on one side.

" The undeniable fact remained that Stockton could accommodate incoming vessels of 150 tons burden from the coast (on only a single tide after the Mandale and Portrack loops in the Tees were cut in 1810 and 1830, thus saving more than four miles). By comparison, Yarm could only accommodate only craft of 60-100 tons burden and maritime trade petered out decades later, shipbuilding having ended there in 1844. Though Stockton initially prospered at the expense of Yarm's ports, its own maritime death-knell was sounded by the success of Middlesbrough's wharves and docks, exacerbated by an extension of the very railway that had initially proved such a boon to the older town. Inevitably, as the demand for bigger vessels with smaller crews forced maritime trade downstream, Middlesbrough itself now retains only a vestige of its former shipping, the bulk of which is now accommodated near the mouth of the Tees at Teesport. Sadly, Peirseburgh's quay, disused since 1820, is now obscured by the presence of a water pumping station, so the Ship Inn is the only reminder of its former connection with the sea.

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How Worsall's Role As a Port Came to an End ; My Singer Father

IRENE TAYLOR, of Ingleby Barw...

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