3-071-231 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Middlesbrough in 1832, (1881). 'The Jubilee, [50th anniversary], of the flourishing town of Middlesbrough-on-Tees, seat of the great Cleveland iron trade of North Yorkshire, was celebrated last Thursday...The growth of Middlesbrough is a remarkable feature of recent social history. In less than the lifetime of many men, pasture land and corn-fields have given place to numerous ironworks, thousands of houses and shops, and miles of streets. Half a century ago, a solitary farm-house alone marked the site of the capital of the great iron-making district on the north-east coast. Then as the mariner passed by the straggling, shallow, wayward Tees between Stockton and the sea, "he saw only the milkmaid and her cow, the ploughman and his team." There are persons still living who remember Middlesbrough as it was in its rural obscurity - when cattle and sheep browsed where the oldest part of the town stands'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.