Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a city and county of itself, seated on the north bank of the Tyne, 275 miles from London, 117 from Edinburgh, and 10 from the German Ocean. It is the seat of a bishopric founded in 1882. The city is governed by a corporation consisting of a mayor, 16 aldermen, and 48 town-councillors, and it returns two members to parliament. Pop. (1801) 28,294; (1841) 71,850; (1881) 145,359; (1891) 186,345.
During the Roman occupation of Britain the high ground overlooking the river in the neighbourhood of the castle was the site of the military station of Pons Ælii. The 'Roman wall' would probably form its northern boundary. Soon after the abandonment of Pons Ælii by the Romans, the Angles took possession of it. Subsequently it appears to have been a monastic settlement, and at the time of the Conquest was known as Monkchester. Pandon, which until 1299 was a vill quite distinct from Newcastle, is supposed to have been the place where, about 653, Peada, son of Penda, king of the Mid Angles, and Sigebert, king of the East Angles, were baptised by Bishop Finan. When the Conqueror arrived at Monkchester in 1072 there was nothing to be seen of the bridge above water, and the town was too small or impoverished to victual his army. Robert Curthose, on his return from an expedition against Malcolm in 1080, constructed a fortress here, which was named the New Castle. The south postern is probably a fragment of his work. William Rufus is stated—on doubtful authority—to have rebuilt the castle, and to have granted to the inhabitants of the growing town many privileges and immunities. He besieged the castle in 1095. The present keep—one of the most perfect examples of a Norman stronghold in the kingdom—was built between 1172 and 1177 at a cost of £911, 10s. 9d., and the Great Gate of the castle—the Black Gate, as it is now called—in 1247, at a cost of £514, 15s. 11d.
In the time of the first three Edwards the town was enclosed by a wall, 8 feet thick and over 12 feet high, which embraced in its circuit the monasteries of the Black, the White, and the Grey Friars, the Benedictine nunnery of St Bartholomew, together with the vill of Pandon. The levies for the Scottish wars were usually directed to assemble at Newcastle. In 1644 Newcastle, which had declared for the king, was besieged for ten months by the Scots under General Leslie. This loyal resistance of the town to the forces of the parliament is commemorated in the motto which it bears on its coat of arms 'Fortiter Defendit Triumphans.' Events of tragic importance in the annals of the town were the visitations of the Asiatic cholera in 1831 and 1853, and the great fire which destroyed so much of the old town in 1854.
The city occupies a striking and picturesque site, being built for the most part on steep slopes and gently rising ground. It abounds in contrasts, such as the grim old keep and the High Level Bridge; the modern Grey Street and the ancient Side; the stately stone buildings erected by Grainger and the half-timbered Elizabethan houses with projecting stories and latticed casements; the Elswick Works, a mile in extent, and Jesmond
Dene, one of the loveliest ravines in the country; the closely-packed hillsides and the rolling expanse of common called the Town Moor.
The principal remains of antiquity in Newcastle are the Norman keep; the Black Gate; the cathedral of St Nicholas; the churches of St John and St Andrew; portions of the Edwardian walls, with the Durham, Heber, Mordaunt, and Plummer towers, and the Sally-port Gate; part of the Black Friars Monastery; fragments of the houses of the Austin Friars and the Friars of the Sac; and several mansions of the 16th and 17th centuries. The church of St Nicholas, now the cathedral, is said to have been founded by Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, in 1091. This early structure was destroyed by fire in 1216. The present building belongs to the Decorated and Perpendicular periods; the nave and transepts dating from 1359, the chancel from 1368, and the tower with its beautiful architectural crown from about 1435. All that remains of the previous edifice is some masonry above the arcades, together with an Early English pillar built up in the north-east pier. The reredos, erected in 1888, is of fine unpolished Uttoxeter alabaster with splayed screens of Caen stone. In canopied niches around the central figure of Christ are statues of Northumbrian saints and the four evangelists. St John's Church, built in the latter part of Henry I.'s reign, contains much of the original Norman work, with Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular additions. St Andrew's Church dates from about 1175 to 1185, and retains some interesting Transitional features. All-Saints' Church was rebuilt in 1786-90 on the site of the church of All-Hallows, founded in the 12th century. There are twenty-one other places of worship in the city connected with the Established Church; the Roman Catholics have four churches, one being the cathedral of St Mary, erected in 1844 from the designs of Pugin; and the various other religious bodies are represented by about sixty chapels and meeting-houses.
The central part of Newcastle with its stately and ornate buildings is a monument to the genius of Richard Grainger (1798-1861), a man of lowly origin, who, by his vast building schemes, quite changed the appearance of his native town. Grey Street and Grainger Street, built in 1834-38, are the finest thoroughfares in the city. Monuments have been erected to Earl Grey (1838) and George Stephenson (1862). The town-hall, built in 1863, stands near the cathedral. Associated with it are the corporation offices and the corn-market. Other public buildings are the guildhall and exchange on the Sandhill, the former (which occupies the site of the hospital of St Catharine) dating from 1658, the Moot Hall (1810), the general post-office (1876), the central police-courts (1874), the gaol (1823-28), the Wood Memorial Hall (1870), the Trinity House (chapel, c. 1651; hall, 1721; almshouse, &c., 1782-95), the Central Exchange Newsroom and Art Gallery (1838), the Assembly Rooms (1774-76), the (branch) Bank of England (1834), the Royal Arcade (1831-32), the Butchers' Market (1835), covering an area of 13,906 sq. yd., and the barracks (1806). There are two theatres in Newcastle. The museum of the Natural History Society was erected in 1883-84 at a cost of £42,000. It contains valuable collections of British birds, fossils from the coal-measures, and a unique series of Bewick's drawings. The Literary and Philosophical Society (1793) has a library of about 40,000 volumes. The public library (1881) contains over 68,000 volumes.
There are two useful collegiate institutions in Newcastle affiliated to the university of Durham—the College of Medicine (1851) and the College of Science (1871): the College buildings were opened in 1888 and 1889. The Royal Free Grammar-school, founded in 1525, has since 1870 occupied new premises off Westmoreland Road. Among the various benevolent institutions in Newcastle are the Royal Infirmary (1751), the Jesus Hospital (1681), the Keelmen's Hospital (1701), the Trinity Almshouses (incorporated 1492), the Northern Counties Institution for the Deaf and Dumb (1861), the Flenning Memorial Hospital (1887), and the Northern Counties Orphan Institution (1876).
The Central Railway Station in Neville Street (1850) is the terminus for all the trains entering Newcastle, with the exception of those on the Blyth and Tyne section of the North-Eastern Railway, which run to New Bridge Street Station. Tramways have been laid from the centre of the city to the chief suburbs. The public pleasure-grounds of Newcastle are the Town Moor (987 acres), Castle Leazes, and Nuns Moor, the Leazes, Elswick, Brandling, Heaton, and Armstrong Parks, the Cruddas recreation-ground, and Jesmond Dene. For the Armstrong Park and Jesmond Dene, Newcastle is indebted to the munificence of Lord Armstrong.
Newcastle is connected with Gateshead by three bridges: (1) the High Level Bridge, erected in 1846-49 from the plans of Robert Stephenson and T. E. Harrison, at a cost, with the site and approaches, of £491,153. It is 1337 feet long, and consists of six cast-iron arches, which, springing from piers of solid masonry, support a railway at a height of 112 feet and a roadway at a height of 83 feet above high-water (see Vol. II. p. 440). (2) The Swing Bridge, erected 1868-76, at a cost of £233,000, on the site of the Roman, mediæval, and 18th-century bridges. The movable portion, which weighs 1450 tons and is 281 feet long, is worked by hydraulic machinery, and can be swung round in 90 seconds. (3) The Redheugh Suspension Bridge, erected 1868-71, at a cost of £35,000, is 1453 feet in length, its height from high-water mark to the under side of the arch being 87 feet. Newcastle is well supplied with water. Hay and cattle markets are held on Tuesdays, corn-markets on Tuesdays and Saturdays. The port of Newcastle is a very ancient and important one. Since 1840 between 70 and 80 million tons of stuff have been dredged from the bed of the river, which is now navigable by large vessels to Elswick. Since the river came under the jurisdiction of the Tyne Commissioners improvements on a large scale have been made. The total number of vessels using the port during the year 1889 was 14,757, of a net register tonnage of 6,914,392. The quay, the great terminus of the river-traffic of the port, is about 1540 yards in length, and, as the depth of the river there at low-water is 20 to 22 feet, vessels of large size can be moored in safety. Since the 13th century the chief trade of Newcastle has been in coal. A charter was granted by Edward III. to the burgesses to dig for coal outside the walls in 1350. The output of the northern coalfield, of which Newcastle is the centre, in 1889 was 39,101,182 tons. During this period the number of persons employed in the collieries, &c. was 115,440. In 1889 10,529,401 tons of coal and coke were shipped from the port of Newcastle. One of the principal industries of Newcastle is shipbuilding, the river Tyne being second in order of production to the Clyde. In 1889 281,710 tons of shipping were launched on the river.
The principal manufactures of Newcastle are locomotive and marine engines, machinery, heavy ordnance, carriages and harness, white and red lead, sheet and pipe lead, glass of various kinds, earthenware, chemical manures, alkali, cement, bricks, tiles, and fireclay goods, colours, shovels, grindstones, wire rope, nails, sails, &c. The most important works at Newcastle are those of Sir
W. G. Armstrong, Mitchell & Co., Limited, founded in 1847. They comprise blast-furnaces, engine-shops, foundries, and steel-works. Since the amalgamation of the original firm with that of C. Mitchell & Co., shipbuilders, at Walker, in 1882, several ships of war with their armaments have been completed at Elswick, a notable one being the ill-fated H.M.S. Victoria. From the engine-works of R. Stephenson & Co. (founded by George Stephenson in 1824), and R. W. Hawthorn, Leslie & Co., locomotive and marine engines have been sent to all parts of the world. Newcastle is the birthplace of Lords Eldon and Collingwood, Mark Akenside, Charles Hutton the mathematician, and Lord Armstrong.
See Gray's Chorographia (1649); and the histories of the town by Bourne (1736), Brand (1789), an anonymous writer—supposed to be the Rev. John Baillie (1801), E. Mackenzie (1827), Welford (3 vols. 1884-87), R. J. Charleton (1885), and J. R. Boyle (1890).