Place:Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland, England

NameNewcastle upon Tyne
Alt namesNewcastle upon Tynesource: from redirect
Newcastlesource: Van Marle, Pittura Italiana (1932)
Newcastle-upon-Tynesource: Family History Library Catalog
Pons Aeliisource: Canby, Historic Places (1984) II, 651
Pons Aeliussource: Blue Guide: England (1980) p 655
Shieldfieldsource: Family History Library Catalog
Bell's Closesource: settlement in borough
TypeBorough (county)
Coordinates54.978°N 1.613°W
Located inNorthumberland, England     ( - 1974)
Also located inTyne and Wear, England     (1974 - )
See alsoCity of Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, Englandmetropolitan borough which replaced it in 1974
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
source: Family History Library Catalog
source: Family History Library Catalog


NOTE: Although not as large as Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle under Lyme is a fairly large town in Staffordshire, England. They are completely different places.
the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Newcastle upon Tyne, commonly known as Newcastle, is a city which, since 1974, has been located in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear in northeast England. Before 1974 it was part of the ceremonial county of Northumberland. It is situated on the northwest bank of the estuary of the River Tyne and its centre is 8.5 mi (13.7 km) from the North Sea. Newcastle lies at the urban core of Tyneside, the seventh most populous conurbation in the United Kingdom. On the opposite bank of the Tyne is the town of Gateshead which used to be in County Durham.

Newcastle was fully a part of the county of Northumberland until 1400, when it became a county of itself, a status it retained until becoming part of the Tyne and Wear metropolitan county in 1974.

A "county of itself" was a local administration created during the Middle Ages, and was effectively a small self-governing county. While it was administratively distinct, with a sheriffs and lord lieutenant, it remained part of the "county at large" for purposes such as the county assize courts. From the 17th century the separate jurisdictions of the counties corporate (the plural form of "county of itself") were increasingly merged with that of the surrounding county, so that by the late 19th century the title was mostly a ceremonial one. For this reason WeRelate considers Newcastle upon Tyne to be part of Northumberland until the creation of Tyne and Wear in 1974.

The city developed in the location of the Roman settlement called Pons Aelius. It was named for the castle built in 1080, by Robert Curthose, William the Conqueror's eldest son. The city grew as an important centre for the wool trade in the 14th century, and it later became a major coal mining area. The port developed in the 16th century and, along with the shipyards lower down the Tyne, was amongst the world's largest shipbuilding and ship-repairing centres. These industries have now died away, but Newcastle's economy includes corporate headquarters, learning, digital technology, retail, tourism and cultural centres.

The regional nickname and dialect for people from Newcastle and the surrounding area is Geordie.

Population estimates for mid-2014 were almost 290,000 for the City of Newcastle, almost 880,000 for the urban area, and 1,650,000 for the whole of Tyne and Wear.

Before the introduction of civil parishes in 1837, Newcastle upon Tyne had many ecclesiastical parishes responsible for their own registers of births, marriages and deaths. Three of the ecclesiastical parishes, Newcastle upon Tyne All Saints, Newcastle upon Tyne St. Andrew, and Newcastle upon Tyne St. John, were made civil parishes and considered places for birth, marriage and death registrations as well as census districts up until 1914 when these tasks became the duty of the borough of Newcastle itself. A list of Newcastle's ecclesiastical parishes can be found in A Vision of Britain through Time.

Image:Northumberland se corner 1935-1974.png

History

For a summary, see Wikipedia on Newcastle upon Tyne
For an expanded discussion, see the Wikipedia article History of Newcastle upon Tyne

Research Tips

  • Northumberland Archives previously known as Northumberland Collections Service and Northumberland County Record Office. Now based within Woodhorn Museum in Ashington and providing free access to numerous records for local and family historians alike.
Full postal address: Museum and Northumberland Archives, Queen Elizabeth II Country Park, Ashington, Northumberland, NE63 9YF; Phone: 01670 624455
There is a branch office in Berwick upon Tweed.
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Newcastle upon Tyne. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.