History behind the city
The Emperor Hadrian commands the building of the Aelian Bridge around 122AD. On the site of the current Swing Bridge, it lasts until 1248, when it is destroyed by fire in 1248. After harrying the North the Norman conquerors build a wooden fort in 1080 and then a new castle in C12th. Growing prosperity is enhanced in 1292 when Edward I is persuaded to grant Newcastle a monopoly in loading coal on the Tyne.
The first recorded use of the phrase to carry coals to Newcastle is in 1538. In 1623, having perfected coal-fired glassmaking at Newcastle, Sir Robert Mansell persuades James I to prohibit wood-burning competition. Attracted by the cheap labour costs and a good transport infrastructure (the North Sea) in 1691 Ambrose Crowley establishes his ironworks on Tyneside. Over a hundred years before Robert Owen’s New Lanark, Europe’s first large-scale civilian factory has a system of industrial arbitration and a surgeon and a teacher employed for community benefit. In 1700 Newcastle is the fourth largest town in England. In 1755 its first bank is established, the second to be opened outside London. It is England’s fourth largest print centre (after London, Oxford & Cambridge).