Hartlepool, United Kingdom

During the Norman Conquest, the De Brus family gained over-lordship of the land surrounding Hartlepool. William the Conqueror subsequently ordered the construction of Durham Castle and the villages under their rule were mentioned in records, in 1153, when Robert de Brus, 1st Lord of Annandale became Lord of Hartness. The town's first charter was received before 1185, for which it gained its first mayor, an annual two-week fair and a weekly market. The Norman Conquest affected the settlement's name to form the Middle English Hart-le-pool ("The Pool of the Stags").

By the Middle Ages, Hartlepool grew into an important market town. One of the reasons for its growing wealth was that its harbour was the official port of the County Palatine of Durham. With fishing as the main industry, Hartlepool became one of the primary ports on England's Eastern coast.

In 1306, Robert the Bruce was crowned King of Scotland and became the last Lord of Hartness. King Edward I confiscated the title to Hartlepool and began to improve the town's military defences in expectation of war. In 1315, before they were completed, a Scottish army under Sir James Douglas attacked, captured and looted the town.

In the late 15th century, a pier was constructed to assist in the harbour's workload.

Hartlepool was once again militarily occupied by a Scottish incursion, this time in alliance with the Parliamentary Army during the English Civil War which, after 18 months, was relieved by an English Parliamentarian garrison.

In 1795, Hartlepool artillery emplacements and defences were constructed in the town as a defensive measure against the threat of French attack from seaborne Napoleonic forces. During the Crimean War, two coastal batteries were constructed close together in the town to guard against the threat of seaborne attacks from the Imperial Russian Navy. They were entitled the Lighthouse Battery (1855) and the Heugh Battery (1859).

Hartlepool, in the 18th century, became known as a town with medicinal springs, particularly the Chalybeate Spa near the Westgate. The poet Thomas Gray visited the town in July 1765 to "take the waters", and wrote to his friend William Mason:

"I have been for two days to taste the water, and do assure you that nothing could be salter and bitterer and nastier and better for you... I am delighted with the place; there are the finest walks and rocks and caverns."

A few weeks later, he wrote in greater detail to James Brown:

The rocks, the sea and the weather there more than made up to me the want of bread and the want of water, two capital defects, but of which I learned from the inhabitants not to be sensible. They live on the refuse of their own fish-market, with a few potatoes, and a reasonable quantity of Geneva [gin] six days in the week, and I have nowhere seen a taller, more robust or healthy race: every house full of ruddy broad-faced children. Nobody dies but of drowning or old-age: nobody poor but from drunkenness or mere laziness.

By the early 19th century, Hartlepool was still a small town of around 900 people, with a declining port. In 1823, the council and Board of Trade decided that the town needed new industry, so the decision was made to propose a new railway to make Hartlepool a coal port, shipping out minerals from the Durham coalfield. It was in this endeavour that Isambard Kingdom Brunel visited the town in December 1831 and wrote: "A curiously isolated old fishing town – a remarkably fine race of men. Went to the top of the church tower for a view."

The plan faced local competition from new docks; 16 mi (25 km) to the north, the Marquis of Londonderry had approved the creation of the new Seaham Harbour (opened 31 July 1831), while to the south the Clarence Railway connected Stockton-on-Tees and Billingham to a new port at Port Clarence (opened 1833). Further south, in 1831, the Stockton and Darlington Railway had extended into the new port of Middlesbrough.

The council agreed the formation of the Hartlepool Dock and Railway Company (HD&RCo) to extend the existing port by developing new docks, and link to both local collieries and the developing railway network in the south. In 1833, it was agreed that Christopher Tennant of Yarm establish the HD&RCo, having previously opened the Clarence Railway (CR). Tennant's plan was that the HD&RCo would fund the creation of a new railway, the Stockton and Hartlepool Railway, which would take over the loss-making CR and extended it north to the new dock, thereby linking to the Durham coalfield.