Pease Family Dynasty
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Preface
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After completing two books on North Country characters the family of the Peases impressed me as much as any. 'The Father of the Railways', Edward, found the balance of £7000, which was needed to progress the legislation for the S&D Railways when all else had failed; saving years of delay in the Companies second application. Edward also backed the Stephenson's in their engineering works at Fourth Street, Newcastle enabling them to produce the brilliant Locomotives that was the start of a wonderful transport system throughout the world. Joseph, Edwards second son put an equal amount of work into coal and colliery's, owning many in the North of England transporting the coal on the family owned railways. The family also showed that they could work hand in hand with the miners in adversity at the sad time of strikes and recession. At the time of the 'Ironstone Boom', in Middlesbrough Joseph and the family backed 'Bolckow & Vaughan', in their quest to develop the ironstone from the Cleveland Hills, also converting their own coal operation into coke to support the production of iron; they even had bailiffs removed from Bolckow & Vaughan sites when the partners had cash flow problems. Advise came from the family on the re-structure of Middlesbrough to make it into the thriving port it is today. Although Darlington benefited from Libraries, Alms Houses, Market Halls, Market areas, Cemeteries, most of the North of England were grateful for Miners Hospital's and Schools, Mechanics and Miner's Institute's, Assembly Rooms', But the family can be remembered mainly for their part played in the early Railways. Edward Pease in the years prior to his death kept diaries that made compelling reading, with his views on nature, British and World affairs and his religious views; these were made public some years ago,edited by A.E. Pease but are long out of print and I have again made selected years available to the public: