The Oldest Geordie: Environmental History of the River Tyne

Rivers are at the heart of defining the identity and lifestyle of
many cities around the world, and that is nowhere stronger than
in Newcastle on Tyne in the Northeast of England on the banks of
the River Tyne. The people who live on the banks of the Tyne are
fiercely proud of their river. Once the river was an industrial
powerhouse of the British Empire, and by the 1880s the Port of
Tyne exported the most coal in the world, and the river was
amongst the world's largest shipbuilding and ship-repairing
centres.


There has been much consideration of how the River Tyne has
shaped Tyneside and Tynesiders, but very little appreciation of
the enormous extent to which people have shaped the river. To
bear out this invisible history of the river, historian Leona
Skelton, a Post-Doctoral Research Assistant at the University of
Bristol, has worked on a research project that challenges us to
think from a river’s perspective and to include in our river
histories the flow pathways which rivers ‘wanted’ to follow,
regardless of the changes that humans have forged upon the river.
On episode 69 of the Exploring Environmental History
Podcast Leona challenges us to look at a river as an
historical actor with its own agency.


Leona’s Research was part of the British Arts and Humanities
Research Council funded environmental history initiative “The
Power and the Water: Connecting Pasts with Futures”, that focuses
on environmental connectivities that have emerged in Britain
since industrialisation.


Music credits


"So Cold" by @nop, available from ccMixter


"Clash" by zorza, available from ccMixter


"Healing" by Stefan Kartenberg, available
from ccMixter