Northumberland

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Northumberland is a large county of ancient origins as an independent kingdom and one of the earliest centres of British Christianity. A great border region, it is full of peel houses and castles. The industrial development of Tyneside is confined to the south‐east corner. The rest is a shire of high fells and deep valleys, thinly populated, with small market towns like Corbridge, Haltwhistle, Morpeth, Hexham, Rothbury, Wooler, and Alnwick. Berwick‐on‐Tweed is part of Northumberland geographically, though a county in its own right.

The main northern tribe in pre‐Roman times was the Brigantes. The crossing of the Tyne at the Pons Aelium must soon have become a settlement, the nucleus of Newcastle itself. In early Saxon times, the area formed part of the kingdom of Bernicia, which joined with Deira to the south in 651 to constitute Northumbria (the land north of the Humber), which for centuries disputed supremacy with Mercia and Wessex. In the late 8th cent. the area began to suffer from Danish raids and in the following century was in conflict with the Viking kingdom of York. In 920 it submitted to Edward, king of Wessex, at Bakewell, and subsequent attempts to recover its independence were of no avail.

Northumbrian resistance to the Normans after Hastings led to William I's despoiling of the area in 1069. It was not included in the Domesday survey, having yet to recover from the devastation. In the later Middle Ages it was the first line of defence against the Scots, the border region being divided up into marches. Vast power was wielded by the local lords, particularly the Percies of Alnwick. The remoter parts of the county like Redesdale, Coquetdale, and Allendale were under fitful control, border raiding was common, and bloody encounters, like Otterburn in 1388 when Percy fought Douglas, were not uncommon. The union with Scotland in 1603 gave some respite from cattle‐raiding. The last spasm of lawlessness was produced by the Jacobite movement. Thomas Forster was supported by a number of shire gentlemen in the '15, though they did little save proclaim the old pretender at Warkworth and occupy Holy Island for one day.

In so large a county, administration was bound to be decentralized. The assizes were held in Newcastle, but the elections for the shire at Alnwick. Quarter sessions were held at Newcastle, Alnwick, Morpeth, and Hexham in turn. But Newcastle had always been by far the most important town and in the 19th cent. it grew disproportionately to its neighbours. From a base of about 28,000 in 1801, it was 87,000 by 1851, and by 1914, having swallowed its surrounding villages, had reached 271,000. The explosion was due, in the main, to coal‐mining and shipbuilding. The long‐established tradition of shipbuilding was transformed after 1850. Armstrong's works at Elswick were opened in 1847, Parsons' at Heatonin 1889. The political effect of this economic development was acknowledged in 1974 with the creation of a new county of Tyne and Wear, and although the new authority was itself abolished in 1986, the areas north of the Tyne did not return to Northumberland.

Northumberland , county (1991 pop. 300,600), 2,019 sq mi (5,229 sq km), NE England; administratively, Northumberland is a unitary authority (since 2009). Northernmost of the English counties, it is separated from Scotland by the Cheviot Hills and the Tweed River, and borders on the North Sea. The terrain is level along the rugged coast line and hilly in the interior, where high moorlands alternate with fertile valleys. Other rivers are the Tyne, the Derwent, the Wansbeck, the Till, the Alno, and the Coquet. In the past the economy was dominated by coal mining, shipping, shipbuilding and repairing, and the production of heavy electrical machinery, but these have suffered a heavy decline. Sheep and cattle are raised. Hadrian's Wall was built in Roman times. In the 6th cent. the Angles established themselves in the region, which later became the kingdom of Northumbria . The area suffered severely during the border wars between England and Scotland. In 1974, Northumberland was reorganized as a nonmetropolitan county; the small but populous and industrialized southeast (including Newcastle upon Tyne ) became part of the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear (abolished as a unit of local government in 1986).

Northumberland, Australia, UK, USA 1. Australia (Queensland): islands discovered in 1770 by Captain James Cook^† who named them after Sir Hugh Percy (1715–86), 1st Duke of Northumberland and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1763–5).2. UK (England): a county which was initially called Norohymbraland ‘Territory of the Northhymbre (or Norohymbre)’, that is, of the people living north of the River Humber, from the Old English tribal name and land. As the Latinized Northumbria it was one of the seven Anglo‐Saxon kingdoms with the name meaning the same. At that time it extended as far north as the Firth of Forth in Scotland. After the land north of the River Tweed was ceded to Scotland in 1018 the name referred to land only in England.

Northumberland County in ne England, on the border with Scotland; the county town is Morpeth. In the 2nd century ad, Hadrian's Wall was built to defend Roman Britain from the northern tribes. In the 7th century, the region became part of the Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria. The land slopes down from the Cheviot Hills in the nw, and the region is drained by the Tyne, Tweed, Blythe and Coquet rivers. The county is largely rural, the chief farming activities being cattle and sheep rearing. Barley and oats are grown and forestry is important. Coal is mined. Area: 5033sq km (1943sq mi). (1996 est.) 307,400.

Northumberland (the county). Norhumberland 1130. ‘Territory of the Northhymbre (i.e. those living north of the River Humber)’. OE tribal name + land. In Anglo-Saxon times the territory of the tribe and kingdom of the Northymbre was much larger than the present county.

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