Thomas Richardson (1821-1891)

Thomas Richardson (1821-1891) of T. Richardson and Sons

1821 Born in Easington, son of Thomas Richardson (1795-1850)

1843 Married Maria Anna Pearson Greenwell in Sunderland

1846 Birth of first son, Thomas

1850 Thomas and his brother John inherited an iron foundry and a shipbuilding business on the death of their father, Thomas Richardson.

1851 Thomas Richardson 29, iron merchant, lived in Easington with Maria Richardson 28, Thomas Richardson 4, Henry Richardson 2

1855 they changed the name of the firm to Richardson Brothers

1858 Thomas Richardson of Hartlepool Iron Works, Hartlepool.

1871 Thomas Richardson 49, engineer and iron master, Maria Richardson 45, Thomas Richardson 23, engineer and iron master, Henry Richardson 22, engineer and iron master, William John Richardson 19, student at Cambridge, Charles Ed Richardson 17, Eleanor Richardson 8, Alice Richardson 8

MP for the Hartlepools at various times; first held the seat as a Liberal but seceded on the introduction of Mr. Gladstone's first Home Rule Bill.

1884 He built Kirklevington Hall

At the General Election of 1886 he won the Hartlepools for Unionism

1891 Died; buried in Stockton on Tees

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1891 Obituary

THOMAS RICHARDSON, head of the well-known marine engineering works at West Hartlepool, was the son of a wood contractor under the Earl of Durham, who, at a later date, became a shipbuilder at the Hartlepools. To this business that of marine engineering was added in 1838, and his son Thomas was placed in the new works at the age of seventeen. At the time of his father's decease in 1850, Thomas Richardson became the head of the engineering works, and has since largely developed their productive capacity. The first marine engine constructed at these works was built in 1851, but for a number of years previously they had been occupied with the building of locomotive and land engines. The Hartlepool Works have been distinguished in the history of triple expansion engines, having adopted that system at an early date, and applied it within recent years on a large scale.

During the year preceding the decease of Mr. Thomas Richardson, the works of which he was the head produced as many as thirty-three sets of triple expansion engines and boilers, of 45,000 h.-p., as well as 132 crank and propeller shafts. This is one of the largest, if not quite the largest, marine engine h.-p. produced by a single establishment in the United Kingdom, and it may be taken as an evidence of the enterprise of the firm, and of its success.

Mr. Richardson was elected to represent the Hartlepools in Parliament in 1874. Since then he has been returned for the same constituency four several times, and has sat altogether for eleven years as Member for that important borough. In politics he was a Liberal. He took an active interest' for many years in local affairs, and acted as one of the Port and Harbour Commissioners.

In 1843 he married a Sunderland lady, by whom he has a family of four sons and two daughters. He was a member of the Institution of Naval Architects, and was one of the original members of the Iron and Steel Institute.

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