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South of the Border: is the North East English?

Dr. Robert Colls, from the Department of Economic and Social History at the University of Leicester argued strongly for the North East as a distinctive region within Britain, neither English nor Scottish. In South of the Border: is the North East English? he argued that, like many border countries, the North East has an identity based on a long history of difference from both Scotland and the rest of England and therefore needs its own regional government. Over the past 20 years in the North East at any rate, the state has lost its rapport with the nation it is supposed to represent.

His lecture started with a clear definition of the region as identified in Fawcett's classic work, The Provinces of England. The North East encompasses what was Cumberland, Westmoreland, Northumberland, Durham, and the north riding of Yorkshire. Some have argued that Westmoreland and Cumberland should not be part of it, but Charles Bungay Fawcett, who drew up a map of the 'North province' in 1919, argued that they are part of the natural region by virtue of a shared geography and similar economy. Fawcett's 'natural' North East was vindicated during the war when central government reproduced it operationally.

Strangely, although in Robert Colls' view the North East has always been a distinct region, there was very little mention of it as 'the North East' anywhere in the 19th century. During that time it was seen as an industrial boom area, a radical hot bed, an immigrant territory, the 'Wild West' of England.

To demonstrate the point that in the North East the current polity is definitely losing touch with the region Robert Colls quoted from a number of newspapers and magazines. The quotes covered a wide range of views, from the economic historian W. D. Rubinstein in Capitalism, Culture and Decline in Britain dismissing the economic contribution of the North East with a thesis that Britain never really had an industrial economy, but rather a commercial/financial one with a brief period of factory capitalism - to 19 Magazine describing the North East as 'traditionally the area of industrial decline'. It appears that its greatest tradition, said an amused and horrified Robert Colls, is to decline!

The crux of Robert Colls' argument is that the North East is not quintessentially English, but British and its history says so. The region first became adrift from 'England' when in the eighth and ninth centuries, after Alfred had consolidated the Southern Kingdom, leaving the old kingdom of Northumbria isolated and threatened. Despite Alfred's strength, however, he could not stretch far enough north to establish his power, and the Northern Kingdom became wedged between Pictish kingdoms to its north and Danish ones in the south.

Attempts to bring the North under Norman overlordship in the 11th century by making Durham a palatinate and giving its bishop extensive powers, and building a stone castle at Newcastle, at first failed when the Bishop of Durham met a brutal end. It remained an 'earldom' outside the throne, and briefly in the 12th and early 13th century parts came under Scotland's protectorate. After that it was dominated by a series of powerful families, including, most notably, the Percys - 'marcher lords' with powers of life or death on the borders.

In the Jacobite rebellion the Northumbrian gentry wavered, some joined the rebellion, some did not. Newcastle locked its gates to the rebels, earning, some say, as supporters of King George, the name 'Geordies'.

When Victorian children went to school they were told that the North East was different because it was the last part of England to be absorbed into the British state. With that entry came new laws and property rights. Later, with the industrial revolution Tyneside became arguably the first industrial region in the world. The period from 1826 to 1926 was the North East's heyday. It had strong coal, engineering and shipping industries, and, along with Manchester it represented the new industrial England. W. G. Armstrong, inventor of the gun which carries his name, a very rich and influential man, contributed hugely to the civic identity of Newcastle and revived the idea of the old Northumbrian Kingdom.

So strong was the North of England during this industrial period that the South felt that its identity was becoming overshadowed, and responded by devising a version of Englishness linked essentially to the countryside. From about the 1880s the notion of the green and pleasant land prevailed again. County loyalty was encouraged with, among other things, the emergence of county regiments and county cricket. By contrast the North East was shut out from this kind of Englishness. It had no elite military or naval establishments, no county pre-occupations, no ancient universities, no thatched villages, not even any peasants to speak of. The North East had more in common with Cardiff or Glasgow than Berkshire or Oxfordshire, and, far from cricket Association Football was the sport that bound it together.

After the Second World War, for the first and only time in its history the organized power of North East people found real expression in national government. From 1945 to 1950 the big battalions of the trade union shared the reins of power in the Atlee government. It was to prove however a belated expression of a power that was already on the wane.

A brief manufacturing revival in the 1950s and 1960s was followed by a long, slow falling away of the North East's industrial power. Coal mining, which underpinned the economy, all but disappeared. So did the major engineering industries. In the 1980s the North East suffered the final indignity of having its local government taken away. The old grandees who had believed in the region, or had said they did, such as the powerful Cumbrian Tory Willie Whitelaw, simply ducked in the face of Margaret Thatcher southern centralized onslaught.

Now, in the era where the North East is hugely dependent on the centralised state in a global economy, Robert Colls believes something has to give in its relation with the state or it will produce very serious social and political problems.

The historical success of the British state over three hundred years shows that it is able to turn again and accommodate change. The campaign for a Northern assembly started in 1992. New hope came in 1998 when five Parliamentary Acts began to break up the old United Kingdom: The Government of Wales Act, The Scotland Act, The Northern Ireland Act, The Regional Development Agencies Act and The Greater London Authority Referendum Act. Devolution for these places leaves the question: 'what is "England" if the regions devolve as well?'

Robert Colls concluded with some important questions and answers. Is the North East English? Best to say it is British and start from there. Is the North East a myth? Yes, but like all good fictions it gets better the closer it is to reality. Are the North Easterners Europeans? Yes, definitely, and in ways deeper than politics can encompass.

There is now a large statue waiting to greet arrivals to Tyneside as they drive up the Great North Road. The Angel Of The North is made of ship's steel and is rusting in the weather like a good ship's hull. It is taken as a visual symbol of the re-generation of the region, a rusting Phoenix.

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