Survey of English Place-Names

Etymology

West Hartlepool owes its origin to a dispute between the Hartlepool Dock and Railway Company formed in 1831 and the Stockton and Hartlepool Railway Company which originally agreed to ship its coals from the newly opened Victoria Dock at Hartlepool rather than construct a new dock of its own on the slake. In 1844, however, they obtained powers to build their own docks on the west or Stranton shore, the nucleus of the present borough. The settlement grew rapidly and was finally incorporated in 1887. See further Sharp S 142, VCH III 269, 372–3, Winifred Stokes, 'Hartlepool: an independent port', Durham County Local History Society Bulletin 60 (1999), 64–73.