I did most of the work for this book while holding a three-year research post at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Newcastle was responsible for the ‘external relations’ strand of the AHRB Centre for North East England History, so I am grateful to the Arts and Humanities Research Board (now Council) for funding this work. This is a book of regional history written by a maritime historian, and I saw the project as a chance to bring together a number of perspectives on nineteenth-century regionalism, linked by common questions of trade, connections and mobility, in an effort to assess the boundaries and horizons of the North East. This approach has necessitated a rather brief treatment of some major questions, but I hope there is a place for this kind of book alongside the more focused, and much deeper, work that could be done on many of the themes raised in these pages.

Research for this book drew heavily on the archive and library collections of the North East, and my lasting impression is of the richness of those resources, and the great scope for historians to work with them. I am grateful to the staff of Tyne & Wear Archives, Newcastle; the university libraries of Newcastle and Durham; the local history/studies sections of the central libraries in Newcastle, South Shields and Hartlepool; Teesside Archives, Middlesbrough; and the Lit. & Phil., Newcastle.