Changes

== Economic Development ==

== Economic Development ==

Only in the eighteenth century did the town begin to develop from something other than a scatter of fishermen's huts (the ''shielings'' that give the town its name). Salt boiling on the coast had been a traditional activity; and, combined with iodine from seaweed collected locally, gave the raw ingredients for the manufacture of soda. From these beginnings, substantial chemical, soap and glass industries grew in the nineteenth century. Coal mining also took place locally (the last deep mine in the town, at Harton, only closed in the 1990s), and coal export was important: Tyne Dock, created in South Shields by the [[North Eastern Railway Company]], was for many years the largest coal dock in the world in terms of tonnage handled. the town also had a shipbuilding industry, and ship repair and conversion is still carried on.

Only in the eighteenth century did the town begin to develop from something other than a scatter of fishermen's huts (the ''shielings'' that give the town its name). Salt boiling on the coast had been a traditional activity; and, combined with iodine from seaweed collected locally, gave the raw ingredients for the manufacture of soda. From these beginnings, substantial chemical, soap and glass industries grew in the nineteenth century. Coal mining also took place locally (the last deep mine in the town, at Harton, only closed in the 1990s), and coal export was important: Tyne Dock, created in South Shields by the [[North Eastern Railway]] Company, was for many years the largest coal dock in the world in terms of tonnage handled. the town also had a shipbuilding industry, and ship repair and conversion is still carried on.

== Yemeni Shieldsmen ==

== Yemeni Shieldsmen ==