The North-East was particularly well-positioned to receive immigrants from Eastern Europe. There were direct shipping routes between the ports of the North-East (of the Tyne, the Wear, and the Tees) and those of Northern Germany and the Baltic, and the result was a development of communities there, as shown by the following Table.

		1st settlement	1st synagogue
Tyne	Newcastle	1830	1838
	North Shields	1846	1870
	South Shields	1846	1880
	Gateshead	1880	1883
Wear	Sunderland	1768	1781
	Durham	1880	1906
Tees	Hartlepool	1851	1870
	Middlesbrough	1862	1871
	Darlington	1873	1884
	Stockton	1884	1906

Few of these were very large, even at their peak, but they represented a fairly considerable extension of Jewish life. Much of the economic activity of these communities was obviously dictated by the industry and commerce of the region as a whole, and although few of the Jews of these areas played much direct part (with several outstanding exceptions) in the coal or iron/steel industries, they were to be found prominently in the life of the working-class communities of which they formed a part. Credit-drapers, travellers, and retail shopkeepers were prominent among the occupations of these first generation immigrants, as may be seen from the details of some of the individual congregations.

 

Provincial Jewry in Victorian Britain - List of Contents

Jewish Communities in Tyne & Wear, Durham and North Yorkshire

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