Talk:West Hartlepool

'Unification of the two towns' (Hartlepool and West Hartlepool), described in the article as having resulted from ultimate 'urban sprawl' between them

This is a statement that is impossible, in my own view, to believe is in accordance with the documents which show that when the railway line from the south was first created in the 19th Century it made use of the station already existing in the historic town of Hartlepool, where presumably those who gave the necessary consent believed that it would never in any circumstances create any separate town or village.

The contemporary documents (as referred to in history books which are not unfortunately quoted at all in this article) make clear that eventually, for various reasons, a separately created port consisting (as recorded in the maps of the Ordnance Survey) of a business-based centre was neither connected with historic Hartlepool nor a separate government area at all, but was held to be included within the area of a village on the coast to the south.

The decision to call it 'West Hartlepool' in accordance with Hartlepool when a parliamentary Act later in the 19th Century gave it the status of a separate Victorian new town was presumably the only motive for the ultimate unification with historic Hartlepool in the 1960s, but this is admittedly a complicated story since there were already significant architectural connections between the two and they had already been joined as an electoral district, or constituency.

Finally, this is not at all a popular subject, but it should perhaps be known that the relevance of two Victorian new towns, Middlesbrough and West Hartlepool, to historic Hartlepool is, with reference to the (Imperial and metric) 'battle of the scales', quite clearly confirmed in various other presumably historically valid documents of varying character and including in particular architectural design.

Until these facts are realized the true character of the First World War memorials in the 'Hartlepools' (originally the West Hartlepool War Memorial 1914-1919 and the Hartlepool War Memorial 1914 both relating to the 1914 East Coast Raid on the two towns) and their evident relationship to each other in accordance with this 19th Century history, will presumably remain as obscure as it is at the present time for various reasons including in particular what seems unfortunately (this allegation has not as yet been widely demonstrated but there is evidence on the Internet which demonstrates it, see public comments by myself on British Listed Buildings) the complete indifference of both the UK government and English Heritage.

Those who deal with history should perhaps beware for what indeed is history? It seems that it is mostly undefined and always controversial, and evidently those who make it most effectively are those who win the wars and occupy government (who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past).

Peter Judge 31 October 2011