Hartlepool was founded as a village in the 7th century AD, springing up around a convent founded in 640 on a headland overlooking a natural harbour. The convent became famous under St Hilda, who served as its abbess from 649-657, but it was destroyed by the Vikings in 800.
During the Middle Ages the village grew into an important (though still small) town, gaining a market and walls, and its harbour was improved to serve as the official port of the County palatine of Durham. Its harbour made it a convenient outlet for the coalfields o ...
Hartlepool is famous for allegedly executing a monkey, the sole survivor of a shipwreck, during the Napoleonic Wars. Not knowing what a Frenchman looked like, and with the monkey unable to defend himself against accusations of spying, the townspeople supposedly hanged the monkey. The story is unconfirmed, but historians have pointed to the prior existence of a Scottish folk song called "And the Boddamers hung the Monkey-O". It describes how a monkey survived a shipwreck off the village of Boddam near Peterhead in Aberdeenshire. Becau ...
The Hartlepool constituency was represented in the House of Commons from 1992 until summer 2004 by Labour MP, Peter Mandelson.
Mr Mandelson resigned to take up a role in the European Commission. The by-election on September 30 was won by Labour's Iain Wright with a much-reduced majority following an 18% swing to the Liberal Democrats. He retained the seat with a greatly increased majority in the 2005 UK general election.
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