Henry William Ferdinand Bolckow [Bölckow], MP (8 December 1806 – 18 June 1878) was a Victorian industrialist, acknowledged as being one of the 'fathers' of modern Middlesbrough.

Henry William Ferdinand Bolckow Statue, Middlesbrough.

Bolckow, the son of Heinrich Bölckow of Varchow, in the region of Western Pomerania, and his wife, Caroline Dussher, was born at Sulten, in the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg.
Wishing him to have a life in commerce, his parents placed 15 year old Henry in a merchant's office in nearby Rostock. There he made the acquaintance of Christian Allhusen ([1]), who, in 1827, invited him to move to Newcastle-on-Tyne to become his business partner in the corn trade^[1].

Becoming a naturalised British subject in 1841, he was persuaded by the Ironmaster of the Walkergate works in Newcastle, John Vaughan, to invest the fortune he'd amassed from corn into the burgeoning iron trade. At the suggestion of Joseph Pease they set up their first iron foundry and rolling mill at Vulcan Street, Middlesbrough, where they processed pig iron imported from Scotland. In 1846 the pair opened ironworks at Witton Park, 20 miles (32 km) to the west of the town, where ironstone from Whitby could be smelted in blast furnaces to produce the pig iron for the Vulcan Street works^[2].

Excessive transport costs arising from this operation led them to start looking closer to home for their raw materials. In the end they found what they were looking for on their own doorstep. In 1850, Vaughan and his geologist, John Marley, discovered large seams of iron ore at Eston, in the nearby Cleveland Hills. A year later they commenced mining and a branch railway line was built to transport the raw iron to Middlesbrough^[3].

The rapid success of their business enabled them to expand their operations, acquiring coal mines, limestone quarries, brickworks, gasworks and a machine works. Middlesbrough became a centre of such importance that, in 1853, the town received a charter of incorporation, Bolckow becoming its first elected Mayor, with Vaughan following 2 years later.

By 1868, Middlesbrough was producing 4 million tons of iron per year and the town's population had risen to 40,000. Ever the philanthropist and aware that the townsfolk worked long hours and lived in cramped conditions, he spent £20,000 purchasing and landscaping 70 acres (280,000 m²) of land near the town centre in order to create a free public park for them. Albert Park was opened on 11 August 1868 by Prince Albert, the Prince Consort, who, like Bolckow, was a Prussian. The following year he also spent £7,000 of his own money on the erection of a school in the St Hilda's district of the town.

When the town was granted parliamentary representation under the Representation of the People Act 1867, Bolckow stood as a Liberal Party candidate. Bolckow s elected unopposed as its first Member of Parliament (MP) on 16 November 1868, and he held that position for 10 years until his death.^[4] In 1871, the firm of Bolckow & Vaughan was formed into a limited liability company with a capital of £3,500,000, Bolckow becoming its first chairman.

The discovery of the Bessemer process in the 1850's and the mass production of steel had an increasing adverse effect on the iron making industry. The firm of Bolckow & Vaughan were slow to adapt, mainly because the local iron ore had a high phosphorous content detrimental to steel production, and by the late 1870's the town was suffering a major economic downtown with unemployment running very high. In 1875 a rival firm, Dorman Long, was setup in the Middlesbrough area, producing steel from imported iron.

In 1877 Bolckow became ill, suffering from kidney disease. In May 1878 he was taken to Ramsgate, where it was thought the sea air would do him good. He made a temporary recovery but had a relapse and died on June 18 at the Granville Hotel in the resort. He was 71. His dying wish was honoured 4 days later when he was buried at St Cuthbert's Church, Marton, near to where his friend and partner Vaughan had been buried 10 years before (9 September 1868). Their gravestones can still be seen in St Cuthbert's graveyard and, after falling into disrepair after a number of years of neglect, were restored to their former glory in early 2009.

Henry was twice married. In 1841, he married a widow Miriam Hay, whose sister was married to Vaughan (indeed it's thought the men met while they were courting the sisters). Sadly Miriam died the following year and Henry did not remarry until 1851, when he wed Harriet, only daughter of James Farrar, of Halifax.

In his lifetime, Bolckow collected a fine gallery of pictures, nearly all of them by living French and English artists ^[5]. A statue commemorating Henry Bolckow stands in Middlesbrough's Exchange Square diagonally opposite the railway station (see picture above).

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Attribution

This article incorporates text from the entry Bölckow, Henry William Ferdinand in the Dictionary of National Biography (1885–1900), a publication now in the public domain.