Heaton

A different Parsons story

Wallsend remembers Charles Parsons for Turbinia and the marine turbine that revolutionised ship propulsion; Heaton has the other half of his story. In 1889, Parsons left his previous employer and founded C. A. Parsons & Co. here, to build land-based turbines for generating electricity — the same core invention applied to an even bigger problem. Forth Banks Power Station in Newcastle, commissioned by Parsons' own electric lighting company in 1890, was the first power station in the world to use a steam turbine.

A local giant

The Heaton works grew into one of Tyneside's largest employers for most of the 20th century, its turbo-generators exported worldwide and its capacity growing from a few hundred kilowatts in the 1890s to tens of thousands by the 1920s. The company later diversified into searchlights and, after buying the historic telescope-maker Grubb in 1925, optical instruments and observatory telescopes under the name Grubb Parsons — an unlikely combination born from Parsons' lifelong fascination with optics, inherited from his astronomer father, the Earl of Rosse.

Heaton today

The Heaton works still operates today, now part of Siemens Energy, continuing a direct, unbroken line back to 1889. Around it, Heaton itself is a well-established residential suburb just east of Jesmond, with its own park and a strong sense of community history — including, fittingly, streets full of the terraced housing that Parsons' own workforce once filled.