The Tees was straightened in the early 19th century for larger ships to access the town. The ports have since relocated closer to the North Sea and ships are no longer able to sail from the sea to the town due to the Tees Barrage , which was installed to manage tidal flooding.
The Stockton and Darlington Railway , served the port during early part of the Industrial Revolution. The railway was also the world's first permanent steam-locomotive-powered passenger railway. Stockton is an Anglo-Saxon place name with the common ending ton , meaning farm , or homestead. Stock is thought by some to derive from the Anglo-Saxon Stocc , meaning log , tree trunk , or wooden post. Stockton could therefore mean a farm built of logs. This is disputed because when Stocc forms the first part of a place name, it usually indicates a derivation from the similar word Stoc , meaning cell , monastery , or place.
Stoc in place name such as Stoke or Stow usually indicates farms which belonged to a manor or religious house. It is possible the name is an indication that Stockton was an outpost of Durham or Norton which were both important Anglo-Saxon centres. Stockton was a township in the ancient parish of Norton until , when it became an independent parish in its own right.
Norton and Stockton's historic roles were reversed in when Norton was absorbed into the borough of Stockton. Stockton is reportedly the home of the fossilised remains of the most northerly hippopotamus ever discovered. In , an archeological dig four miles 6 km north-west of the town uncovered a ,year-old hippo's molar tooth.
However, no one knows exactly where the tooth was discovered, who discovered it, or why the dig took place. The tooth was sent to the borough's librarian and curator, G. Leighton, who then sent it to the Natural History Museum in London. Since then, the tooth has been missing despite efforts to locate it. Stockton began as an Anglo-Saxon settlement on high ground close to the northern bank of the River Tees.
