Tyneside coal ports grew significantly in the nineteenth century and many new docks opened in the 1850s like the North Eastern Railway's Tyne Dock at Jarrow of 1859.

Iron and engineering developments increased demand for coal and the ever-growing network of colliery railways brought coal to Tyneside staithes. Foremost were the massive staithes at Dunston on Tyne, built by the North Eastern Railway from 1890 to 1893 and still in existence today.

Sunderland continued to grow as a coal-port and shipbuilding town in the nineteenth century. Coal was brought by rail to Wearside staithes from mines near Washington, Chester-le-Street, Durham and Hetton. A number of Sunderland docks were built in the period 1837 to 1868. From 1831 a nearby rival coal port at Seaham Harbour was developed by Lord Londonderry, but it would never develop the vast range of industries present at Sunderland.

In the early 1800s Hartlepool was a fishing community with a silted harbour it was not involved in coal export until the 1830s when railways brought coal from Cornforth, Garmondsway, Cassop and Trimdon. Hartlepool was developed by Christopher Tennant of Yarm from 1831 whose Stockton and Hartlepool Railway boosted trade. Tennant died before completion of the railway in 1839 and it was taken over by the Stockton solicitor Ralph Ward Jackson. In 1841 Jackson opened the Victoria Dock, linked it to the railway and Hartlepool soon shipped more coal than any northern port. In the 1840s Hartlepool railways carried more coal than any other in the North East with 27 per cent of all coal shipped from the region passing along its tracks.

Ralph Ward Jackson was frustrated by restrictions on business at Hartlepool's Victoria Dock and obtained an act in 1844 for the formation of Hartlepool West Harbour Dock Company. This dock was the first stage in the growth of West Hartlepool. By 1862 the two Hartlepools shipped merchandise to the value of more than three times as much as that of all North-East ports put together, beating Newcastle, North and South Shields, Sunderland, Stockton and Middlesbrough. Hartlepool was the fourth busiest port in the country behind Liverpool, London and Hull and overtook Hull for a time in the 1890s. By 1881, Old Hartlepool's population was 12,361 and the newly born West Hartlepool had a population of 28,000 Middlesbrough Dock opened on May 12 1842 to export coal but was a small dock of 5 acres. Until that time coal was shipped from Middlesbrough via staithes on the riverside. The dock was built in response to competition from Hartlepool's deep dock, which threatened Middlesbrough's early coal trade. As the decade progressed iron making replaced coal export as Middlebrough's main industry.

The number of people employed in coal mining rapidly increased during the nineteenth century and in 1830 the region's miners established a union under the guidance of Thomas Hepburn. The following year it negotiated a 10 per cent increase in wages and a reduction in working hours for boys. A mass meeting of Northumberland and Durham miners was held on Newcastle Town Moor that year and the following year the miners went on stike. In the 1840s the miners organised themselves on a national basis in the Miners Association of Great Britain and Ireland with its headquarters at Newcastle from 1843. In 1848 successive depression in the coal industry weakened the union but it recovered in the later part of the century.

The Durham Miners' Union formed on November 20 1869 after a meeting of mine leaders at the Market Hotel in Durham's Maket Place. Their first annual Gala was held in Durham's Wharton Park on August 12 1871 but moved to the racecourse in 1873. Enormous crowds attended the galas and on July 3 1875 the London North Eastern Railway (LNER) Company withdrew all trains from Bishop Auckland, Lanchester and Newcastle to Durham. It claimed its railways could not cope with the huge quantity of passengers travelling to the gala. The real reason may have been political.

Businessmen made their fortune from the region's mines and were often unscrupulous or uncompromising over pay and conditions. Coal owners usually owned the miners' homes and often evicted those who protested. The notorious 'Candymen', or Down and outs from dockside areas often helped with eviction. Many coal owners like the unpopular Marquis of Londonderry were aristocrats.