In 1769, the Welsh antiquary Thomas Pennant admired Stockton-on-Tees as a 'handsome town' with a 'remarkably fine high street'. Only a century earlier, 'it had scarce a house that was not made of clay and thatch', but now it was 'a flourishing place'. The town would be transformed again with the coming of the Stockton and Darlington railway in 1825, but for the two centuries before that, the mayors and burgesses had been running the corporation, developing the town and port from a poor hamlet, in the shadow of the bishop's manor house, to a thriving community which underwent an urban renaissance during the Georgian period. The 'Book of Orders and Accounts' records their decisions, orders, finances and dealings with the bishopric, from the reign of James I to municipal reform in 1835, providing an unusually complete record of urban affairs and recording the signatures or marks of a large number of individuals.
