This text is provided by Durham County Record Office

In 1889 County Durham already had a long and proud history of industrial development; coal had been mined there since the middle ages and by the end of the nineteenth century output was reaching its highest level. In the period between 1885 and 1889 the north-east produced on average 36 million tons of coal a year. Centuries of coal mining had brought universal wealth to the county, but had also scarred its countryside with, among other things, spoil heaps, raw housing, wagonways and railways. Mining began in the north-west of the county where the seams of coal were nearer to the surface and where the river Tyne provided a means of transport for the bulky and fragile substance. Deeper mines on the coastal plain developed in the nineteenth century as improved engineering techniques allowed such mines to be sunk without danger of flooding.
By 1889, as a result of this industrial history, the county was a land of small mining villages, a few market towns and, towards the west, the moorland of the Pennines. The long industrial history of the county and its rapid expansion in the preceding half century meant that the newly-formed County Council had many and difficult problems to solve, particularly the wretched living conditions of many of its people. At its very beginning, the Council was not equipped to deal with problems of public health or indeed any other issues than those dealt with by its predecessor, the Court of Quarter Sessions.