Wallsend has the history of shipbuilding and was the front yard of the Wigham Richardson shipyard, which later amalgamated to form Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson, probably best known for building the RMS Mauretania. This express liner held a blue ribband, for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic, for 22 years.

More renowned ships involved a RMS Carpathia which rescued the survivors from the Titanic in 1912, and the icebreaker Krasin which rescued the Nobile expedition on Spitzbergen in 1928, when Roald Amundsen perished. A story is retold in the moving-picture show A Red Tent, starring Sean Connery and Peter Finch.

Charles Parsons launched his revolutionary Turbinia here in 1884, so non sole revolutionising a navies of the globe, however as well, through the heavy-shell production of low-cost electricity, making a important contribution to the modern age. He features inside the BBC film called A Discoverer of the Twentieth Century

Russian novelist Yevgeny Zamyatin worked at Swan Hunter in 1916-17, & utilized it when background for his neat anti-utopian operate WE, which was a major influence in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four

WWII ships built on this button include HMS Sheffield, HMS Victorious and the flagship of the Home Fleet, HMS King George V. 100% participate in the sinking of the Bismarck.

A town is house to Wallsend Boys Club, an association football club, which has produced many famed players like Alan Shearer, Lee Clark and Peter Beardsley.