I'll just put up a quick fact from one of the more famous people from my home turf.
(I'll do a few of these since he was quite an interesting chap.)
Sir William George Armstrong, was a Northumbrian with a passion for inventing and engineering (among other things but we'll get to that later.) He founded, owned and mostly operated 'Elswick Works' which became the second largest armoury in the world at the time (late Victorian) only rivaled by Krupp's of Germany (and Krupp's was heavily subsidised by the German government, Elswick was wholly privately owned). Elswick was capable of (in addition the more general engineering projects) shipbuilding, this along with the weapons arm made them the only single entity who could not only build a Man-of-war but arm and outfit it too.
I'll finish with one of their larger projects.
During The Russo-Japanese war Elswick built almost half of Admiral Togo's fleet. The battleships Yashima and Hatsuse and the armoured cruisers Idzumo, Iwate, Asama and Tokiwa. The two battleships were lost to mines during the conflict but the four cruisers were there for the Japanese victory in 1905 and were still in service in 1945 (when they were bombed by the Americans and sunk.
More soon.