Marton village is probably most famous as the birth place of Captain James Cook. He was born in 1728 in a cottage in what is now the grounds of Stewart Park. This cottage was demolished when Bartholomew Rudd Esq had Marton Hall built.
Other notable people lived in Marton and were involved in the making of the new town of Middlesbrough into what it is today. The most influential of these were John Vaughan and Henry Bolckow, these two most important Ironmasters started the extraction of ironstone in the Eston Hills and started the whole Iron and Steel industry.
Henry W.F Bolckow bought Marton Hall estate and had built a new Marton Hall in place of the old hall that had burnt down. It was Henry Bolckow who had the granite urn made and placed in the position of Cook's birthplace which is still there today. Bolckow's hall also suffered the same fate as the old hall being demolished in 1960 and then replaced by a huge glass house ( at this time the estate had been given to the people of Middlesbrough). Unfortunately this is also gone now and all that stands in the area is a covered walkway that was at the back of Marton Hall.
John Vaughan lived in Gunnergate Hall, a house built in 1857 for Charles Leatham, a wealthy Quaker banker, situated in grounds to the south west of the village. This hall has also gone now but two lodges still survive. When John Vaughan died in 1868 the house passed to his son Thomas, who spent lavishly on it. The hall was next sold to Carl Bolckow, nephew of Henry, who then sold it to Raylton Dixon the Middlesbrough shipbuilder, in 1888. After Raylton died the house was unoccupied and was taken over by the army during the two world wars and rapidly fell into disrepair. It was eventually demolished in 1946.