Sunderland, a seaport, municipal, county, and parliamentary borough of Durham, at the mouth of the Wear, 13 miles NE. of the city of Durham and 12 SE. of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The township of Sunderland, on the south side of the river, covers only 219 1/2 acres; the municipal borough comprises also the townships of Bishop-wearmouth, Monkwearmouth, and Monkwear-mouth Shore. Monkwearmouth appears in history in 674 as the site of a monastery erected by Benedict Biscop; Bishopwearmouth in 930 was conferred by Athelstan on the monks of Lindisfarne then settled at Chester-le-Street. The earliest indubitable reference to Sunderland itself does not occur till 1311. Sunderland is a fine, well-built town, with broad, clean streets and pleasant suburbs. Till the beginning of the 19th c. it was a very inconsiderable place, but owing to the improvement of the harbour and the growth of the Durham coal trade, it has developed with great rapidity. The principal public buildings and institutions are the Italian Renaissance town-hall (1887-90); the Free Library, Museum, Art Gallery, and Winter Garden (1877-79); Sunderland Literary Society and Subscription Library (1878); the Theatre Royal (1853); the Avenue Theatre; the Victoria Hall (1872), the scene of the terrible disaster of June 16, 1883, in which 182 children lost their lives; the Assembly Hall; the Workmen's Hall (1868); the Liberal Club (1839); the County Constitutional Club (1890); the Infirmary (1865; enlarged 1879-87); the Orphan Asylum (1860). St Peter's, Monk-Avearmouth, retains in a part of the tower and west wall of the nave a remnant of the 7th-century building. The People's or Mowbray Park is an excellent recreation-ground. The portion south of the railway was purchased in 1854, and contains monuments of Havelock and Jack Crawford. The New or Extension Park, north of the railway, was purchased in 1866. Roker, a watering-place close to Monkwearmouth, has also a park of 17 acres, opened in 1880. Two single-arch iron bridges cross the Wear at a distance of 20 yards from each other. The older bridge (1793-96), 236 feet in span, was reconstructed and widened in 1858-59. The railway bridge was opened in 1879. The harbour is formed by two piers, the north one 617 yards long, the south 650. A new pier, starting from the south end of the terrace promenade at Roker, is over 2000 feet long. Two other piers protect the entrance to the south docks. There are four docks capable of accommodating the largest vessels - the North Dock (6 acres), the Hudson Dock, North (18 acres), the Hudson Dock, South (14 acres), the Hendon Dock (11 acres). The annual shipments of coal and coke exceed 4,000,000 tons. From the commissioners' staiths 15,000 tons can be shipped in a day. Other exports are bottles and glass, earthenware, lime, iron, chemicals, patent fuel, and cement. The principal imports are timber, props, iron ores, chalk, loam, grain, flour, esparto grass, hay, straw, and tar. Sunderland is famous for its iron shipbuilding yards, of which there are thirteen. There are also extensive ironworks, forges, anchor and chain works, glass and bottle works, chemical works, roperies, paper-mills, breweries, and lime-kilns. In Monkwearmouth is the Pemberton coal-pit, 381 fathoms deep, and extending under the sea. Sunderland returns two members. Pop. of parl. borough (1851) 67,394; (1881) 124,760; (1901) 159,359", of whom 146,565 were in the municipal and county borough. Havelock was born at Ford Hall, Bishopwear-mouth (1795); Jack Crawford, the hero of Camper-down (1775-1831), at Sunderland; other natives were Clarkson Stanfield, R.A., Tom Taylor, and Swan the electrician.