[Illustration: JACK CRAWFORD’S BIRTH-PLACE, SUNDERLAND.] is usually called Wearmouth. It possesses two very interesting charters, dated respectively 1180-83 and 1634; nevertheless, it did not rise above the level of a manorial borough until 1835, when it was included in the Municipal Corporations Act. During the Civil War Sunderland was the principal centre of the Parliamentarians in Durham, which was on the whole a Royalist county. The fact that Sunderland was an exception was due to the influence of the family of Lilburne in the town, George Lilburne, the uncle of the famous John Lilburne, being the only magistrate in the borough during the war. At the same time the siege of Newcastle diverted the coal trade to Sunderland, and thus laid the foundation of its present prosperity. The town is famous in naval and military history as the birthplace of two heroes--Jack Crawford, who "nailed the colours to the mast" at the Battle of Camperdown, 1797, and Sir Henry Havelock, who relieved Lucknow in 1857. The Sunderland Orphan Asylum was founded in 1853 by the Freemen and Stallingers of Sunderland, and endowed with the proceeds of the sale of the Town Moor, which had become exceedingly valuable in consequence of the building of the railway. The road crosses the Wear, and enters the parish of Monkwearmouth. The history of Monkwearmouth goes back to 674, when Benedict Biscop founded there the monastery of St. Peter. The early history of the monastery was recorded by the Venerable Bede, who relates how Benedict brought over foreign masons and glass-workers to build his church, and beautified it with sacred pictures brought from Rome. It was destroyed by the Danes towards the end of the ninth century, refounded by Bishop Walcher, _circa_ 1075, and finally annexed to the Convent of Durham by Bishop William de St. Carileph in 1083. A cell of the convent was maintained there until the Reformation, and Monkwearmouth continued to be a manor belonging to the Dean and Chapter of Durham until it was incorporated with Sunderland.