City in Tyne and Wear, England
Sunderland
Sunderland's glassmaking tradition dates to the seventh century. Its yards launched ships by the thousand and it gave the world the light bulb's inventor. Its people are Mackems.
Key information
- County
- Tyne and Wear
- Nation
- England
- Known for
- Shipbuilding, glassmaking, Sunderland AFC, Nissan, the Venerable Bede
- What locals are called
- Mackems
- Famous people
- Joseph Swan, Dave Stewart, Kate Adie, Jack Crawford
- Football clubs
- Sunderland AFC (the Black Cats)
About Sunderland
Why people from Sunderland are called Mackems
Ask anyone from Wearside what they are and you'll hear "Mackem". The usual explanation goes back to the shipyards: Sunderland workers would "mak 'em", and then the ships were taken away to be fitted out elsewhere, so they'd "tak 'em". Whether or not that is the whole story, the word was once a Tyneside jibe and has long since been worn as a badge of pride. The rivalry with Newcastle and its Geordies, just a dozen or so miles up the road, is the great running joke of the region. It is fiercest on derby day, when the Tyne-Wear derby fills both cities with noise.
A glassmaking head start of 1,300 years
Sunderland's story begins at Monkwearmouth, where in 674 AD Benedict Biscop founded the monastery of St Peter. A year or two later he brought glassmakers over from Gaul to glaze the church, and that is often seen as the start of English glassmaking. The Venerable Bede, the monk who became the father of English history, joined the monastery as a boy. St Peter's Church still stands on the north bank of the Wear. The tradition carries on at the National Glass Centre on the riverbank, where you can walk across a glass roof and watch glass being made. Sunderland also gave its name to Sunderland Lustreware, the cheerful pottery of the 1800s, often decorated with pictures of the cast-iron Wearmouth Bridge of 1796 and with sailors' verses.
The river that launched the ships
The Wear made Sunderland. Coal came down to the port in huge quantities, and the river's yards turned out ships through the 19th and early 20th centuries, making Wearside one of the busiest shipbuilding places on the planet. Names such as Doxford and Austin & Pickersgill became known around the world's ports. The last yard closed in 1988, and the city had to reinvent itself. In 1986 Nissan opened its factory at Washington, which grew into the biggest car plant in the country. Sunderland received city status in 1992. The river is crossed today by the 1929 Wearmouth Bridge and, since 2018, the Northern Spire, a cable-stayed bridge hung from a single towering pylon.
Black Cats, a Davy lamp and a very famous double save
Sunderland AFC was founded in 1879 by a Scottish schoolteacher, James Allan, as Sunderland and District Teachers AFC. Their nickname, the Black Cats, is said to come from a gun battery on the coast near Roker Park, their old home. The club won the league six times between 1892 and 1936, and the FA Cup in 1937. Then came 1973, when they won the Cup as a Second Division side. Ian Porterfield scored the only goal against mighty Leeds, and goalkeeper Jimmy Montgomery made a double save that is still replayed on Wearside. The Stadium of Light opened in 1997 on the site of Wearmouth Colliery, holds about 49,000, and is named after the miners' Davy lamp. A giant lamp stands outside as a tribute to them.
Seaside, monuments and monsters
Sunderland has its own stretch of coast. Roker Pier, opened in 1903, has a red-and-white striped lighthouse at its end. Nearby St Andrew's Church in Roker is a landmark of the Arts and Crafts movement, with work by William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. Seaburn hosted the Sunderland International Airshow until 2019, a free festival that filled the sky above the beach. It has not taken place since, and the council announced in 2022 that it would not return. Inland, Penshaw Monument crowns its hill like a Greek temple. It was built in 1844 for John Lambton, the first Earl of Durham, and is visible from miles around. It also looks down on the home of the Lambton Worm, a local legend in which a young heir fishes up a worm that grows into a monstrous dragon wrapped around Penshaw Hill. The pub is part of the culture too. Vaux Brewery, whose Double Maxim ale was loved across the region, closed in 1999.
Firsts, inventors and a lesson learned
Joseph Swan, born in Sunderland in 1828, developed the incandescent electric lamp at the same time as Edison across the Atlantic. The two eventually joined forces as Ediswan. Sunderland was also the place where cholera first arrived in Britain in 1831. Jack Crawford, a Sunderland sailor, became a hero at the Battle of Camperdown in 1797 when he is said to have nailed the flag to the mast. A darker moment led to a safety measure we all take for granted. In 1883 a children's show at the Victoria Hall ended in tragedy when a crowd of children rushed for the exit and the doors had been bolted so that only a narrow gap remained. 183 children died. The disaster led to laws requiring public halls to have outward-opening doors and fittings that can be pushed open easily, a legacy now found in buildings across the country.