page_title: Sunderland
section_title: 19th century
hierarchical_section_title: Sunderland / History / 19th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Sunderland Harbour, England. Painted in the late 19th century by S. H. Bell from a sketch completed earlier in the century. Stuart Henry Bell (1823 - 1896). Marine and scenic painter in oil. Born in Newcastle. Bell became connected with Tyneside theatres in his boyhood, and is said to have become a scene painter at an early age. His first commission was to paint scenery for the Theatre Royal, Newcastle, following which he was engaged in this line by almost every metropolitan and provincial theatre, from 1850 achieving special recognition for his marine back-drops. In 1855 he moved to Sunderland and eventually devoted himself to being a professional artist painting marine subjects in oil. He then achieved such accomplishment that it is said that in 1886 Queen Victoria regarded him as the best marine painter since Clarkson Stanfield RA (1793-1867). His work was exhibited principally at Newcastle including the Central Exchange News Room Art Gallery and Polytechnic Exhibition, Newcastle in 1870. Where he showed Entrance to Sunderland Harbour (his favourite subject). He was also a regular exhibitor at the Bewick Club, Newcastle and the Central Exchange Gallery. Sunderland Art Gallery has a collection of his marine paintings, dated 1857 - 1896.
context_page_description: Sunderland is a city and the main settlement of the City of Sunderland, in Tyne and Wear, England, 12 miles northeast of Durham and 10 miles southeast of Newcastle upon Tyne, at the mouth of the River Wear.
  Historically in County Durham, there were three original settlements by the mouth of the River Wear on the site of modern-day Sunderland. On the north side of the river, Monkwearmouth was settled in 674 when King Ecgfrith of Northumbria granted land to Benedict Biscop to found Monkwearmouth Monastery. In 685, Ecgfrith further granted Biscop the land adjacent to the monastery on the south side of the river. As the river separated this land from the monastic community, it was henceforth referred to as the "sunder-land", and would grow as a fishing settlement before being granted a charter in 1179. West of the medieval village of Sunderland on the south bank, Bishopwearmouth was founded in 930.
  Sunderland grew as a port, trading coal and salt. Ships began to be built on the river in the 14th century. By the 19th century, the port of Sunderland had absorbed Bishopwearmouth and Monkwearmouth, owing to the growing economic importance of the shipbuilding docks.
context_section_description: In 1802 a new, 72 ft (22 m) high octagonal stone lighthouse was built on the end of the newly finished North Pier, designed by the chief Engineer Jonathan Pickernell. At the same time he built a lighthouse on the South Pier, which showed a red light (or by day a red flag) when the tide was high enough for ships to pass into the river. From 1820 Pickernell's lighthouse was lit by gas from its own gasometer. In 1840 work began to extend the North Pier to 1,770 ft (540 m) and the following year its lighthouse was moved in one piece, on a wooden cradle, to its new seaward end, remaining lit each night throughout the process.
caption: View from the South Pier in the first half of the 19th century.
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