GATESHEAD, municipal, county and parliamentary bor ough, Durham, England; on the Tyne opposite Newcastle, and on the L.N.E.R. Pop. (1931) 122,379. Though one of the largest county towns, neither its streets nor its public buildings, except perhaps its ecclesiastical buildings, have much claim to architec tural beauty. The parish church of St. Mary is an ancient cruci form edifice surmounted by a lofty tower; but extensive restora tion was necessitated by a fire in 1854 which destroyed a consider able part of the town. Education is provided by a grammar school, a large day school for girls, and technical and art schools. There is a service of electric trams, privately owned by a London company, and five bridges connect the town with Newcastle-upon-Tyne (q.v.). There are large iron works (including foundries and fac tories for engines, boilers, chains and cables), shipbuilding yards, glass manufactories, chemical, soap and candle works, brick and tile works, breweries and tanneries. The town also has a depot of the L.N.E.R., with large stores and locomotive works. Extensive coal mines exist in the vicinity; and at Gateshead Fell are large quarries for grindstones.
Gateshead (Gateshewed) probably grew up during late Saxon times, the mention of the church there in i o8o being the first evi dence of settlement. In 1552, on the temporary extinction of the diocese of Durham, Gateshead was attached to Newcastle, but in was regranted to Bishop Tunstall. During the next cen tury Bishop Tunstall's successors incorporated nearly all the trades of Gateshead, and Cromwell continued this policy. As part of the palatinate of Durham, Gateshead was not represented in parlia ment until 1832. In 1336 the burgesses claimed an annual fair on St. Peter's Day, and depositions in 1577 mention a borough market held on Tuesday and Friday, but these were apparently extinct in Camden's day, and no grant of them is extant.