How you can use this image

This image can be used for non-commercial research or private study purposes, and other UK exceptions to copyright permitted to users based in the United Kingdom under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised. Any other type of use will need to be cleared with the rights holder(s).

Review the copyright credit lines that are located underneath the image, as these indicate who manages the copyright (©) within the artwork, and the photographic rights within the image.

The collection that owns the artwork may have more information on their own website about permitted uses and image licensing options.

Review our guidance pages which explain how you can reuse images, how to credit an image and how to find images in the public domain or with a Creative Commons licence available.

Notes

Add or edit a note on this artwork that only you can see. You can find notes again by going to the ‘Notes’ section of your account.

At the start of the nineteenth century, Sunderland expanded rapidly. One of the reasons for this was the export of coal via the River Wear. To the west of the present Wearmouth bridges on the south bank of the river lies the site of two sets of staithes where colliers would load coal. Hetton staithes formed the Sunderland terminus of the Hetton Colliery Railway. Completed in 1820, the Hetton line represented a technological leap into another age. Engineered by George Stephenson it combined self-acting inclines with stationary engines and one of the earliest large scale commercial use of steam locomotives – five years before the Stockton and Darlington Railway. James Duffield Harding (1798–1863) was a British landscape painter, lithographer and author of drawing manuals.