period. The site of the old station was afterwards occupied by a fort of considerable strength, which was captured by the Scots under Colonel Stewart on the 20th of March 1644. The town was founded by the convent of Durham about the middle of the 13th century, but on account of the complaints of the burgesses of Newcastle an order was made in 1258, stipulating that no ships should be laden or unladen at Shields, and that no "shoars" or quays should be built there. Until the 19th century it was little more than a fishing station. In 1832 it received the privilege of returning a member to parliament, and in 1850 a charter of incorporation.
SOUTHWARK, a central metropolitan borough of London,
England, bounded N. by the river Thames, E. by Bermondsey,
S.E. by Camberwell and W. by Lambeth. Pop. (1901), 206,180.
It is a poor and crowded district, and a large industrial population
is employed in the riverside wharves and in potteries,
glassworks and other manufactures. There are also large breweries, and the Hop Exchange is a centre of the hop trade. The
borough is connected with the City of London by Blackfriars,
Southwark and London bridges; the thoroughfares leading from
these and the other road-bridges as far up as Lambeth converge at
St George's Circus; another important junction is the " Elephant
and Castle." Southwark is a bishopric of the Church of England
created by act of 1904 (previously a suffragan bishopric in the
diocese of Rochester), and also of the Roman Catholic Church.
The cathedral of St Saviour belonged to the Augustinian priory of
St Mary Overy, or Overies (i.e. St Mary over the river), receiving
its present name after the suppression of the monasteries. It
is cruciform, with a central tower, and has been so restored as
to preserve its ancient beauty. Its style is mainly Early English,
and among those buried here are Gower, Fletcher and Massinger,
the poets, and Edmund, brother of William Shakespeare. The
Roman Catholic cathedral of St George is a Gothic building
by A. W. Pugin, in St George's Road. Near the " Elephant and
Castle " is the Metropolitan Tabernacle, the original building of
which, burnt down in 1898, became famous under the Baptist
preacher, Charles Spurgeon. The principal benevolent institutions are Guy's Hospital, St Thomas's Street, founded in 1721 by
Thomas Guy, with an important medical school; and Bethlehem
Royal Hospital for the Insane, commonly corrupted to Bedlam,
the origin of which is found in a priory of the 13th century
founded within the City, beside the modern Liverpool Street.
Other institutions are the Evelina Children's Hospital, the Royal
Eye Hospital and the Borough Polytechnic Institute. In Newington Causeway is the Sessions House for the county of London
(south of the Thames). The Robert Browning Settlement was
founded in York Street, Walworth Road, in 1895 and incorporated
in 1903, and in Nelson Square is the Women's University
Settlement. The municipal borough includes the western and
part of the Bermondsey divisions of the parliamentary borough
of Southwark, and the borough of Newington, divided into the
western and Walworth divisions; each division returning one
member. The borough council consists of a mayor, 10 aldermen
and 60 councillors. Area, 1131.5 acres.
The history of Southwark is intimately connected with that of the City of London. At an early date it was incorporated, and its familiar title of " The Borough " still survives. It came, at least in part, under the jurisdiction of the City in 1327. The citizens of London having suffered from the depredations of thieves and felons who escaped into Southwark, petitioned parliament for protection. Accordingly, Edward III., by letters patent, granted them for ever the town and borough, a privilege confirmed by Edward IV. In this connexion was constituted the Bridge Ward Without, the alderman of which is elected not by the borough, but by the other aldermen from among themselves. The authority of the City over the borough is now merely nominal.
The junction in Southwark of the great roads from the south of England for the passage of the Thames sufficiently accounted for the early origin of Southwark. The name is taken from the southward works or fortifications of London. Numerous Roman remains have been found. Southwark witnessed various episodes during the invasions of the Norsemen, and was fortified by the Danes against the City in the reign of Ethelred the Unready. Besides the priory of St Mary Overy, there was the hospital of St Thomas, founded in 1213 from the neighbouring priory of Bermondsey, and forming the origin of the great modern hospital of the same name in Lambeth (q.v.). The many historical associations of Southwark, contemporary memorials of which are almost wholly swept away, centre upon the district bordering the river, and formerly known as Bankside. In this locality was Winchester House, a seat of the bishops of Winchester for five centuries from 1107. At Bankside were the Bear and the Paris Gardens, used for the popular sport of bear and bull baiting; and the Globe theatre, the scene of the production of many of Shakespeare's plays for fifteen years after its erection in 1599. Southwark was further noted for its inns and its prisons. Among the first, the name of the " Tabard " is well known from its mention by Chaucer in detailing the company of pilgrims for Canterbury. Charles Dickens had an early acquaintance with Southwark, as his father was confined in the Marshalsea, one of several prisons here. The prison, no longer extant, and the church of St George the Martyr, where many prisoners, including Bishop Bonner (d. 1561), were buried, figure in the novel Little Dorrit. The existing church dates from 1736.
SOUTHWELL, ROBERT (c. 1561-1595), English Jesuit and poet, son of Richard Southwell of Horsham St Faith's, Norfolk, was born in 1560/61. The Southwells were affiliated with many noble English families, and Robert's grandmother, Elizabeth Shelley, figures in the genealogy of Shelley the poet. He was sent very young to the Roman Catholic college at Douai, and thence to Paris, where he was placed under a Jesuit father, Thomas Darbyshire. In 1580 he joined the Society of Jesus,
after a two years' novitiate, passed mostly at Tournay. In spite of his youth he was made prefect of studies in the English college of the Jesuits at Rome, and was ordained priest in 1584. It was in that year that an act was passed, forbidding any English-born subject of the Queen who had entered into priest's orders in the Roman Catholic Church since her accession to remain in England longer than forty days on pain of death. But Southwell at his own request was sent to England in 1586 as a Jesuit missionary with Henry Garnett. He went from one
Catholic family to another, administering the rites of his Church, and in 1589 became domestic chaplain to Ann Howard, whose husband, the first earl of Arundel, was in prison convicted of treason. It was to him that Southwell addressed his Epistle of Comfort. This and other of his religious tracts, A Short Rule of Good Life, Triumphs over Death, Mary Magdalen's Tears and a Humble Supplication to Queen Elizabeth, were widely
circulated in manuscript. That they found favour outside
Catholic circles is proved by Thomas Nash's imitation of Mary Magdalen's Tears in Christ's Tears over Jerusalem. After six years of successful labour Southwell was arrested. He was in the habit of visiting the house of Richard Bellamy, who lived near Harrow and was under suspicion on account of his connexion with Jerome Bellamy, who had been executed for sharing in Anthony Babington's plot. One of the daughters, Anne Bellamy, was arrested and imprisoned in the gatehouse of Holborn. She revealed Southwell's movements to Richard Topcliffe, who immediately arrested him. He was imprisoned at first in Topcliffe's house, where he was repeatedly put to the torture in the vain hope of extracting evidence about other priests. Transferred to the gatehouse at Westminster, he was so abominably treated that his father petitioned Elizabeth that he might either be brought to trial and put to death, if found guilty, or removed in any case from " that filthy hole." Southwell was then lodged in the Tower, but he was not brought to trial until February 1595. There is little doubt that much of his poetry, none of which was published during his lifetime, was written in prison. On the 20th of February 1595 he was tried before the court of King's Bench on the charge of treason, and was hanged at Tyburn on the following day. On the scaffold he denied any evil intentions towards the Queen or her government.
St Peter's Complaint with other Poems was published in April
