Britain's first cholera epidemic started in Bodlewell Lane, on the south bank of the Wear in 1831, claiming over 200 victims.  Jack Crawford, hero of the Battle of Camperdown was among the first to die.  On the north side of the river there were 24 deaths, the first being a Monkwearmouth man who was taken to the Ignatius Bonomi-designed Sunderland Infirmary (right)  at the foot of Chester Lane (Chester Road) where he died the following day.  The hospital had an operating theatre and 60 beds, and had  been built from private subscriptions on land given in 1822 by Lord Londonderry.  Multiple murderess Mary Ann Cotton who poisoned at least ten victims, worked at the hospital as a nurse, and on August 28th 1865, married her second husband at St Peter's church in Monkwearmouth.  She was executed for her crimes in 1873.

                                 With the opening in 1867 of Potts' Gothic-designed Royal Infirmary under the Presidency of Sir Hedworth Williamson, the Chester Lane hospital became redundant and subsequently functioned as a theological college for the Methodist Church.  Opening in 1868, the college established links with Monkwearmouth by accepting ordinands (trainee priests) from local chapels.  The Principal, Dr. Antliff, had three sons all of whom entered the Methodist church through the college, including the Reverend SR Antliff who was Minister at Dundas Street Methodist Church, from 1869 to 1870. After the college relocated, the building became consecutively a Methodist place of worship (until the 1901 opening of Cleveland Road Primitive Methodist Church), a school for St Mary's Roman Catholic Church, and is presently occupied by Sunderland University.