Bishopwearmouth is a former village and parish which now constitutes the west side of Sunderland City Centre, in the county of Tyne and Wear, England, merging with the settlement as it expanded outwards in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is home to the Sunderland Minster church, which has stood at the heart of the settlement since the early Middle Ages. Until 1974 it was in County Durham.

Sir Joseph Wilson Swan FRS was an English physicist, chemist, and inventor. He is known as an independent early developer of a successful incandescent light bulb, and is the person responsible for developing and supplying the first incandescent lights used to illuminate homes and public buildings, including the Savoy Theatre, London, in 1881.