In the eighth century, St Paul's Monastery in Jarrow (now Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey) was the home of the Venerable Bede, who is regarded as the greatest Anglo-Saxon scholar and the father of English history.

The Gyrwe's name means "fen dwellers", perhaps in reference to Jarrow Slake (a now-drained wetland that lay at the confluence of the Tyne and the Don).

Along with the abbey at Wearmouth, Jarrow became a centre of learning and had the largest library north of the Alps, primarily due to the widespread travels of Benedict Biscop, its founder.

The world's oldest complete Bible, written in Latin to be presented to the then Pope (Gregory II), was produced at this monastery – the Codex Amiatinus.

[4] This date has been established as the double monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow secured a grant of additional land to raise the 2000 head of cattle needed to produce the vellum for the Bible's pages.

[5] The book later appears in the ninth century in the Abbey of the Saviour, Monte Amiata in Tuscany (hence the description "Amiatinus"), where it remained until 1786 when it passed to the Laurentian Library in Florence.

[6] John Bowes, the first iron screw collier, revived the Tyne coal trade,[6] and Palmer's was also responsible for the first modern cargo ship,[6] as well as a number of notable warships.

[6] Around 1,000 ships were built at the yard, they also produced small fishing boats to catch eel within the River Tyne, a delicacy at the time.

This organisation had been set up by Stanley Baldwin's Conservative government in the 1920s, but the first public statement had been made in 1930 whilst the Labour Party was in office.

[9] As from 1935, Olympic, the sister ship of RMS Titanic, was partially demolished at Jarrow,[10] being towed in 1937 to Inverkeithing, Scotland for final scrapping.

[15] The Jarrow rail disaster was a train collision that occurred on the 17 December 1915 at the Bede junction on a North Eastern Railway line.

In South Tyneside, 5.0% of the population are non-White British, which is almost double the figure for Jarrow, also the borough has twice the percentage of Asian people compared to this riverside town.