“THE glorious sunset flung its rich splendours upon the heavenward-pointing monument of one whose ways were full of light, illuminating the letters of his name with the magic pencil of Nature,” said the Darlington & Stockton Times as 5,000 people, bathed in the glow of a summer evening, left a cemetery having witnessed the unveiling of a 31ft high memorial to a beloved Catholic bishop.
He was Bishop William Hogarth who died 160 years ago and whose photograph, amazingly and incorruptibly, still looks out from the monument in Darlington’s West Cemetery.
Bishop William Hogarth's photograph, taken before 1866, is remarkably intact in his memorial in Darlington's West Cemetery (Image: Chris Lloyd)
However, elsewhere on the granite, the cruel eraser of time is overwhelming the magic pencil of Nature, rubbing out the letters of the bishop’s name and replacing them with a green slime.
The Bishop Hogarth memorial in Darlington's West Cemetery (Image: Chris Lloyd)
And the rich splendours of a glorious sunset would find it hard to penetrate the dense branches of the yew trees which are closing in on the monument so that the heavenward-pointing metal cross at its top is now impossible to see.
The Bishop Hogarth memorial in Darlington's West Cemetery (Image: Chris Lloyd)
This picture was taken 16 years ago when the top of the Bishop Hogarth memorial was clearly visible (Image: Tom Banks)
But the town’s former MP, Peter Gibson, and the educational trust which bears Bishop Hogarth’s name, and runs 25 schools, are planning to involve pupils in cleaning up the memorial, which was designed by Edward Welby Pugin, of London, the son of Augustus Welby Pugin, the architect of the houses of Parliament.
The memorial was made, for £300 (about £30,000 in today’s values), by Messrs Priestman whose yard was on the south side of Blackwellgate with an extravagant stone lion lying on top of it.
If you climb the four steps of the plinth, splatting the blood red yew berries into the deep brown layer of many autumns’ debris, you can see that beneath the algae, the writing says that the money was quickly donated “by his Catholic Flock and fellow-townsmen of every creed & party” such was the universal regard in which he was held.
Bp Hogarth was born near Kendal 240 years ago. Aged ten, he was sent to a seminary at Crook Hall, near Durham, which, in 1809, relocated to the new Ushaw College, where he became a professor.
However, when 14 of his students died of cholera in a year, he had a breakdown, and he was moved to Cliffe Hall, Piercebridge, where he had only to tend the Witham family’s estate chapel.
Bishop William Hogarth's house in Coniscliffe Road, Darlington, is now next to the Clervaux Farm Shop. Picture: Google StreetView (Image: Google StreetView)
Recovered, in 1824, he moved into Paradise Row in Darlington, which would be his home for the next 42 years (now in Coniscliffe Road, his home is next to the Clervaux Farm Shop).
As discrimination against Catholics eased, he raised money for their first proper church which he dedicated to St Augustine when it opened in 1827, behind his house.
Bp William Hogarth raised the money to build St Augustine's Church in Darlington (Image: Unknown)
He became so renowned across the region that in 1850, he became the third North East Catholic bishop and gave the diocese its unusual name, Hexham and Newcastle. This was because he didn’t want the Vatican to make him go and live on Tyneside.
"A bishop may go into Newcastle occasionally on great occasions, but no one should be condemned to live there," he wrote.
Hexham, he argued, with its ancient overtones, was far more appropriate for a bishop.
Rome accepted his argument, but he still didn't move to Hexham. He stayed in Paradise Row, where he died on January 29, 1866.
Bishop William Hogarth (1786- 1866), the first Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle (Image: Unknown)
His body was laid-in-state in the church so "a vast number of people" could pay their respects and then, after his funeral, it was processed to Ushaw College for burial.
"The streets along which the procession passed were almost impassable, so densely crowded were they with spectators, " said the D&S Times. "Every shop in Darlington was closed and the bells of St Cuthbert's Church tolled a muffled peal."
The town wanted its own memorial which Pugin, who had worked at Ushaw, was asked to design.
The memorial was unveiled on August 26, 1867. That fine summer evening, a platform was built beside it so the huge crowd could hear the lengthy speeches of the clergymen.
Today the monument is just beyond the hedge of the first cemetery car park, but it is so shrouded in boughs that, despite its size, it is difficult
“Memorials to the people who have served our community are important parts of our local history,” said Mr Gibson, who was the town’s MP from 2019 to 2024. “Preserving, protecting and maintaining these is, I believe, important.
“The restoration of the Bishop Hogarth Memorial remains an unfinished piece of business from my time as MP, and to do it in the anniversary years of Bishop Hogarth’s birth and death is a pleasing and satisfactory conclusion to that task.
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“I am grateful for the assistance of Dame Maura Regan and for the work of the Bishop Hogarth Catholic Education Trust.”
Trish Abbott, the chief operating officer of the trust, said: “We are delighted to be able to launch a project that will be linked to our children to restore the memorial to its former glory.”
The algae is taking over the Bishop Hogarth memorial (Image: Chris Lloyd)
The magic pencil of Nature is being sharpened again and so hopefully the lettering will be saved for the plastic protractor of posterity, telling how Bishop Hogarth was "the Father of his Clergy and the Poor who, by a saintly life, great labour and charity unbounded, won love and veneration from all".