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He was Bishop William Hogarth, who died 160 years ago and whose photograph, amazing and incorruptible, 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 at Darlington’s West Cemetery (Image: Chris Lloyd)
However, elsewhere on the granite, the cruel eraser of time overwhelms nature’s magic pencil, 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 glory of a magnificent sunset would find it difficult to penetrate the dense branches of the yew trees that close in on the monument, so that the skyward pointing metal cross on the top is now impossible to see.
The Bishop Hogarth Memorial in Darlington’s West Cemetery (Image: Chris Lloyd)
This photo was taken 16 years ago when the top of the Bishop Hogarth Memorial was clearly visible (Image: Tom Banks)
But the city’s former MP, Peter Gibson, and the educational trust that bears Bishop Hogarth’s name, which operates 25 schools, plan to involve students in cleaning 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 on top of it.
If you climb the four steps of the plinth, the blood red yew berries sprinkle into the deep brown layer of many autumn leaves, you can see that under the algae, the writing says that the money was quickly donated “by his Catholic flock and fellow citizens of every faith & party” such was the general respect in which he was held.
Bp Hogarth was born 240 years ago near Kendal. At the age of ten he was sent to a seminary at Crook Hall, near Durham, which in 1809 moved to the new Ushaw College, where he became a professor.
But when 14 of his students died of cholera in one year, he had a breakdown, and he was moved to Cliffe Hall, Piercebridge, where he only had to look after the estate chapel of the Witham family.
Bishop William Hogarth’s house in Coniscliffe Road, Darlington, is now next to Clervaux Farm Shop. Photo: Google StreetView (Image: Google StreetView)
Recovered, in 1824, he moved to Paradise Row in Darlington, which would be his home for the next 42 years (now in Coniscliffe Road, his home is next to Clervaux Farm Shop).
When discrimination against Catholics eased, he raised money for their first real 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 throughout 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 did not want the Vatican to let him go and live on Tyneside.
“A bishop may sometimes go to Newcastle on great occasions, but no one should be condemned to live there,” he wrote.
Hexham, he argued, with its ancient overtones, was much more suitable for a bishop.
Rome accepted his argument, but he still did not move to Hexham. He lived 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 to rest in the church so “a large 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 packed were they with spectators,” said the D&S Times. “Every shop in Darlington was closed and the bells of St Cuthbert’s Church rang a muffled peal.”
The town wanted its own memorial which Pugin, who had worked at Ushaw, was asked to design.
The monument was unveiled on August 26, 1867. On that beautiful summer evening, a platform was built next to it, so that the large crowd could hear the long speeches of the clergy.
Today the monument is just behind the hedge of the first cemetery parking lot, but it is so covered in boulders that it is difficult despite its size
“Memorials to people who have served our community are important parts of our local history,” said Mr Gibson, who was the city’s MP from 2019 to 2024. “Preserving, protecting and preserving this is, I think, important.
“The restoration of the Bishop Hogarth Memorial remains unfinished business from my time as an MP, and to do so on the anniversary of Bishop Hogarth’s birth and death is a pleasant and satisfying conclusion to that task.
“I am grateful for the help of Dame Maura Regan and for the work of the Bishop Hogarth Catholic Education Trust.”
Trish Abbott, the trust’s chief operating officer, said: “We are delighted to be launching a project linked to our children to restore the memorial to its former glory.”
Algae take over the Bishop Hogarth Memorial (Image: Chris Lloyd)
Nature’s magic pencil is sharpened again and so hopefully the handwriting is saved for posterity’s plastic cord, telling how Bishop Hogarth was “the father of his clergy and the poor, who through a holy life, great work and charity unlimited, won love and glorification of all”.
