Arthur Pease was a member of Darlington's famous Quaker family

It's quite difficult to read what is carved into a blackened and worn stone on the wall of what is now the Word of Life Church in Darlington.

But get a little closer and you'll see that it was laid in 1914 by Alderman JF Pease on March 25, 1914 - when the church on the corner of Corporation Road and Barningham Street was known as St Luke's.

The AF Pease foundation stone is on the Barningham Street side of what is now called the Word of Life Church, (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT)

But who was AF Pease?

The man in question was Sir Arthur Francis Pease, a coal owner and industrialist, who was born at Hummersknott in the town in 1866.

He had some very prestigious Quaker family forebears. He was the great-grandson of railway pioneer Edward Pease, the grandson of Joseph Pease - whose statue stands in Darlington town centre - and nephew of Sir Joseph Whitwell Pease, a Durham MP for nearly 40 years.

Educated at Brighton College and Trinity College, Cambridge, Arthur Francis Pease joined the family bank, Pease & Partners Ltd, in 1888.

He was fortunate to avoid the financial catastrophe which afflicted it in 1902, when negotiations for a takeover by Barclay & Co revealed the bank to be insolvent.

Pease had earlier sold his interest in the business to his uncle, Sir Joseph, whose estate was forfeited to meet liabilities in excess of £400,000.

Because of Arthur's non-involvement in the bank's collapse, he was able to become chairman and managing director in 1906.

Later, Pease became associated as chairman or director with numerous coalmining and other industries - he was also a director of Lloyds Bank and of the London and North Eastern Railway Company.

Pease was appointed a deputy lieutenant of County Durham in December 1906 and, later, High Sheriff of Durham for 1920–21.

He became well kown to the public as a representative of the employers in negotiations with the Miners' Federation of Great Britain - favouring hard responses to worker militancy.

He was one of three representatives of the Durham owners appointed in 1912 to meet the government and the Miners' Federation.

When the joint district board for Durham was set up under the Minimum Wage Act of 1912, Pease was called upon to state the case for the owners.

After the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Pease's great experience of industrial affairs was available for the government.

He was a member of a number of government committees between 1914 and 1921, including serving as Additional Civil Lord of the Admiralty - for which he was created a baronet in the 1920 Birthday Honours.

Pease was elected chairman of Durham County Council in 1922, taking a special interest in education.

Read more Objects of the Week here:

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• Tragedy as 17-year-old drowned before seeing the Darlington fountain he designed
• Why miners didn't mourn ‘the man on the hoss’, whose statue stands in Durham

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He rented Middleton Lodge in Middleton Tyas, near Darlington, where he lived until his death on November 23, 1927, after a cerebral haemorrhage.

Pease died of a cerebral haemorrhage during a board meeting of Horden Collieries Ltd on 23 November 1927.

His only son, Richard Arthur Pease, succeeded to the baronetcy. He also had three daughters, the youngest of whom, Elizabeth Frances, married Sir Frank O'Brien Wilson, a member of the Legislative Council of Kenya.