GAF's works for sale at tomorrow's Darlington Book Fair

Amongst those books with local interest that will be for sale are some sketchbooks by George Algernon Fothergill, who is probably the town’s most talented artist even though he was only here for ten rich years until he was driven out by bankruptcy.

GAF, as he signed himself, with a horse

He was born in Leamington near Warwick in 1868 into a family of fox-hunters and horse-riders. He excelled at art at school, but went to Edinburgh University to study practical anatomy with a view to becoming a doctor.

His study of human anatomy only deepened his interest in the working of horses’ anatomy – a local vet lent him dried specimens of legs to draw – and he spent as much time completing artistic commissions as he did doing his studying.

He qualified as a doctor in 1895 – “not quite at a canter” – and he became a locum doctor, although he started each day with a two-hour ride before his surgery. But life as an artist seemed more attractive, and, when Vanity Fair magazine began publishing his caricatures, potentially more lucrative, so, in 1898, he and his wife, Isabel, moved to Darlington to begin a new career.

Darlington was then one of the great fox-hunting capitals. The 3rd Earl of Darlington, who lived in Raby Castle near Staindrop, had started it in 1787 by creating the “old Raby Hunt country” which covered nearly all of North Yorkshire and Durham. This patch was so large that he had several packs of hounds conveniently stationed across it and, over time, these developed into separate hunts: the Braes of Derwent near Consett, the South Durham at Sedgefield, the Bedale and his home Raby (which became the Zetland). Plus there were also the Hurworth, Cleveland and Bilsdale hunts.

Some large stately homes around Darlington – for example Rockliffe Hall at Hurworth – were taken over by extremely wealthy men who located to the area purely so they could devote their time to hunting. These men also had the means to pay an aspiring artist to capture them in their finery on their favourite hunt.

Fothergill's studio of 18, Duke Street, is now a bridal shop

So Fothergill settled at Raydaleside in Stanhope Road and had his studio and shop at 18, Duke Street, and produced in 1899 his first publication, An Old Raby Hunt Album, which was sponsored by the Marquis of Zetland at Aske Hall, near Richmond.

As well as horses, Fothergill had a wonderful eye for amusing incidents which he often accompanied with poetic ditties – The Times in 1903 said his newly-published sketchbook was “a miscellany of clever and vigorous sketches, topographical, sporting and humorous”.

To supplement his hunting income, he designed letterheads, advertisements and Christmas cards, and he produced books of architectural details.

One of GAF's adverts for a Darlington shop

But by 1908, he was £850 in debt (about £100,000 in today’s values, according to the Bank of England Inflation Calculator).

The bulk of that was to his publishers, principally William Dresser of Darlington, which was refusing to release 250 copies – half the print run – of his most recent book, Notes from the Diary of a Doctor, Sketch Artist and Sportsman, until he paid off his debts.

He argued that without selling those 250 books (cover price 6s each) he had no income with which to pay those debts. It didn’t wash and he was declared bankrupt at Stockton court.

The stables at Faverdale Hall in Darlington, by Fothergill, included in his Notes

He immediately upped sticks, and sought another horsey circle to entertain with his drawings. He fell in with A Charles Schwartz, an American millionaire polo player who, a week before the 1926 Aintree meeting bought an outsider, Jack Horner, that went on to win the Grand National at 25-1. Fothergill immortalised this remarkable achievement with a 34-verse illustrated poem dedicated to his millionaire patron.

Despite the acrimonious departure from Darlington, the local people never forgot him, and in 1940 raised money to buy a collection of his works which was presented to the library. When he heard, the artist wrote from his home in East Grinstead (which, perhaps coincidentally, is very close to the Lingfield Park racecourse) in Sussex to say how thrilled he was not to be forgotten in the town which inspired him to produce his best works.

A sketch of "our very own Jeb" who Fothergill had seen in The Northern Echo

Then tragedy struck. On July 9, 1943, the Germans sent 217 Dornier bombers to attack London. One of them got lost and, at 5.05pm, burst through the clouds over Sussex. East Grinstead was below, so it dropped its bombs on the High Street. It circled and then trained its machine guns on the pedestrians before heading for home. East Grinstead’s population was about 8,000. In those few seconds, 108 of them were killed – many victims were children who had been in the High Street cinema – and 235 of them were seriously injured. Fothergill’s wife, Isabel, 73, and his daughter, Mary, 46, were killed outright, and another daughter, Erica, 49, died of her wounds three days later. Both girls, like his other two children, had been baptised in St Cuthbert’s Church in Darlington, and had spent their childhood in the town being pressed into service by their father as models.

The artist himself died 18 months later without any fortune in his extremely humble home in East Grinstead – but his passion for his art and his animals lives on, and several of his sketchbooks are in Saturday's sale.

• Darlington Book Fair is on Saturday, May 13, from 10am to 4pm at the Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College, Vane Terrace. Admission is £1. Refreshments are available.

The printer's mark, designed by Fothergill, on his early sketchbooks

An unfinished sketch by George Algernon Fothergill which he placed at the front of one of his limited edition sketchbooks. It shows the George & Dragon Inn stables at Catterick Bridge - the old name for the hotel at the south end which now lies in ruins

GAF's drawing of Thornton Hall, near Darlington