A FORMER mayor of Darlington his turned up in an auction house in Los Angeles.
Well, a charcoal picture of him in his mayoral robes and regalia in a fancy frame has.
“It was leaning on a wall in the very back, stacked up with other pictures in front of it,” says Edward Ruiz. “When I saw it, I immediately knew it was something very special but I didn't know what it was at that moment.”
So he contacted Memories to find out.
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Edward’s picture shows Cllr George Marshall who became the 13th mayor of Darlington in November 1896. He was a builder by trade, and was responsible for what became the Arts Centre in Vane Terrace, plus much of Stanhope Road and Woodlands Road.
He also built the NatWest bank on Stockton High Street – a typically sturdy bank premises – and the reservoirs at Middleton St George where the Water Park now doubles as a village hall.
The Northern Echo said that Mr Marshall had “natural skill and aptitude” as a quoits player, and won the silver quoit – the top prize of Darlington Quoits Club, the oldest quoits club in the world – on 11 occasions. When he became mayor, he was also the club’s president and captain.
Tom Beaumont, of the quoits club, says: “In my opinion, he is a club hero, having pulled together all the regional quoit clubs to formalise the rules of quoits. He established a regional organisation which is now the National Quoit Association and set up an annual competition for the best players which is still played for today.”
The picture is signed “Alf H Wood”. Mr Wood’s father, Thomas, was a pictureframer and art dealer in Blackwellgate, and his brother, Sydney, was one of the town’s most prolific early commercial photographers. It seems that Alfred has produced the charcoal drawing from one of Sydney’s photos.
It is a frame with the Darlington coat-of-arms moulded into the top – could this have been an official council presentation to Mr Marshall, who has a street named after him in the Denes area?
“I am guessing that the portrait was hanging somewhere for a very long time because the frame has couple of coats of paint on it,” says Edward.
The big question, of course, how has the picture got to LA? What journey has the drawing undertaken in the last 125 years to travel more than 5,200 miles from the Durham town to the Californian city, and why?
Mayor Marshall had seven children. Are there any of his descendants still about who might be able to shed any light on the Californian connection?
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