A COUPLE of centuries ago, the North-East was awash with drink. Bairns were pumped full of booze at social events; doctors freely prescribed alcoholic liquors to patients suffering headaches and stomach upsets, and society regarded attaining the condition of drunkenness as a great achievement.

But in the 1830s, the temperance movement crossed over from America. One of the first British groups was the Darlington Moderation Society, formed in 1831. George Mottram was an early convert.

He was the original drunken sailor and was sentenced to death for stealing a boat. But when he renounced alcohol he was pardoned, and he became the toast of the Moderation Society.

One day, he set off to convert the people of Barnard Castle. Unfortunately, he got so hopelessly drunk on the journey that he was unable to speak upon his arrival.

Moderation was not the answer.

In September 1833, the Seven Men of Preston went one step further and became the first in the country to sign a pledge forswearing all alcohol.

Not only did they inspire a pop group - the Temperance Seven (No 1 with You're Driving Me Crazy in 1961) - but also one of their members invented a new word.

Richard "Dicky" Turner had a strong Lancashire accent and, quite probably, a stutter. He declared that his abstinence would be "t-t-total for ever and ever" and so 'teetotal' entered the dictionary. (This claim to fame is apparently recorded on his tombstone in St Peter's churchyard in Preston.)

The Total Abstinence Society spread quickly, and the inaugural meeting of the Darlington branch was held above a watchmaker's shop on High Row in August 1835. A local doctor, John Fothergill, was elected its first president - a position he held for 23 years until his death.

Dr Fothergill came from an eminent family of Wensleydale Quaker medicine men. He was born at Semerwater, near Bainbridge, in 1785, hence his son's surgery, which still stands in Stanhope Road, is called Semercote. He came to Darlington in about 1825.

His Liberal views were well-known. He was passionately against American slavery, but abstention from alcohol was his favourite cause.

In those days, though, it was an unpopular cause. Not only was the brewing industry very powerful, but Dr Fothergill's own medical profession believed drink to be most efficacious. Even religion, especially Methodism, was against the cause, fearing that devotion to abstinence was replacing devotion to God.

The temperance movement itself was full of factions. Some advocated abstinence, others moderation. Some advocated "the long pledge", whereby the signer didn't offer alcohol to his friends, others only "the short pledge", whereby he could entertain as royally as he liked.

Yet it caught on. In Darlington alone there was the Temperance Choral Union, the Temperance Debating Society, the Women's Temperance Association and the Juvenile Temperance Society. At the beginning of the 20th Century, the movement opened an institution and a hall, still standing, in Gladstone Street.

And it worked. Britain sobered up during the Victorian era. Spirit consumption dropped from nine pints a year per head in 1831 to 1 in 1931. Beer consumption fell from 173 pints per person per year to a mere 106 over the same period, and tea consumption rose from 1.24 pounds per annum per head to 9.67 pounds.

In Darlington, president Fothergill was much admired for his persistent battling, and when he died it was agreed that a water fountain should be erected in his memory, especially as he frequently prescribed a long drink of cold, fresh water for his patients.

In 1860, the society asked the Board of Health for permission to build a fountain in Prospect Place (outside what is today the HSBC bank). Permission was denied on the grounds that it would be a traffic hazard.

But the board did want to move the huge cattle fountain from the centre of Bondgate. It overflowed so much that Bondgate was a muddy, dungy quagmire (John Pease made room for the fountain at his country mansion in Great Ayton).

The society held a competition to design a fountain. The top prize was two guineas, and it was scooped by a 17-year-old called Septimus Hird. He also won the second prize with an entry he ascribed to "Darlingtonia".

Ironically, Septimus lived at the Green Tree Inn, in Skinnergate (now a pizza place). He was an apprentice architect with the Richardson and Ross practice (which featured in Echo Memories last year).

Sadly, poor Septimus was dead. On July 1, 1861, he drowned while bathing in the sea at Redcar. A large obelisk was raised over his resting place in West Cemetery. It also records that his mother, Ann, died and was buried at Bategnolles, near Paris.

Septimus' boss, John Ross, modified the fountain and it was ready for opening on June 10, 1862. Led by Dr Fothergill's successor as president, William Thompson, and the Darlington Sax Horn Band, the abstainers paraded from the Mechanics Institute, in Skinnergate, along Blackwellgate and High Row and up Bondgate to the fountain. There Mr Thompson, whose bankruptcy in the late 1870s allowed Darlington to acquire a vast chunk of South Park very cheaply, ceremonially drank the first glass of water from the fountain.

"A vast concourse of people assembled to witness the proceedings, and although rain fell and the clouds threatened a deluge, they stood and watched the ceremony to the end," reported the Darlington and Stockton Times (D&ST).

In fact, it was so wet that everyone had to come back the following day to have their picture taken and, as you can see on this page, there was still a huge puddle in front of the fountain.

There was much speechifying in the rain, praising Dr Fothergill and praising temperance. But...

"'Jack Watson', as Mr John Watson, painter, is popularly known, was in the crowd and caused some slight annoyance," reported the D&ST. "He was 'three sheets in the wind', and seemed to delight in interrupting the speakers, by a sort of running commentary upon their remarks, never, however, in any degree coinciding, but with a heavy hiccup venting his dissatisfaction with the site, the character of the monument, with the temperance fraternity generally, and apparently nobody in particular."

It was about one in the afternoon, and we may safely assume that Mr Watson had not spent the morning in prayer.

The D&ST's report concludes: "Mr William Johnson shot a bolt at Mr Watson, telling him that he shouldn't be surprised to hear of some of his class sneaking along the street early some Sunday morning, when they couldn't get any drink elsewhere, and moistening their parched lips, after a night's fuddle, at this fountain.

"Loud laughter and cheers followed this ready-witted remark, and the company shortly afterwards dispersed."

Presumably not to the pub.

The Fothergill Fountain proved as much of a nuisance as a drunk at the unveiling of a temperance monument. It spewed out water, and a raised walkway had to be built across Bondgate so people didn't sink ankle-deep in mud.

In 1875, the fountain was moved out of the way to South Park with Mr Ross - Septimus' boss - paying for the alterations.

Initially, it stood on the south-west corner of the terrace in the shadow of the giant sequoia trees. However, in 1926 when the Parkside entrance was built, it was moved to its present position beside the aviaries.

When the Fothergill Fountain was unveiled, the D&ST wrote: "From the superior quality of the stone, it will stand for years in its present position, and when the blighting hand of time creeps over and disfigures its face, we trust it will be restored."

The paper's prediction about the fountain's position was not correct, but as part of this year's £4m refurbishment of South Park, the fountain will be moved back to its initial p osition by the Parkside entrance, reconnected to the water supply and restored so that the ravages left by the blighting hand of time are removed.