WHEN Kofi Annan, secretary general of the United Nations, collects his joint Nobel Peace Prize today, 100 years since the first award was made, he will join an illustrious list of the great and the good.

Among them is ex-foreign secretary and former Mayor of Darlington Arthur Henderson.

Mr Henderson, one of the founding fathers of the Labour Party, who began his Government career as the member for Barnard Castle from 1903, was awarded the prize in 1934.

He became secretary of the Labour Party and won his peace prize for presiding over disarmament talks in Geneva held by the League of Nations between 1932 and 1934.

The League, formed after the First World War, was the forerunner of the United Nations.

The peace prizes were first awarded in 1901 following the death of Alfred Nobel, a scientist and inventor who also loved literature and writing poetry.

He decreed in his will that his fortune be used to highlight developments of the greatest benefit to mankind in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace.

Patrick Salmon, Professor of International History at Newcastle University, spent five months in Norway studying the peace prize. He said many worthy candidates had missed out on the honour, including former US president Jimmy Carter.

But he said sometimes the explanation for people missing out was simply that no one had nominated them.

"Quite often people did not get around to it, or they thought someone else had nominated them," he said.

The prize is awarded by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

"I think it can be used as an incentive and it is a warning as well, a way of encouraging people to behave better and carry on with their work," said Prof Salmon