Unravelling myths of the man on the horse

SITTING proud, overlooking shoppers, tourists and late night revellers, "the man on the horse" is the most striking monument of Durham's market place. He is the pre-arranged place for meeting friends, the starting point for guided tours and the place to sit with a sandwich on a sunny Saturday lunchtime. Occasionally we may even look up towards his face and wonder.

"Who is that guy?" ask curious American visitors, believing the horseman to be some kind of city father. Few can provide the answer in full but there is a vague recollection that he was a coal owner and of course there is the legend of the horse with no tongue. No one seems to know the name of the horse, but the uniformed man that rides the horse's back is Charles William Vane Stewart, the third Marquess of Londonderry (1778-1854).

He is a man with ancestral links to the old monarchs of Scotland, and although his mining interests included collieries at Gilesgate Moor, Rainton and Pittington on the city's eastern outskirts he is as much a symbol of the county as city.

In truth he married into coal. His aristocratic background and career were connected more with military matters.

Born in Dublin in 1778 and educated at Eton he was a major by the age of 17. By 1808, he was leading the Hussar Brigade and became adjutant general to the Duke of Wellington. He fought in successful campaigns in Belgium, Holland, Portugal and Spain and was active as a diplomat in an age when Napoleon was the constant threat to Europe's peace.

Londonderry's Irish title was inherited from his famous halfbrother, Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, the second marquess, who cut his own throat with a letter opener in 1822.

Castlereagh was British Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons and like his younger brother, a successful soldier.

There was no link between Castlereagh and Durham. The Durham connection commenced with Charles's marriage in 1819 to Frances Anne-Vane Tempest, an heiress to estates in Durham and Ireland. Charles took his wife's name, "Vane", as part of his own. Vane estates in Durham included Long Newton village (where he is buried) and Wynyard Hall, both on the outskirts of Stockton.

However, it is the town of Seaham Harbour with which the third Marquess is principally associated.

After retirement from military matters, he invested much time and money developing mines and railways in eastern Durham.

In Sunderland he entered into negotiations with the River Wear commissioners to obtain certain exclusive rights to the river for exporting coal.

In the end negotiations failed and he rather petulantly proclaimed he would "see grass grow in the streets of Sunderland".

By 1828, he had built a substantial port of his own called Seaham Harbour to rival Sunderland, and although it did not bring an end to Sunderland's prosperity it proved a successful venture.

Londonderry's activities as a coal owner did not endear him to the miners. Very much a Tory businessman of his time, he opposed all reforms, banned inspections of mines, opposed trade unions, broke coal strikes with imported Cornish tin miners and objected to the raising of the school leaving age to 12, since many boys were employed in his mines.

Londonderry had friends amongst the higher ranks of society. When he died in 1854 his widow set up a subscription committee for the building of a statue to commemorate his life. A total of £2,000 was raised and it was decided that a double life-size equestrian monument should be built.

A number of County Durham towns were considered as sites for the sculpture, including Seaham Harbour and even Sunderland, but eventually Durham City's market place was chosen. However, when the council in the city realised how big the statue was going to be, it panicked and unsuccessfully attempted to persuade the university to erect it on Palace Green instead.

Five local tradesmen objected and filed a lawsuit against the statue's location, believing it would restrict free passage into the market place. They failed in their suit, but the statue almost did not arrive at all. Raphael Monti, the supposedly suicidal sculptor of the statue, went bankrupt and his creditors seized the work before it was delivered.

They forced the widow of the marquess to pay £1,000 for its release to which she reluctantly agreed.

Raphael Monti of Milan (1818- 1881) the English-based Italian artist, utilised a remarkable new technique in his monument to the marquess. The Galvano-Plastic or electroplating process involved embedding an electroplated copper covering onto a plaster base. It is the corroded copper that gives this statue its greenish appearance.

Monti was very pleased with the result and according to legend boasted that he would reward anyone who found fault with his masterpiece. Many rose to the challenge, but no fault was found until a visiting blind man was granted permission to inspect the statue. Hoisted up to the head of the horse, the man inspected it carefully with his hands and to everyone's astonishment declared that this was a horse with no tongue.

It is said the sculptor was so devastated that he committed suicide but this well-known legend does not appear to be true. On close inspection the horse does in fact appear to have a tongue.

The statue had been unveiled on December 2, 1861 hailed by the rifle volunteers of Sunderland, Seaham and Durham City all, incidentally, established by the military- minded marquess.

The neighbouring statue of Neptune, first erected in 1729, kept the Marquess company in the market place until 1923 but was removed because of the hazard it posed to traffic. It is perhaps remarkable that the larger equestrian statue remained in place.

The marquess was a permanent fixture of the market place for 90 years and then only temporarily removed to undergo repairs in 1951. The following year he returned to his rightful place, unveiled by the eighth marquess, complete with new plaque.

The monument had to wait another 39 years before the older but rather neglected statue of Neptune returned to keep him company at the opposite end of the market place in 1991.