IT looks as if Saturday's Memories will have a mention of this fellow, Sir John Priestman, of whom I had never heard until I received a football-related email from Australia.

That yarn will unravel on Saturday, but in the meantime I've been looking into Sir John, who was born in Bishop Auckland on March 23, 1855. Apparently, he and a friend used to go by train to the beach at Sunderland and he fell in love with the sea.

However, when he was 13, his father, Robert, a baker, died leaving the family without a breadwinner (quite pleased with that). At 14, Sir John became an apprentice shipbuilder in Sunderland, at a time when iron was replacing timber and steam was replacing steam. He was obviously a master of this new technology and rose to become a chief draughtsman before, aged 27, he set up his own shipyard at Southwick on the Wear.

The 1880s were hard times - his Castletown Yard was idle for five years (apparently, in down times he occupied himself by playing tennis with his yard manager in his empty shipyard). But he established himself in the 1890s and his iron tramp steamships were bought by companies based in the UK and in Spain, Singapore, Greece, Italy and Scandinavia.

He made money. When his mother, Jane, died in 1903 he donated £6,000 to have St Andrew's Church in Roker built in her memory - there can't be many Bishop Auckland ladies who have churches built for them.

There was enough money left over for him to speculatively build 12 steamships which he sailed from Baltic ports to South Africa and then back to Sunderland via West Africa. They carried palm kernels, groundnuts and logs, but through them, Sir John made contact with the South African gold industry. He invested in goldmines which appear to have proven as lucrative as his shipyard, which made 299 vessels until it closed in 1933.

In 1923, he was knighted for his public and political services in Sunderland. In 1931, he established the Sir John Priestman Trust to feed the poor, pay nurses and maintain churches - in particular to restore organs, as he was a keen organist. In 1934, he was created a baronet - Baron of Monkwearmouth - "for services to social organisations in County Durham". In 1936, he gave £50,000 to build a new eye infirmary in Sunderland, and in 1939, he donated £20,000 to build a library - the Priestman Building - which is now part of Sunderland University.

The Echo's obituary (attached here) said: "It was characteristic of him that he announced his benefactions in a casual, almost apologetic manner. His most munificent act was a gift of £100,000 for the stablishment of a trust fund to porvide clothing, boots and other necessities for the poor children of Sunderland. The secret was kept for 18 months and announced by him when in January 1933, Sunderland conferred its freedom on him."

He'd retired from his grand Cliffside house to Harrogate, where he had a splendid organ, and there he died in 1941 aged 86. He'd given away £500,000 in his lifetime and left most of his £1.5m will to charity (that's £85m in today's values according to the Bank of England's inflation calculator). His trust still gives away £350,000-a-year, which is the interest on his investments.

He was twice married, and had one daughter. She obviously didn't inherit his fortune and, being female, she couldn't inherit his title. But she was fortunate enough to have a steamship named after her: the Barbara Marie, which was launched in 1928.
 

I wonder if anyone can tell me anymore about his Bishop Auckland links?