THE 150th anniversary of the birth of modern Darlington is being celebrated at this year’s Festival of Ingenuity on Saturday.

On September 13, 1867, Queen Victoria gave Royal Assent to the town’s Charter of Incorporation. This document turned the town into a borough, with its own democratically-elected council, headed by the town’s first mayor.

The council took control of Darlington’s local affairs for the first time, and a few months later, as part of this process, the townspeople were able to elect their first MP.

Symbolically, this date is important because it signified that Darlington as a town had come of age. The charter recognised that it was no longer a provincial backwater of Durham but it was a place of stature in its own right, surrounded by industry and prosperity of its own making.

But one man was responsible for driving through this great change because the town’s ruling elite – the wealthy Quakers in the so-called “Pease Party” – were quite content with the status quo.

He was a maverick megalomaniac called Henry King Spark, who is nicknamed “the Donald of Darlo” in a talk to be given as part of the festival because of his similarities to the US president.

Mr Spark amassed a mysterious fortune based loosely on coal and railways, and had designs on becoming the town’s first mayor and its first MP. With his populist appeal, he promised the townspeople he would drain the swamp of the ruling elite – and only the Quakers’ underhand tactics prevented him from being elected to Westminster to represent Darlington.

The remarkable story is to be told in a free, illustrated talk entitled "King Henry the Ninth and the Spark of Ingenuity: the Birth of Darlington Borough Council" by The Northern Echo’s Chief Feature Writer Chris Lloyd. It is at 11am on Saturday in Central Hall, behind the Dolphin Centre. There will also be a small display of portraits, posters and cartoons from the events and elections of 150 years ago.