BACK in January, the Memories blog was pursuing Nicholas Bragg, the Chartist who was born in Barnard Castle in 1813. He was sentenced to three months in prison in May 1840 for causing a (political) nuisance in Darlington Market Place, he was regarded as the founder of modern Conservatism in the town, and he was a perennial pimple on the Peases backside.

Since the blog entry, Ive been contacted by Andrea McPhillips who has also been pursuing Mr Bragg because her great-great-grandmother, Elizabeth, was his wife from 1835 until his death in 1873.

But theres a curious story here, too.

Elizabeth was born in Ainderby Steeple an attractive North Yorkshire village with an overlooked milepost. In June 1827 she married Christopher Boynton in Bradford. They had three children, including Alton John Boynton, who was born in Darlington in 1833.

As now, people moved about a lot in those days: Bradford and Darlington were both textile towns, perhaps thats why they moved north.

Around this time, Mr Bragg was setting up his home in Darlington. He was a carpetweaver by trade another textile connection.

Elizabeth met him, and fell in love. She may even have left her husband and run away with the radical Chartist to London where possibly bigamously they married in Bloomsbury on September 9, 1835. Elizabeth is listed in the register as a "spinster" but Andrea can find no evidence of her husbands demise.

Soon after, the newly-weds returned to Darlington with just one son, Alton, in tow and Mr Bragg began his revolutionary activities. He was the principal opponent of the ruling Peases throughout the 1840s and 1850s, forming the towns first political party Conservative to oppose them.

Mr Bragg died on May 20, 1873, and Andrea has found the headstone he shares with Elizabeth (who died in 1891 aged 82) and their son Nicholas (died 1875) in Darlington's West Cemetery.

The headstone is "in loving remembrance of Nicholas Bragg of Darlington" and includes the inscription: "Stop pilgrims, learn a lesson from the tomb Then earnestly and faithfully pass on Be ready when the Father calls you home Do all the good you can and injure none."

THE ORIGINAL BLOG ENTRY FROM JANUARY 11: Nicholas Bragg was the leader of the first working class movement in south Durham and yet ended up being hailed as the father of modern Conservativism in Darlington.

He was born in Barnard Castle in 1813. His father was a soldier who served at Waterloo. He, as befits a Barney boy, was a carpetweaver. A carpetweaver with attitude.

Chartism ran from 1838 to about 1850. It started with a six-point charter which demanded universal male suffrage, plus fair, secret ballots, and payment for MPs. Although it was seen outrageously radical in 1838, five of the six points had been introduced by 1918 - annual parliaments, to prevent the wealthy from being able to afford to bribe their way to success in every seven year election, was the one that didn't make it. Nevertheless, the movement fizzled into failure in the early 1850s.

Mr Bragg was an early convert. In May 1840, he was involved in some sort of incident in Darlington Market Place which resulted in him being sentenced to three months inside for causing an obstruction and public nuisance. In 1841, he was seriously considering standing as a Chartist candidate in the election against Joseph Pease, the sitting Liberal MP. In fact, Tory supporters actively encouraged him to stand in the hope that he would split the leftish vote and let their man in. He withstood the temptation, but his antipathy towards Mr Pease grew to gargantuan proportions.

He ran a Chartist bookstore as well as a grocery and off-licence at No 21, High Row (which one is that?).

In 1856, he formed the Darlington Ratepayers Association which led the opposition to the Peases and the Backhouses, never missing an opportunity, however trivial, to singe their beards.

The biggest opportunity came in 1864 when he noticed that Mr Pease, as Returning Officer in the Local Board of Health election, had committed a technical misdemeanour which had no effect whatsoever on the result yet rendered the whole proceedings illegal. Mr Bragg's annoyance was no doubt magnified by the fact that he had come eighth in the poll and had failed to be elected, whereas all six of Mr Pease's men had been returned.

The poll was topped by Alfred Backhouse of Pilmore Hall, Hurworth, whom Mr Bragg labelled "the illegal member" and the court case, Regina versus Backhouse, rumbled through the courts for a couple of years like a Dickensian sub-plot. Everytime the judge agreed that the election was illegal because Mr Pease had not personally been present to validate the result, Mr Backhouse appealed to a higher court.

I can't find a final conclusion to Regina versus Backhouse, but I reckon this is because the case faded into irrelevancy in 1867 when another of Mr Bragg's anti-establishment campaigns bore fruit. Because the Board of Health - effectively Darlington's first council - was so dominated by the Peases and the Backhouses and their Quaker pals, he successfully managed to get Darlington incorporated as a municipality. This meant it had to have a town council headed by a mayor and elected more democratically. His triumph seemed complete when his bugbears Mr Backhouse and Mr Pease both failed to stand for the new council.

Then the results came in, showing that they had merely handed the Liberal Quaker baton to the next generation, and so everything had changed in terms of the council yet everything had stayed the same in terms of the levers of power.

Somehow around this time, Mr Bragg made what seems to me to be a great leap. In 1868, he formed the Darlington Working Men's Conservative Association - the first formal political party in the town - and in the 1865 and 1868 elections he was a "Conservative plumper". From the comfort of my bed, I've yet to discover a proper definition of "plumper". It seems to mean that he plumped enthusiastically for the Conservative candidate whoever he may be. I think it was more usual at this time to vote for a candidate's character: someone you knew or liked or who employed you.

I guess Mr Bragg's great leap to Conservatism was that he realized that the Tories were the only force who could make any impact on the might of the local Liberal Quaker establishment.

He died in 1873. His contribution to local politics was highlight in 1885 when William Wooler received his illuminated address - you remember, the one Mr Wooler said ought to say that he "had earned the undying envy and malice of the Northern Echo".

In his reply, Mr Wooler bigged up Mr Bragg so much that other people who read his remarks have concluded that Mr Bragg was "the founder of modern Conservatism" in Darlington.

Mr Wooler said: "At one time this locality and district were wholly dominated over by a self-seeking insatiable, power-loving band. The only person who made any efforts to stem their grasping action was that Chartist, the late Mr Nicholas Bragg, who was too truthful to his tolerant principles to abide in the then false abode of Liberalism and who under the conviction, arrived at by experience, came to the determination that the Conservative Party were the real friends of the working classes. So it came to pass that Mr Nicholas Bragg not only voted 20 years ago for Colonel Surtees but advised us and aided us out of the stores of his accumulated facts.

"Darlington owes to Mr Bragg primarily its municipality, for he worked single handed for years in preparing the way to overcome the overbearing opposition which was headed by Messrs Arthur Pease, John Pease and others."

My Alfred was one of the others, and now I understand why Mr Bragg went to such great lengths to have him branded "the illegal member".