PLANS to demolish Alderman Leach Primary School, in Cockerton, Darlington, and replace it with a new £2.9m building within the forthcoming West Park, at Faverdale, are proving controversial.

When the school opened in September 1925 there was much controversy, too.

It was the first school to be built in the town for a decade, because of the First World War. The school cost £9,370, the equivalent of about £250,000 in today's money. However, because of its modern, cheap materials, it was estimated to have cost £6,000 less than if it had been built before the war.

There were some, though, who did not consider it value for money. At the opening ceremony, the Mayor of Darlington, WE Pease said: "The cost of education in this country is enormous. It is said to be more than in all the other countries of Europe put together. Are we getting the results? "The old public school system in England is often decried, but there is this to be said for it: it delivered the goods. It turned out men of the world, and men who have helped to a very great degree in making England what she is today. Are we delivering the goods today with our present system of education? I am not so sure."

Alderman Charles Leach, chairman of the Education Committee and a Liberal to Pease's Conservative, defended the expense saying that any money invested in children's education was money well spent.

He said that the railway companies were in the process of bringing 1,400 families into Darlington. The education committee had therefore bought an eight- acre site and built a school with room for 440 children, although there were just 160 on the opening day role.

The school, though, had to be substantially rebuilt in 1950 when it was re-opened by the Minister for Education, George Tomlinson. He again spoke about the virtues of investing money in children, and promised the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Hugh Gaitskell, that Cockerton would provide a valuable return.

The headmistress, Miss AM Donaldson, said: "The school is of a type that has only existed in my wildest dreams, and its form will be of inestimable assistance in the social training and education of the children for the after-life."

So, who was the Alderman Leach after whom the school is named? Charles Henry Leach was one of a family of 15. He was born in 1862 in Rochdale. He left school at the age of 13 and worked with his father, who was the assistant clerk to the Rochdale Board of Guardians. He soon moved to Salisbury to a similar post but quickly felt homesick and so advertised for a job in his current line of work. Of his replies, the one from William Hodgson, clerk of the Darlington Board of Guardians, was closest to home and so he arrived in the town on September 29, 1880.

Although he adopted Darlington as his own, he seems never to have forgotten his home for his house in Southend Avenue was called Rochville.

Leach took over from Hodgson in 1893, and was soon clerk to all the local councils and sitting on numerous worthy committees. He was called to the Bar in 1898, became a national expert on the workings of the Poor Law and, in 1901, was elected to Darlington Town Council.

He was mayor of Darlington in 1904-05 and, after the First World War played an important role in setting up the Memorial Hospital. He was a JP for 17 years, a Methodist preacher at Greenbank chapel for 60 years and a fearless advocate of temperance.

He began winding down his activities in the late 1930s. His second wife, Lavinia, died in 1943 and Mr Leach gradually became blind.

One day in June 1944, he was out walking in Grange Road when he was knocked down by a lorry.

He died of head injuries a week later in the Memorial Hospital. He was 82.

"Thus has tragedy ended a long life of public service and a career devoted almost wholly to Darlington's social, educational and religious advancement," concluded the Darlington and Stockton Times.

There probably won't be an Echo Memories next week due to an impending birth, but if you have anything to add to any of the items in this week's column please write to Echo Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington DL1 1NF, or e-mail chris.lloyd

Published: ??/??/2002

Echo Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington DL1 1NF, e-mail chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk or telephone (01325) 505062.