George Gordon Hoskins died at his home of Thornbeck Hill, off Coniscliffe Road. ‘He has distinguished himself by his great architectural genius, abundant evidence of which is manifest in his imposing buildings,’ said the mayor. ‘He has left many things behind him to keep his memory fresh.’
In fact, G.G. Hoskins created the face of Victorian Darlington. His quirkily grand style and unique terracotta touch was known as ‘Hoskinian Gothic’, and it gained for Darlington the nickname of ‘the Athens of the North’. Among his achievements are Elm Ridge (1865), Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College (1875), Crown Street (1879–82), the Pease Public Library (1884), King’s Head Hotel (1890) and the Technical College (1894).
He grew up in Burton-on-Trent in the shadow of an extravagant hilltop mock Gothic folly that had ruined his grandfather. In 1861, Manchester architect Alfred Waterhouse sent Hoskins to Hurworth to be clerk of works on Pilmore Hall – now Rockliffe Hall – that Waterhouse was building for banker Alfred Backhouse. This was the start Hoskins needed, and the young George became Backhouses’ banks’ in-house architect, designing branches including Bishop Auckland and Barnard Castle.
His magnum opus, though, is Middlesbrough Town Hall. It is a £130,000 masterpiece from its crypt to its belfry, which was opened by the future King Edward VII in 1889, although his best building is surely Darlington’s opulent King’s Head Hotel.
(‘Memories’, The Northern Echo, 2008)