The bronze symbol of John Candlish, a tycoon and the “Mr. Sunderland” of his time, is on his granite base in downtown Mowbray Park since 1875.
On the day of its inauguration, at least another 15,000 people accumulated to witness the new attraction of the park, at a time when the city’s population was only a fraction of what it would be. Sunderland was adorned as if celebrating a great sporting achievement.
The statue charges 1,000 euros, or about 116,000 euros in today’s money, and was raised through a public whip.
When the success of today’s entrepreneurs expires, it is difficult to expect such a reaction for any of them. Especially if, like Candlish, they were also politicians.
He’s a popular gentleman. But who is he?
The early years
John Candlish was not born in Wearside. He entered the world in a village in Northumberland called Tarset, about 15 miles north of Hexham, in April 1816.
He moved to Sunderland at the age of 4 when his mother Mary died. His father, John Candlish Snr, joined the Ayres Quay Bottle Company in Deptford. Glass would play a role in young John’s life.
But before he fit into the industry beautifully, he tried, and largely failed, in several others.
After a smart education, he’s become a handkerchief on the High Street. It is very professional and may be covered with the most productive of them. So much so that at 20 she married in a curtain shop.
The Sunderland Lighthouse
But he knew more about the fabric making than about the sale. In less than a year, his business had doubled like his laundry.
Always able to check anything, at the age of 26 and with a George Richmond, he founded a newspaper called Sunderland Beacon. But he’s not the first or last to realize that running a newspaper isn’t as undeniable as he would have thought. It closed after six months, leaving it in debt.
After looking at the not exactly dual professions of curtains and journalism, his next professional movement is evident to him: to him.
He has become a coal exporter. It also did not last long before he took over a shipyard in Southwick. There is a transparent link between coal exports and shipbuilding. In the end, John had taken a professional resolution that it was not a natural history and the shipyard would have produced charming ships.
But it didn’t generate any money. He then bought through Robert Thompson and enjoyed infinite success.
Then there was a brief stint as secretary of Sunderland Gas Company and some other short-lived newspaper, the Sunderland News. So far, John’s career has been one of watching and failing.
Candlish super rich
But his first leap in the big way, despite everything, came here in 1853, when he received a lease from Seaham Bottle Works in association with his middle-aged friend, Robert Greenwell.
Greenwell had worked as a shipyard assembler. So what it has brought to the bottling industry is uncertain. Given Candlish’s failed attempts in industries he knew little or nothing about, it is highly likely that he, Candlish, had acquired the useful wisdom of his father, who was still alive.
With advertising plastic bottles in almost a century in the future, glass bottling is a very lucrative industry.
The company took off thanks to the patronage of the fourth Marquess of Londonderry, who belonged to the bags of money, the circle of Vane-Tempests relatives by his mother.
Finally, with insight, Candlish renamed Londonderry Bottle Works. It’s grown considerably.
He soon owned two cargo ships, the Lollard and the Oakwell (sunk in a mine in 1917), which made weekly trips to a warehouse in London. It also began production at the Diamond Hall plant in Millfield.
There were four bottle houses there. It now owned 11 in total, employing six hundred other people who generated 20 million bottles a year. It may not seem like much today, however, in the 19th century, other people never threw bottles.
It’s a big company. In fact, it is the largest bottle manufacturer in Europe.
On one prominent occasion, a parliamentary stopover in India in 1870, Candlish won beer from a bottle made through its own company, although it is unlikely that he drank it. He was a deeply devoted man; a Baptist who exalted the virtues of temperance.
A rarity: a much-loved tycoon
The key to his good fortune turned out to have been his herbal kindness and his ability to stay happy. They enjoyed it.
Imagine today’s scene. A giant company with a rich owner hits the seals after a bank breaks down. The only solution, which is unworkable for fashionable ears, is that everything continues to serve for a month, without pay.
The staff just took the floor, which Candlish did. He looked at his unpaid paintings as a loan, which as a gift, and in the end returned it with interest. The corporate was stored and was very successful again.
This is what John Candlish’s workforce did for him in 1858. It is the most productive in commercial relations.
As far as we know, the staff did all this without complaining. A dinner organized through them in honor of Candlish in November 1865, where he won a silver plate.
Politician and big shot
In 1848 he made his first foray into politics, hiring a liberal councillor. His roles in politics and business meant that his eminence in Sunderland was beyond doubt. On May 21, 1857, Candlish the VIP officially opened by Mowbray Park.
The following year he was mayor of Sunderland for the first time, a position he assumed in 1861.
In 1865 he ran unsuccessfully for parliamentary elections. However, he was one of Sunderland’s MPs only seven months later in a partial election. He used his position to protect social reform and relaxed trade, remaining in Parliament the maximum of his life.
Generosity and achievement
Having earned his money scrupulously and fairly, as far as we know, Candlish and his brother Robert, who ran the company (then renamed R Candlish and Sons) while John was an MP, have become philanthropists.
For the rest of their lives, the brothers helped the Sunderland area, the network of their staff, by paying for new facilities.
Candlish has opened a library, a savings bank and a volunteer school for workers and their families. He also created a network around the works through construction houses in Sunderland and Seaham, hospitals, a chapel and Candlish Hall which also in Seaham.
The busy does little justice for him.
In 1861 he helped identify the orphan’s asylum in Sunderland, with a dark but well-intentioned sound. She is identified to teach the children of deceased sailors. He has become its director and the construction is still on Moor Terrace in Hendon; used as offices.
He has also held public positions as Chairman of the Board of Guardians, Magistrate, Commissioner of River Wear and Head of the Sunderland Shipowners Society.
It is known what he was doing in his spare time or, more specifically, if he had one.
Last days
John Candlish resigned as deputy for Sunderland in February 1874. A month later, he’d be dead. His had been deteriorating for years.
His very brief retirement ended at Cannes on the French Riviera on 17 March, following the headaches of a tracheostomy. He was 57, his tombstone says 58.
A Sunderland guy for eternity, buried in Sunderland Cemetery on Ryhope Road. He fills a grave with his father, his wife Elizabeth and sister Barbara.
Other members of the circle of relatives are located in graves a few meters away. The tombstones seem relatively modest for a circle of relatives of such wealth.
Heritage
Returning to where we began in October 1875, his statue was revealed through his successor as deputy, Sir Henry Havelock-Allan.
Diamond Hall Bottle Factory is now a playground in Millfield, on the northern edge of John Candlish Road. Diamond Hall Junior School had occupied the property until it moved nearby in the early 1980s.
In 1913, his nephew Joseph Candlish, son of his brother Robert, joined other corporations to shape United Glass Bottle Manufacturers. But he died the same year.
Operations moved to London in 1921 and the Seaham plant was demolished in 1950.
But at least one hated it.
No one is universally enjoyed and that includes John Candlish. If your last call is Greenwell, look to live in that component of history.
His partner, Robert Greenwell, commented on it earlier. Well, before Candlish made his fortune, he bought Greenwell.
We’ll never be able to know exactly what happened. However, we know that Greenwell was less outgoing than his former spouse and, when he started a new bottle factory in Southwick, he temporarily failed.
Ann Greenwell, Greenwell’s wife. She was still convinced that Candlish had made Robert’s dirty paintings and had eliminated it for millions.
Según el tatara-tatara-tataranieto de Greenwell, Bill Greenwell, Ann “habría estado acostumbrada a escupir en la estatua cuando llevaba a sus nietos a pasear”.
Turns out John Candlish couldn’t please everyone.