A weird Darlington walking stick is auctioned today

If you want a humorous Victorian walking stick topped with a caricature of a man with a ridiculously large nose, made out of a stag’s antler, log on to Hansons Auctioneers’ website for the sale, which starts at 9.30am, and look out for Lot 126, which is expected to fetch £150 to £250.

All pictures of Mr Pease's walking cane courtesy of Hansons Auctioneers

The cane is made of malacca wood, from Malaysia, and has a handle carved from the coronet – or base – of an antler. The fur of the stag has been kept to form the hair of the man’s face, and one of the tines – the prongs of the antler – has been turned into his elongated nose.

Beneath the carved face is a silver collar which has been inscribed: “E.Ll. Pease, Pierremont, Darlington.”

The hallmarks on the collar give a date of 1882.

But who was E.Ll. Pease of Pierremont?

Pierremont, of course, was the home of Henry Pease, the MP who drove the railway over Stainmore and who created Saltburn as a railway seaside resort. With his first wife Anna, he had one son: Henry Fell Pease.

It is not him.

Anna died in 1839 and 20 years later, Henry married Mary Lloyd, of Birmingham. She was 22 and he was 55; eyebrows were raised. They had three daughters and three sons, the eldest of whom was Edward Lloyd Pease (1861-1934) – and we guess the walking stick belonged to him.

Edward Lloyd Pease. Picture courtesy of the Darlington Centre for Local Studies

He may well have called himself “E.Ll. Pease” to differentiate himself from his cousin E.L. Pease – this was Edwin Lucas Pease (1838-1889) who built Mowden Hall.

Edward Lloyd Pease gave his name to the Stockton engineering firm of Ashmore, Benson, Pease & Company, and in 1888, he invented a type of telescopic gas holder which could be used on rough ground, which was regarded as a big improvement.

Helen Blanche Pease (1865-1951)

In 1890, he married his first cousin once removed, Helen Blanche Pease, of Hutton Hall, Guisborough, with whom he shared a grandfather – Edward “the father of the railways” Pease.

They had one of Darlington’s great unseen mansions built for them: Hurworth Moor House (above). It is south of the Darlington Arena but north of the riverside village of Neasham, and is approached by Burma Lane (why Burma?).

Blanche became better known in the area than her husband. For 22 years, she was the president of the Durham County Federation of Womens Institutes; she was a magistrate for 20 years; she was a founder of George Dent Nursery School, and for 25 years she was the chairman of the Training College for Mistresses in Vane Terrace – recently the Arts Centre, but now flats. Indeed, a hall of residence for student teachers at the college was named Blanche Pease Hall in her honour – it was demolished about 10 years ago for housing (below).

When Edward Lloyd Pease died in 1934, at the age of 73, he left an estate of £23,945, worth about £1.4m today, according to the Bank of England’s Inflation Calculator.

A smidgeon of that was accounted for by his silver-trimmed, antler-topped malacca walking cane which, presumably, was a present for his 21st birthday.

In 2008, it sold at auction for £647, so if you can really get it for a third of that, you will have got a bargain.

It will sell through hansonsauctioneers.co.uk

• With thanks to Colin Bainbridge for a great spot!