£150,000-worth of collectable goods has been stolen from the Lord Mayor’s Mansion House on Fernwood Road, Northumbria Police have reported.

A selection of items – including antique silverware and a lock of hair belonging to Admiral Lord Collingwood – were taken from the Mansion House on the night of Monday April 1st, after thieves gained entry via the cellar of the building, the police believe.

Another item taken by the burglars is a Noble Peace Prize, awarded to Arthur Henderson in 1934. The Noble prize is one of only 124 in existence and has been described as “extremely rare, recognisable and historically important” by Northumbria Police’s Temporary Superintendent Bruce Storey.

A Nobel Peace Prize. A similar item was stolen from the Lord Mayor’s Mansion House

Henderson, an MP on five different occasions, was during his long political career a chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party and Foreign Secretary from 1929-31. He spent some of his early childhood in Newcastle. A year after Hitler became German Chancellor, and at the Nobel lecture Henderson gave in Oslo in December 1934, he claimed that “it is because I believe that it is in the power of such nations to lead the world back into the paths of peace that I propose to devote myself to explaining what, in my opinion, can and should be done to banish the fear of war that hangs so heavily over the world.”

Nobel Prizes awarded before 1980 were made from 175g of 23-carat gold. A similar prize, awarded in the 1960s to James Crick, the co-discoverer of the double helix DNA structure, is to be sold at auction on April 11th in New York, with an opening bid of $250,000 (£165,000).

“Some of the items taken in this burglary are very uncommon and we are asking the public to keep their eyes open for them,” Superintendent Storey said.

Anyone with information about the burglary, or with information about the location of any of the items taken, is asked to contact police on the 101 non-emergency number, or call Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.