THE STEPHENSONS AT KILLINGWORTH--EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION OF FATHER
AND SON.
George Stephenson had now been diligently employed for several years in
the work of self-improvement, and he experienced the usual results in
increasing mental strength, capability, and skill. Perhaps the secret of
every man's best success is to be found in the alacrity and industry with
which he takes advantage of the opportunities which present themselves
for well-doing. Our engineman was an eminent illustration of the
importance of cultivating this habit of life. Every spare moment was
laid under contribution by him, either for the purpose of adding to his
earnings, or to his knowledge. He missed no opportunity of extending his
observations, especially in his own department of work, ever aiming at
improvement, and trying to turn all that he did know to useful practical
account.
He continued his attempts to solve the mystery of Perpetual Motion, and
contrived several model machines with the object of embodying his ideas
in a practical working shape. He afterwards used to lament the time he
had lost in these futile efforts, and said that if he had enjoyed the
opportunity which most young men now have, of learning from books what
previous experimenters had accomplished, he would have been spared much
labour and mortification. Not being acquainted with what other mechanics
had done, he groped his way in pursuit of some idea originated by his own
independent thinking and observation; and, when he had brought it into
some definite form, lo! he found that his supposed invention had long
been known and recorded in scientific books. Often he thought he had hit
upon discoveries, which he subsequently found were but old and exploded
fallacies. Yet his very struggle to overcome the difficulties which lay
in his way, was of itself an education of the best sort. By wrestling
with them, he strengthened his judgment and sharpened his skill,
stimulating and cultivating his inventiveness and mechanical ingenuity.
Being very much in earnest, he was compelled to consider the subject of
his special inquiry in all its relations; and thus he gradually acquired
practical ability even through his very efforts after the impracticable.
Many of his evenings were now spent in the society of John Wigham, whose
father occupied the Glebe Farm at Benton, close at hand. John was a fair
penman and a sound arithmetician, and Stephenson sought his society
chiefly for the purpose of improving himself in writing and "figures."
Under Andrew Robertson, he had never quite mastered the Rule of Three,
and it was only when Wigham took him in hand that he made much progress
in the higher branches of arithmetic. He generally took his slate with
him to the Wighams' cottage, when he had his sums set, that he might work
them out while tending his engine on the following day. When too busy to
be able to call upon Wigham, he sent the slate to have the former sums
corrected and new ones set. Sometimes also, at leisure moments, he was
enabled to do a little "figuring" with chalk upon the sides of the
coal-waggons. So much patient perseverance could not but eventually
succeed; and by dint of practice and study, Stephenson was enabled to
master successively the various rules of arithmetic.
John Wigham was of great use to his pupil in many ways. He was a good
talker, fond of argument, an extensive reader as country reading went in
those days, and a very suggestive thinker. Though his store of
information might be comparatively small when measured with that of more
highly-cultivated minds, much of it was entirely new to Stephenson, who
regarded him as a very clever and ingenious person. Wigham taught him to
draw plans and sections; though in this branch Stephenson proved so apt
that he soon surpassed his master. A volume of 'Ferguson's Lectures on
Mechanics,' which fell into their hands, was a great treasure to both the
students. One who remembers their evening occupations says he used to
wonder what they meant by weighing the air and water in so odd a way.
They were trying the specific gravities of objects; and the devices which
they employed, the mechanical shifts to which they were put, were often
of the rudest kind. In these evening entertainments, the mechanical
contrivances were supplied by Stephenson, whilst Wigham found the
scientific rationale. The opportunity thus afforded to the former of
cultivating his mind by contact with one wiser than himself proved of
great value, and in after-life Stephenson gratefully remembered the
assistance which, when a humble workman, he had derived from John Wigham,
the farmer's son.
His leisure moments thus carefully improved, it will be inferred that
Stephenson continued a sober man. Though his notions were never extreme
on this point, he was systematically temperate. It appears that on the
invitation of his master, he had, on one or two occasions, been induced
to join him in a forenoon glass of ale in the public-house of the
village. But one day, about noon, when Dodds had got him as far as the
public-house door, on his invitation to "come in and take a glass o'
yel," Stephenson made a dead stop, and said, firmly, "No, sir, you must
excuse me; I have made a resolution to drink no more at this time of
day." And he went back. He desired to retain the character of a steady
workman; and the instances of men about him who had made shipwreck of
their character through intemperance, were then, as now, unhappily but
too frequent.
But another consideration besides his own self-improvement had already
begun to exercise an important influence on his life. This was the
training and education of his son Robert, now growing up an active,
intelligent boy, as full of fun and tricks as his father had been. When
a little fellow, scarcely able to reach so high as to put a clock-head on
when placed upon the table, his father would make him mount a chair for
the purpose; and to "help father" was the proudest work which the boy
then, and ever after, could take part in. When the little engine was set
up at the Ochre Quarry to pump it dry, Robert was scarcely absent for an
hour. He watched the machine very eagerly when it was set to work; and
he was very much annoyed at the fire burning away the grates. The man
who fired the engine was a sort of wag, and thinking to get a laugh at
the boy, he said, "Those bars are getting varra bad, Robert; I think we
main cut up some of that hard wood, and put it in instead." "What would
be the use of that, you fool?" said the boy quickly. "You would no
sooner have put them in than they would be burnt out again!"
So soon as Robert was of proper age, his father sent him over to the
road-side school at Long Benton, kept by Rutter, the parish clerk. But
the education which Rutter could give was of a very limited kind,
scarcely extending beyond the primer and pothooks. While working as a
brakesman on the pit-head at Killingworth, the father had often bethought
him of the obstructions he had himself encountered in life through his
want of schooling; and he formed the noble determination that no labour,
nor pains, nor self-denial on his part should be spared to furnish his
son with the best education that it was in his power to bestow.
[Picture: Rutter's School House, Long Benton]
It is true his earnings were comparatively small at that time. He was
still maintaining his infirm parents; and the cost of living continued
excessive. But he fell back upon his old expedient of working up his
spare time in the evenings at home, or during the night shifts when it
was his turn to tend the engine, in mending and making shoes, cleaning
clocks and watches, making shoe-lasts for the shoe-makers of the
neighbourhood, and cutting out the pitmen's clothes for their wives; and
we have been told that to this day there are clothes worn at Killingworth
made after "Geordy Steevie's cut." To give his own words:--"In the
earlier period of my career," said he, "when Robert was a little boy, I
saw how deficient I was in education, and I made up my mind that he
should not labour under the same defect, but that I would put him to a
good school, and give him a liberal training. I was, however, a poor
man; and how do you think I managed? I betook myself to mending my
neighbours' clocks and watches at nights, after my daily labour was done,
and thus I procured the means of educating my son." {52}
Carrying out the resolution as to his boy's education, Robert was sent to
Mr. Bruce's school in Percy Street, Newcastle, at Midsummer, 1815, when
he was about twelve years old. His father bought for him a donkey, on
which he rode into Newcastle and back daily; and there are many still
living who remember the little boy, dressed in his suit of homely grey
stuff, cut out by his father, cantering along to school upon the "cuddy,"
with his wallet of provisions for the day and his bag of books slung over
his shoulder.
When Robert went to Mr. Bruce's school, he was a shy, unpolished country
lad, speaking the broad dialect of the pitmen; and the other boys would
occasionally tease him, for the purpose of provoking an outburst of his
Killingworth Doric. As the shyness got rubbed off, his love of fun began
to show itself, and he was found able enough to hold his own amongst the
other boys. As a scholar he was steady and diligent, and his master was
accustomed to hold him up to the laggards of the school as an example of
good conduct and industry. But his progress, though satisfactory, was by
no means extraordinary. He used in after-life to pride himself on his
achievements in mensuration, though another boy, John Taylor, beat him at
arithmetic. He also made considerable progress in mathematics; and in a
letter written to the son of his teacher, many years after, he said, "It
was to Mr. Bruce's tuition and methods of modelling the mind that I
attribute much of my success as an engineer; for it was from him that I
derived my taste for mathematical pursuits and the facility I possess of
applying this kind of knowledge to practical purposes and modifying it
according to circumstances."
[Picture: Bruce's School, Newcastle]
During the time Robert attended school at Newcastle, his father made the
boy's education instrumental to his own. Robert was accustomed to spend
some of his spare time at the rooms of the Literary and Philosophical
Institute; and when he went home in the evening, he would recount to his
father the results of his reading. Sometimes he was allowed to take with
him to Killingworth a volume of the 'Repertory of Arts and Sciences,'
which father and son studied together. But many of the most valuable
works belonging to the Newcastle Library were not lent out; these Robert
was instructed to read and study, and bring away with him descriptions
and sketches for his father's information. His father also practised him
in reading plans and drawings without reference to the written
descriptions. He used to observe that "A good plan should always explain
itself;" and, placing a drawing of an engine or machine before the youth,
would say, "There, now, describe that to me--the arrangement and the
action." Thus he taught him to read a drawing as easily as he would read
a page of a book. Both father and son profited by this excellent
practice, which enabled them to apprehend with the greatest facility the
details of even the most difficult and complicated mechanical drawing.
While Robert went on with his lessons in the evenings, his father was
usually occupied with his watch and clock cleaning; or in contriving
models of pumping-engines; or endeavouring to embody in a tangible shape
the mechanical inventions which he found described in the odd volumes on
Mechanics which fell in his way. This daily and unceasing example of
industry and application, in the person of a loving and beloved father,
imprinted itself deeply upon the boy's heart in characters never to be
effaced. A spirit of self-improvement was thus early and carefully
planted and fostered in Robert's mind, which continued to influence him
through life; and to the close of his career, he was proud to confess
that if his professional success had been great, it was mainly to the
example and training of his father that he owed it.
Robert was not, however, exclusively devoted to study, but, like most
boys full of animal spirits, he was very fond of fun and play, and
sometimes of mischief. Dr. Bruce relates that an old Killingworth
labourer, when asked by Robert, on one of his last visits to Newcastle,
if he remembered him, replied with emotion, "Ay, indeed! Haven't I paid
your head many a time when you came with your father's bait, for you were
always a sad hempy?"
The author had the pleasure, in the year 1854, of accompanying Robert
Stephenson on a visit to his old home and haunts at Killingworth. He had
so often travelled the road upon his donkey to and from school, that
every foot of it was familiar to him; and each turn in it served to
recall to mind some incident of his boyish days. His eyes glistened when
he came in sight of Killingworth pit-head. Pointing to a humble
red-tiled house by the road-side at Benton, he said, "You see that
house--that was Rutter's, where I learnt my A B C, and made a beginning
of my school learning. And there," pointing to a colliery chimney on the
left, "there is Long Benton, where my father put up his first
pumping-engine; and a great success it was. And this humble clay-floored
cottage you see here, is where my grandfather lived till the close of his
life. Many a time have I ridden straight into the house, mounted on my
cuddy, and called upon grandfather to admire his points. I remember the
old man feeling the animal all over--he was then quite blind--after which
he would dilate upon the shape of his ears, fetlocks, and quarters, and
usually end by pronouncing him to be a 'real blood.' I was a great
favourite with the old man, who continued very fond of animals, and
cheerful to the last; and I believe nothing gave him greater pleasure
than a visit from me and my cuddy."
On the way from Benton to High Killingworth, Mr. Stephenson pointed to a
corner of the road where he had once played a boyish trick upon a
Killingworth collier. "Straker," said he, "was a great bully, a coarse,
swearing fellow, and a perfect tyrant amongst the women and children. He
would go tearing into old Nanny the huxter's shop in the village, and
demand in a savage voice, 'What's ye'r best ham the pund?' 'What's floor
the hunder?' 'What d'ye ax for prime bacon?'--his questions often ending
with the miserable order, accompanied with a tremendous oath, of 'Gie's a
penny rrow (roll) an' a baubee herrin!' The poor woman was usually set
'all of a shake' by a visit from this fellow. He was also a great
boaster, and used to crow over the robbers whom he had put to flight;
mere men in buckram, as everybody knew. We boys," he continued,
"believed him to be a great coward, and determined to play him a trick.
Two other boys joined me in waylaying Straker one night at that corner,"
pointing to it. "We sprang out and called upon him, in as gruff voices
as we could assume, to 'stand and deliver!' He dropped down upon his
knees in the dirt, declaring he was a poor man, with a sma' family,
asking for 'mercy,' and imploring us, as 'gentlemen, for God's sake, t'
let him a-be!' We couldn't stand this any longer, and set up a shout of
laughter. Recognizing our boys' voices, he sprang to his feet and
rattled out a volley of oaths; on which we cut through the hedge, and
heard him shortly after swearing his way along the road to the
yel-house."
On another occasion, Robert played a series of tricks of a somewhat
different character. Like his father, he was very fond of reducing his
scientific reading to practice; and after studying Franklin's description
of the lightning experiment, he proceeded to expend his store of Saturday
pennies in purchasing about half a mile of copper wire at a brazier's
shop in Newcastle. Having prepared his kite, he sent it up in the field
opposite his father's door, and bringing the wire, insulated by means of
a few feet of silk cord, over the backs of some of Farmer Wigham's cows,
he soon had them skipping about the field in all directions with their
tails up. One day he had his kite flying at the cottage-door as his
father's galloway was hanging by the bridle to the paling, waiting for
the master to mount. Bringing the end of the wire just over the pony's
crupper, so smart an electric shock was given it, that the brute was
almost knocked down. At this juncture the father issued from the door,
riding-whip in hand, and was witness to the scientific trick just played
off upon his galloway. "Ah! you mischievous scoondrel!" cried he to the
boy, who ran off. He inwardly chuckled with pride, nevertheless, at
Robert's successful experiment. {57}
[Picture: Stephenson's Cottage, West Moor]
At this time, and for many years after, Stephenson dwelt in a cottage
standing by the side of the road leading from the West Moor colliery to
Killingworth. The railway from the West Moor Pit crosses this road close
by the east end of the cottage. The dwelling originally consisted of but
one apartment on the ground-floor, with the garret over-head, to which
access was obtained by means of a step-ladder. But with his own hands
Stephenson built an oven, and in the course of time he added rooms to the
cottage, until it became a comfortable four-roomed dwelling, in which he
lived as long as he remained at Killingworth.
He continued as fond of birds and animals as ever, and seemed to have the
power of attaching them to him in a remarkable degree. He had a
blackbird at Killingworth so fond of him that it would fly about the
cottage, and on holding out his finger, would come and perch upon it. A
cage was built for "blackie" in the partition between the passage and the
room, a square of glass forming its outer wall; and Robert used
afterwards to take pleasure in describing the oddity of the bird,
imitating the manner in which it would cock its head on his father's
entering the house, and follow him with its eye into the inner apartment.
Neighbours were accustomed to call at the cottage and have their clocks
and watches set to rights when they went wrong. One day, after looking
at the works of a watch left by a pitman's wife, George handed it to his
son; "Put her in the oven, Robert," said he, "for a quarter of an hour or
so." It seemed an odd way of repairing a watch; nevertheless, the watch
was put into the oven, and at the end of the appointed time it was taken
out, going all right. The wheels had merely got clogged by the oil
congealed by the cold; which at once explains the rationale of the remedy
adopted.
There was a little garden attached to the cottage, in which, while a
workman, Stephenson took a pride in growing gigantic leeks and astounding
cabbages. There was great competition amongst the villagers in the
growth of vegetables, all of whom he excelled, excepting one of his
neighbours, whose cabbages sometimes outshone his. In the protection of
his garden-crops from the ravages of the birds, he invented a strange
sort of "fley-craw," which moved its arms with the wind; and he fastened
his garden-door by means of a piece of ingenious mechanism, so that no
one but himself could enter it. His cottage was quite a curiosity-shop
of models of engines, self-acting planes, and perpetual-motion machines.
The last-named contrivances, however, were only unsuccessful attempts to
solve a problem which had effectually baffled hundreds of preceding
inventors. His odd and eccentric contrivances often excited great wonder
amongst the Killingworth villagers. He won the women's admiration by
connecting their cradles with the smoke-jack, and making them
self-acting. Then he astonished the pitmen by attaching an alarum to the
clock of the watchman whose duty it was to call them betimes in the
morning. He also contrived a wonderful lamp which burned under water,
with which he was afterwards wont to amuse the Brandling family at
Gosforth,--going into the fish-pond at night, lamp in hand, attracting
and catching the fish, which rushed wildly towards the flame.
Dr. Bruce tells of a competition which Stephenson had with the joiner at
Killingworth, as to which of them could make the best shoe-last; and when
the former had done his work, either for the humour of the thing, or to
secure fair play from the appointed judge, he took it to the Morrisons in
Newcastle, and got them to put their stamp upon it. So that it is
possible the Killingworth brakesman, afterwards the inventor of the
safety lamp and the originator of the railway system, and John Morrison,
the last-maker, afterwards the translator of the Scriptures into the
Chinese language, may have confronted each other in solemn contemplation
over the successful last, which won the verdict coveted by its maker.
Sometimes he would endeavour to impart to his fellow-workmen the results
of his scientific reading. Everything that he learnt from books was so
new and so wonderful to him, that he regarded the facts he drew from them
in the light of discoveries, as if they had been made but yesterday.
Once he tried to explain to some of the pitmen how the earth was round,
and kept turning round. But his auditors flatly declared the thing to be
impossible, as it was clear that "at the bottom side they must fall off!"
"Ah!" said George, "you don't quite understand it yet." His son Robert
also early endeavoured to communicate to others the information which he
had gathered at school; and Dr. Bruce has related that, when visiting
Killingworth on one occasion, he found him engaged in teaching algebra to
such of the pitmen's boys as would become his pupils.
[Picture: The Sundial]
While Robert was still at school, his father proposed to him during the
holidays that he should construct a sun-dial, to be placed over their
cottage-door at West Moor. "I expostulated with him at first," said
Robert, "that I had not learnt sufficient astronomy and mathematics to
enable me to make the necessary calculations. But he would have no
denial. 'The thing is to be done,' said he; 'so just set about it at
once.' Well; we got a 'Ferguson's Astronomy,' and studied the subject
together. Many a sore head I had while making the necessary calculations
to adapt the dial to the latitude of Killingworth. But at length it was
fairly drawn out on paper, and then my father got a stone, and we hewed,
and carved, and polished it, until we made a very respectable dial of it;
and there it is, you see," pointing to it over the cottage-door, "still
quietly numbering the hours when the sun is shining. I assure you, not a
little was thought of that piece of work by the pitmen when it was put
up, and began to tell its tale of time." The date carved upon the dial
is "August 11th, MDCCCXVI." Both father and son were in after-life very
proud of the joint production. Many years after, George took a party of
savans, when attending the meeting of the British Association at
Newcastle, over to Killingworth to see the pits, and he did not fail to
direct their attention to the sun-dial; and Robert, on the last visit
which he made to the place, a short time before his death, took a friend
into the cottage, and pointed out to him the very desk, still there, at
which he had sat while making his calculations of the latitude of
Killingworth.
From the time of his appointment as engineer at the Killingworth Pit,
George Stephenson was in a measure relieved from the daily routine of
manual labour, having, as we have seen, advanced himself to the grade of
a higher class workman. But he had not ceased to be a worker, though he
employed his industry in a different way. It might, indeed, be inferred
that he had now the command of greater leisure; but his spare hours were
as much as ever given to work, either necessary or self-imposed. So far
as regarded his social position, he had already reached the summit of his
ambition; and when he had got his hundred a year, and his dun galloway to
ride on, he said he never wanted to be any higher. When Robert Whetherly
offered to give him an old gig, his travelling having so much increased
of late, he accepted it with great reluctance, observing, that he should
be ashamed to get into it, "people would think him so proud."
When the High Pit had been sunk, and the coal was ready for working,
Stephenson erected his first winding-engine to draw the coals out of the
pit, and also a pumping-engine for Long Benton Colliery, both of which
proved quite successful. Amongst other works of this time, he projected
and laid down a self-acting incline along the declivity which fell
towards the coal-loading place near Willington, where he had officiated
as brakesman; and he so arranged it, that the full waggons descending
drew the empty waggons up the railroad. This was one of the first
self-acting inclines laid down in the district.
Stephenson had now much better opportunities than hitherto for improving
himself in mechanics. His familiar acquaintance with the steam-engine
proved of great value to him. His shrewd insight, and his intimate
practical acquaintance with its mechanism, enabled him to apprehend, as
if by intuition, its most abstruse and difficult combinations. The
practical study which he had given to it when a workman, and the patient
manner in which he had groped his way through all the details of the
machine, gave him the power of a master in dealing with it as applied to
colliery purposes.
Sir Thomas Liddell was frequently about the works, and took pleasure in
giving every encouragement to the engine-wright in his efforts after
improvement. The subject of the locomotive engine was already closely
occupying Stephenson's attention; although it was still regarded as a
curious and costly toy, of comparatively little real use. But he had at
an early period detected its practical value, and formed an adequate
conception of the might which as yet slumbered within it; and he now bent
his entire faculties to the development of its extraordinary powers.
[Picture: Colliers' Cottages at Long Benton]