[GEORGE STEPHENSON, born, Wylam, near Newcastle, June 9, 1781;
died, August 12, 1848; driver lad in a colliery; at fourteen,
assistant to his father as fireman of colliery engines; at
seventeen, engineman; at eighteen, learned to read in night
school; 1812, enginewright at Killingworth colliery; 1814,
operated his locomotive, "My Lord"; 1822, engineer of Stockton
and Darlington Railroad (opened 1825); engineer of Liverpool and
Manchester Railroad (opened 1830); produced locomotive "Rocket,"
capable of thirty miles an hour.]
In a bare room of a laborer's tenement in the colliery village of
Wylam, in Northumberland, on the 9th day of June, 1781, was born
a babe to whose mind and hand England was to owe as much in
future years as to any high-born minister of the crown. Indeed,
one might trust the world to give a verdict in favor of George
Stephenson, the founder of the steam railway as against his
sovereign, King George III. himself.
The father, the "old Rob" of the village boys, was the fireman of
the pumping engine at the colliery hard by. His father before
him--the Stephensons were no pedigree-hunters, and traced their
line no farther- -was a Scotchman who, so far as anything was
remembered of him, had come into the north of England as a
gentleman's servant. Robert was a favorite with the village
children, to whom he gave the freedom of the fire-room, and was
a boon companion of his own houseful of boys and girls, kindling
their fancy by his headful of tales, and sharpening their
observation of the beauties of nature by making them the
companions of his walks a-field, where the birds and other living
things were the objects of his peculiar interest and love.
As soon as little George was old enough to "take notice" he must
have discovered the railway which ran before his father's door,
and his earliest responsibilities were connected with the
oversight of his younger brothers and sisters lest in their play
they should fall under the wheels of the cars or the hoofs of
the horses that supplied the motive power. The road was a wooden
tramway along which coal cars were dragged from the mines to
tidewater.
The first tramways in the northern coal-fields were made by
laying a track of planking on wooden sleepers. This device was
more than a century old when George Stephenson was born. In some
places this had been improved by plating the planks with iron.
While the Wylam lad was still a barefoot boy, cast-iron rails
were being introduced in Leicestershire, a wheel having been
designed with a flange to keep it on the narrow track. Thus the
railway was brought to a stage which needed only the application
of steam to its motive power to carry it into a new and vastly
enlarged phase.
The fireman's son was set to win his share of the family bread
before he was ten. He tended a widow's cows, led the plow-
horses, and hoed turnips before he entered a colliery as a
breaker-boy, where his task was to pick out stones and other
foreign substances from the fuel. Sixpence a day was the wage.
Soon at twopence more he was promoted to drive the gin-horse
that, circling around a capstan, hoisted the buckets of water
and coals out of the pit. At fourteen he became his father's
assistant in the fire-room at Dewley Burn at a shilling a day. At
fifteen he obtained a foreman's position in another colliery. At
seventeen he had gone over his father's head, and had charge of a
pumping engine at Water-row Pit. When his wages reached twelve
shillings a week he thought he was "a made man for life," but his
ignoble content was soon disturbed. Always fascinated by
machinery, as he was by birds and animals, he made a pet of his
engines, studying them with a singular fondness, and making
himself master of their principles and their parts. This
knowledge prompted him to learn more, especially to find out
something about the improved engines of Boulton & Watt, of which
rumors had reached the enginemen of the north. To do this he
must learn to read, an art which he seems to have considered
superfluous until he was eighteen. Never did student work harder
than Geordie Stephenson at his new task, amazing his teachers
and his mates by his progress at "the three R's." He was now
brakesman of a hoisting engine, dividing his small leisure
between his studies and his cobblery, for he added to his
earnings by mending shoes. His income was now some ninety pounds
a year. He saved his first guinea and felt himself a rich man.
At twenty-one he married a farmer's house-servant and went to
housekeeping in a cottage at Wellington Quay.
It would be a long story, however interesting, to follow the
young mechanic through the experiences by which he won a name in
all the North Country as the cleverest of "engine doctors,"
eking out his wages by making lasts, mending watches, and even
cutting out coats and trousers for the wives of the pitmen to
sew up for their husbands. His desire to provide his motherless
boy Robert with better schooling than he had enjoyed sharpened
his wits and added strength to his arm. Fortunately the son
proved to be not only an apt scholar, but had the rare gift of
being able to teach others. Whatever he learned in the good
schools to which his father sent him, he imparted to his father.
So boy and man progressed together in their educational
partnership.
When George Stephenson became chief enginewright of the
Killingworth collieries at one hundred pounds a year he thought
he had reached the summit of his ambition. The duties of the
position made less demand upon him for manual labor, and left him
time to carry out some of his mechanical ideas. He devised new
hoists and pumps for the mines, and then applied himself to the
ever-present problem of cheapening the transportation of the
coals between pit mouth and ship side. One of his first
improvements of this sort was a gravity railway, so arranged that
the loaded cars, running down to the river by their own weight,
furnished the power to draw the empty cars to the summit again by
cable. When George Stephenson took up the problem of
perfecting a "traveling steam engine" he had the advantage of
knowing what had been accomplished by other experimenters. For
fifty years inventors had been turning out steam engines of
considerable promise in the model stage, but of little practical
performance. Indeed, about 1803, a Cornishman named Trevithick
had produced a locomotive which was used for a time to transport
metal and ore to the Pen-y-darran iron works in South Wales. The
heavy engine so damaged the tracks that it was soon dismounted
and degraded to the work of a steam pump. In 1812 a cog-wheel
locomotive, invented by a Mr. Blenkinsop, began running in a
colliery a few miles out of Leeds, and served very well its
purpose to haul heavy trains almost as fast as a horse could
walk. The next year a Derbyshire mechanic produced a "Mechanical
Traveler," the legs of which were moved alternately by steam, but
the bursting of its boiler on its trial trip put an end to its
picturesque career of doubtful usefulness.
One Mr. Blackett, an enterprising collier of Wylam, introduced
the ideas of Trevithick and Blenkinsop to the Tyneside and so
brought them under the observant eye of the Killingworth
enginewright, who had such a clever way of smoothing away
difficulties in complicated machinery. After repeated and costly
experiments, Mr. Blackett evolved a type of locomotive which,
though noisy and clumsy, did better work than any of its
predecessors.
After making a careful study of what had been done by others,
George Stephenson came to the conclusion that he could improve
upon the existing locomotive models. This was about 1813, when he
was about thirty-four years old. He said to his friends that
"there was no limit to the speed of such an engine, if the works
could be made to stand." One of his employers, Lord Ravensworth,
advanced the necessary money for constructing his first
"Traveling Engine" at West Moor, the colliery blacksmith
undertaking to carry out his designs. Dr. Smiles's description of
this locomotive may be reproduced: "The boiler was cylindrical of
wrought iron, eight feet in length and thirty-four inches in
diameter, with an internal flue tube twenty inches wide passing
through it. The engine had two vertical cylinders of eight inches
diameter and two feet stroke let into the boiler, working the
propelling gear with cross heads and connecting rods. The power
of the two cylinders was combined by means of spur-wheels which
communicated the motive power to the wheels supporting the engine
on the rail. . . The engine thus worked upon what is termed the
second motion. The chimney was of wrought iron, round which was a
chamber extending back to the feed pumps, for the purpose of
heating the water previous to the injection into the boiler. The
engine had no springs, and was mounted on a wooden frame
supported on four wheels." The engine made its trial trip July
25, 1814, on which occasion it showed a speed of four miles an
hour in drawing a load of thirty tons. This engine was named
"Blucher," after the distinguished Prussian field-marshal.
Blucher was almost immediately improved by its inventor. First he
doubled the steam-making power of its boiler by turning the
exhaust from the cylinders into the smoke-stack, thus creating a
forced draught. Second he built another engine, in which the
tooth-wheel driving gear gave way to a simple and direct
connection between the piston and the driving wheels which rolled
upon the rails. This type of locomotive, developing some six
miles an hour, did its work so well in the colliery that it was
retained, with very slight alterations, for more than half a
century. The report of its success got abroad slowly, and Mr.
Stephenson was commissioned to build a railway and a number of
locomotives for a colliery in another shire. The success of this
piece of engineering encouraged him in sending his son Robert, a
youth of fine promise, to Edinburgh to study physical sciences in
the university, where in his brief residence he took a
mathematical prize.
The year 1823 marked another forward step for George Stephenson
and railroads. Two years before a road had been chartered to
connect the Durham coal-fields with tidewater. Stephenson heard
of the project, and at once proposed to the company to make an
iron railroad of the new wooden tramway and equip it with his
traveling engines. His arguments and demonstrations won over the
skeptical directors. They had their charter amended so as to
authorize the use of steam as motive power for the transport of
passengers as well as merchandise. Thus began the Stockton and
Darlington Railway, the first in the world with a passenger
charter. The chief engineer was George Stephenson, on a salary of
five hundred pounds. At the same time, with the assistance of the
railroad people, he founded the locomotive shops at Newcastle.
The new railroad, the first public line, was opened in September,
1825. As its construction progressed, its engineer had become
increasingly sanguine of success. He said to his son Robert at
this time: "I venture to tell you that I think you will live to
see the day when railways will supersede almost all other methods
of conveyance in this country--when mail coaches will go by
railway, and railroads will become the great highway for the King
and all his subjects. The time is coming when it will be cheaper
for a workingman to travel upon a railway than to walk on foot. I
know there are great and almost unsurmountable difficulties to be
encountered, but what I have said will come to pass as sure as
you live. I only wish I may live to see the day, though that I
can scarcely hope for, as I know how slow all human progress is,
and with what difficulty I have been able to get the locomotive
thus far adopted, notwithstanding my more than ten years'
successful experiment at Killingworth."
The first train over the road was such an one as had never been
seen before. George Stephenson was at the lever when the engine
pulled out with a string of eight cars behind it. One regular
passenger coach--the first ever built--held the directors, and
twenty-one improvised passenger "wagons" carried some six hundred
daring individuals. Coal and flour filled the other cars. The
journey was safely accomplished at a speed which is said at times
to have reached the hitherto unheard of rate of twelve miles an
hour. The road, with its three Stephenson locomotives and many
horses, was successful from the first, and its dividends were
among the chief inducements which led to the next and more
important advance in railroad construction, the Liverpool and
Manchester line.
Manchester was the great manufacturing center of the industrial
England, which the inventions of Arkwright and Watt had called
into existence. Its port was Liverpool. The natural means of
communication between the two cities was quite inadequate to the
changed conditions. In 1821 surveys were made for a tramway, and
before the Stockton road was completed Stephenson had been
selected as chief engineer of the new and more ambitious
enterprise. Yet his assertion that trains could be moved between
the two cities at twenty miles an hour raised serious doubts in
many minds as to his sanity. A writer in the "Quarterly Review"
thought that even though a few foolhardy persons might trust
themselves to a vehicle moving at such speed--twice that of the
swiftest stagecoaches--Parliament for the general welfare should
limit the speed of all railways to eight or nine miles an hour,
as the greatest that could be ventured on with safety.
It was while the grant of a charter to this Liverpool and
Manchester Railway was being discussed in a committee of the
House of Commons that the shrewd North Country engineer first
faced the trained Parliamentary lawyers. He had been cautioned to
keep his figures for speed within the most moderate limits so as
not to prejudice the company's case, but his belief in his own
invention mastered his restraint, though as he afterward said, he
did his best "to keep the engine down to ten miles an hour." In
fact, his daring prediction of twelve miles per hour struck the
learned counsel with horror. They objected that horses would fly
in terror from such a monster. He replied that horses had been
known to shy at wheelbarrows. They tried to make him admit that
the wheels would slip on the smooth rails, but he knew that they
would bite without teeth. One of the committee said, "Suppose
that a cow were to stray upon the line and get in the way of the
engine; would not that be a very awkward circumstance?" To which
the countryman had a ready reply, "Very awkward--for the cow!"
The opposition, which was largely animated by the existing canal
interest, ventured some views which the experience of the next
five years was to make most ridiculous. They declared that the
plan to carry the rails over the surveyed route across Chat Moss,
a wide morass, was impossible; and furthermore, that no
locomotive could make headway against the high winds which at
times prevailed in that region. Experts were brought to testify
that "no engineer in his senses would go through Chat Moss if he
wanted to make a railroad from Liverpool to Manchester." "In my
judgment," said one of them, "a railroad cannot be made over Chat
Moss without going to the bottom." The committee decided against
the bill, but at the next session Parliament granted the company
the power to construct the road, the question whether or not
locomotives should be used upon it being left in abeyance. George
Stephenson was chosen to be chief engineer, at one thousand
pounds a year.
Chat Moss was conquered by an ingenious device which practically
floated the road-bed upon its spongy surface. Tunnels were driven
through the hills, deep cuttings were made wherever needed, a
ravine was crossed by a viaduct of brick and stone, and more than
threescore bridges were thrown across the streams. All the plans
for this complicated work passed under the eye, and many of them
took their first form in the mind of the chief, whose skill as a
mechanic was for the time sunk in his genius for civil
engineering. By dint of the most strenuous application, and by
the dominance of a spirit of perseverance which no discouragement
or obstacle could daunt, Stephenson brought the road to
triumphant completion. The next thing was to convince the
directors that the steam locomotive was the proper equipment for
a public railway. As a beginning, he persuaded the company to
place one of his engines upon its construction trains. The
experts who were employed to investigate the many proposed
applications of power decided, however, that the most feasible
equipment was a series of twenty-one stationary engines located
at intervals along the right of way and hauling the cars stage
after stage by means of a rope wound upon a drum-the principle of
the cable railway which afterwards had its day in our streets.
Still Stephenson would give the directors no peace. Finally, in
order to settle the question of the practical utility of the
traveling engine, the company offered a prize of five hundred
pounds for the best locomotive engine, to be awarded after a
competitive test upon certain conditions, the most notable of
which were:
"2. The engine of six tons weight must be able to draw
after it, day by day, twenty tons weight at ten miles an
hour with a pressure of steam on the boiler not exceeding
fifty pounds to the square inch."
"4. The engine and boiler must be supported on springs and
rest on six wheels, the height of the whole not exceeding
fifteen feet to the top of the chimney."
"7. The engine must be delivered complete and ready for
trial at the Liverpool end of the railway not later than
the 1st of October, 1829."
"8. The price of the engine must not exceed five hundred
and fifty pounds."
George Stephenson and his son Robert threw all their resources
into the production of the locomotive which was to carry their
colors in the contest. The "Rocket" engine, which was built in
their Newcastle shop, was fitted with a tubular boiler six feet
long and three feet four inches in diameter. The fire-box was two
feet wide and three feet high. On each side of the boiler at its
rear end was an oblique cylinder, the piston-rods being connected
with the outside of the two driving wheels, which were in front.
The two rear wheels were about one-half the diameter of the
drivers. The tender, also fourwheeled, was a simple affair, the
water being carried in a large cask.
After a successful trial trip, the "Rocket," which weighed but
four and a half tons, was sent by wagon across England to
Carlisle, and thence to Liverpool. It was one of four steam
engines entered in the competition which attracted wide
attention. Among the entries was the "Novelty," the production of
that talented Swede, John Ericsson, who afterwards, in America,
built the iron-clad "Monitor." The "Novelty" showed fine bursts
of speed, but failed in point of endurance. The "Perseverance"
and "Sanspareil" developed radical defects, but the "Rocket,"
driven by George Stephenson's own hand was prepared for every
turn of the competition, and surpassed all in power, speed, and
general serviceability. To its makers the prize was
unhesitatingly awarded, whereupon the hardy engineer amazed every
beholder by letting out the last link and dashing past the
grandstand at the rate of more than thirty miles an hour. The
forced draft, which had made the Killingworth freight engines so
successful, coupled with the tubular boiler, formed a combination
which won the battle for the locomotive once for all, and made
the name of George Stephenson a household word.
A year later, on the 15th of September, 1830, the Manchester and
Liverpool Railway was formally opened. The Duke of Wellington--
the first citizen of the realm--was present with Sir Robert Peel
and other distinguished personages, together with a vast throng
of sightseers, enthusiastic spectators of the consummation of
George Stephenson's dreams. Though marred by a fatal accident,
the occasion proved the entire practicability of the railway as a
means of transportation. The multitudes who rode in its cars on
that memorable day were but a foretaste of the patronage which
the line was to receive. Although the intention of its projectors
was to limit its traffic chiefly to freight, the road from the
first found its offices besieged by persons eager to ride. Thus
passenger traffic became established as its leading source of
revenue, and thus were the capitalists encouraged to prosecute
the extension of the railway system to points where the outlook
for freight business was much less than between Liverpool and
Manchester. Though these roads were fiercely opposed by the
landowners, the canal-men, and turnpike proprietors, they were
pressed forward in every direction. Robert Stephenson shared with
his father the responsibility of engineering some of the
principal lines, though the two men had the grim satisfaction of
seeing the experts who had ridiculed the initial project now
eagerly bidding for the opportunity of conducting surveys for the
new lines.
A mania for building railroads seized the world. The Stephensons
were in demand not only throughout Great Britain, but even on the
Continent. They had already made a market for their engines
abroad, when, in 1835, they were summoned by the King of Belgium
to assist in laying out a system of railways for that kingdom.
For his services here the engineer was knighted by the King and
banqueted at the royal table. Honored at home and abroad; happy
in the general adoption of the ideas to which he had clung
through opposition and adversity; proud of the son Robert, for
whose education he had worked like a slave, and whom he now saw
hailed as one of the great engineers of the world; fortunate in
business; respected and beloved by men of every class, George
Stephenson spent the closing years of his life in affluence and
ease. He had earned his peace, for he had fought and won the
battle of the locomotive, and so, by improving the means of
communication, had advanced the interests of trade, and promoted
the welfare of England and of mankind. George Stephenson died in
1848. His son Robert outlived him but eleven years, and was
buried in Westminster Abbey as one of the great men of the
century. The boldness of his engineering projects, the skill and
daring with which he flung his railway bridges and viaducts
across rivers, valleys, and straits, had caught and held the
imagination of the world. Together the two men wrote the name of
Stephenson large and lasting in the record of nineteenth-century
England.
Had the nineteenth century nothing else to show save the
improvement in transportation, its fame would be secure. Within a
dozen years after the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester
Railway, Great Britain was covered with railways or railway
surveys, establishing all the trunk-lines which now exist. The
thirty and a half miles of the original line grew by leaps and
bounds to a system of nearly two thousand miles, the property of
a single company, whose property is valued at five hundred
million dollars. Twenty-five years after the day of the
"Rocket's" victory eight thousand miles of railway were in
operation in the United Kingdom. Another twenty-five years
brought the total up to eighteen thousand miles, which had cost
for construction nearly four billion dollars. At the same time
(1883) the number of locomotives was 14,469, of cars, 490,661.
Before Manchester and Liverpool were connected by railway thirty
stage-coaches sufficed for the passenger traffic. The railway
carried seven hundred thousand passengers between the two cities
in its first year and one-half. Fifty years later the passengers
on all the English lines numbered six hundred million, of whom
eighty-five per cent traveled third-class. The freight traffic in
the same year was two hundred and twenty-six million tons. Robert
Stephenson lived to see one per cent of the entire population of
the United Kingdom employed on the railways. In 1884 the number
of such employees was 367,793. These few figures are sufficient
to suggest the magnitude of the economic changes which took place
in England, and indeed throughout the civilized world, as the
direct result of the talent, industry, and perseverance of George
Stephenson, the Northumbrian plowboy.