THE STEPHENSON CENTENARY—HONOUR TO
WHOM HONOUR IS DUE.
George Stephenson was born on the 9th of June 1781.
The year 1881 was therefore the hundredth since his birth,—completed
"the centenary;" and it occurred to many thoughtful and influential
persons as a right thing to do that it should be marked by some special
mode of public celebration. For the man born just one hundred years
before had done a great work in his day; a work the full benefit of
which we are only now beginning to enjoy.
England is not ungrateful to the memory of her distinguished sons, and
keeps many anniversaries with a good deal of pomp and circumstance. She
does not forget a Shakespeare and a Burns, or a Wellington and a Nelson;
she loves to remember the establishment of the first printing-press, and
the victories at Trafalgar and Waterloo. Such being the case, it cannot
be denied that there was a peculiar fitness in her doing honour to "the
Father of Railways,"—to the man whose successful patience, energy, and
courage have so largely added to the national wealth and developed the
national resources.
A century ago, when Stephenson was born, no one had dreamed of or
imagined such a thing as railway traffic. That great idea was reserved
for the brain of the son of a colliery engine tenter; and we have seen
in the foregoing pages under what discouragement, and in the face of
what colossal difficulties, he conceived and carried it out. The
steam-engine in use in his youth and manhood was a crude, awkward, and
disjointed affair, always coming to grief, and incapable of any
important work. The locomotive, as Stephenson found it, was nothing more
than a clumsy stationary engine put on a clumsy truck, which rattled and
shook as it crept along at the rate of four miles an hour, so that every
moment it seemed about to tumble to pieces. And the railway on which it
ran was not less imperfect; it was nothing more than a system of light
thin rails, which rested, or at least were intended to rest, upon blocks
of stone or rough wooden sleepers.
Stephenson, as we have seen, resolved upon reforming all this. He soon
improved the track, giving it greater solidity and firmness; and then he
turned to the engine, which he continued to perfect almost to the day of
his death. There was much in the circumstances of the time to stimulate
his activity. The coal trade was increasing largely, and those engaged
in it were anxious to send their "black diamonds" over the country with
all possible speed. They could no longer tolerate engines that rattled
and jolted to and fro at the rate of only four miles an hour! They were
ambitious, and wanted a speed of ten miles. Well, we know what
Stephenson did: he invented an engine that attained fifteen miles an
hour; and then, unresting and unhasting, he addressed himself to the
task of extending—or, rather, creating—our railway system.
He succeeded: and now there are eighteen thousand miles of railway in
England;[1] and our ordinary trains make thirty miles, our express
trains fifty and sixty miles an hour; and millions of men and women
travel where formerly only hundreds went; and journeys that occupied a
day and a night, like the journey from London to Exeter, are
accomplished in half-a-dozen hours. Why, we leave London at ten, and
reach Edinburgh at seven the same evening; a journey which, when
Stephenson was born, could not be performed under a couple of days and
nights!
Footnote 1:
At the close of 1880 there were 17,700 miles, employing 300,000
persons, and 13,174 locomotives. In this vast net-work of iron roads a
capital of not less than £70,000,000 is sunk, yielding an annual
return of £30,000,000. Upwards of 600,000,000 journeys are made on the
average every year.
So marvellous a tale reads like a romance from some Eastern fairy-book.
Yet it is literally true, and the work has been done in the sight and
memory of thousands of living men. Was it not a work which deserved "a
centenary"?
And the man: did _he_ not deserve it? If ever indomitable perseverance
merited public applause, it was that of George Stephenson. We will say
nothing more of the trials and labours of his early years; but even
after he had made his engine, and undertaken to construct the first
English railway, what obstacles he had to conquer, what difficulties to
surmount! Both Houses of Parliament were against him; the world was
against him. People were horrified at the thought of "turning the
locomotive loose on the country." They drew dreadful pictures of the
evil it would do. Families sitting by their own firesides, it was said,
would not be safe. A runaway engine, twenty tons in weight, would dash
through a whole line of houses, toppling them down one after the other
like houses built of cards. How was such a monster to be controlled? A
screw loose, or a wrong turn of the handle, and it would bound out of
the control of its driver. Then, again, others would ask, who wanted to
travel more than ten miles an hour? Who wanted to rush through the
country at a rate which would take away the breath? Was it not "flying
in the face of Providence"? Moreover, these new "trains" were to start
exactly to the minute, and what could be more inconvenient? "It was the
regular thing in those days to keep the carriage and four a whole hour
waiting at the door, till every room of the house had been gone through
several times to see that nothing was left behind."
But Stephenson was not to be daunted. Possessed with one great thought,
he kept to it manfully, and laboured day by day and night by night with
unsurpassable energy. Such a man—the author of so great a work—surely
deserved a centenary.
And a noble centenary it was. Both at Newcastle and at Chesterfield—the
two towns with which Stephenson was most closely connected—the day was
observed as a holiday, and thousands took part in the different
ceremonies.
At Newcastle, the streets of which were gaily decorated with tall
Venetian masts covered with red cloth, and each surmounted by a trophy
of flags,—with ornamental mottoes, wreaths and festoons of glossy
foliage, and a brave show of banners and garlands, there was a grand
procession of modern railway engines, which started from the Central
Railway Station, and proceeded, amidst the cheers of thousands, to
Wylam, George Stephenson's birth-place, eight miles distant. These
engines, sixteen in number, were the finest modern science could
construct: some of them had driving-wheels six feet in diameter, and
outside cylinders which measured in diameter nearly a foot and a half.
How bright they were with their shining copper and polished steel, and
how the sunlight flashed from them as, linked together, they rolled
along the iron way! On reaching Wylam they were placed for exhibition
along with the five old original locomotives—namely, the Killingworth
(the first that Stephenson ever made), the Hatton Colliery engine, the
old Darlington engine, No. 1 Locomotive from Darlington, and
Stephenson's old "Victor" from the North-Eastern Railway.
A special train followed, carrying the Mayors of Newcastle and other
towns, with many persons of local celebrity. Opposite George
Stephenson's birth-place it stopped; the Mayor of Newcastle alighted
with his friends, and in honour of the day planted an oak-tree. The
return journey was then made, and the engines we have named were thrown
open to public inspection.
The next event was a procession of members of the corporations, public
bodies, trade societies, and workmen of Newcastle, Gateshead, Jarrow,
and South Shields, together with the miners of Northumberland and
Durham—some 40,000 altogether—who, through the garlanded and bannered
streets, marched to the town moor. There three platforms had been
erected, from which the various trade representatives delivered
appropriate addresses.
In the evening a grand banquet took place, at which the Mayor of
Newcastle presided; and the day's festivities concluded with a brilliant
display of fireworks.
At Chesterfield the public rejoicings, if necessarily on a less
extensive scale, were not less cordial. Of course, there was a
procession; there was also a special choral service in the parish
church; and we read of a banquet, a concert, and a fireworks finale.
But all this was temporary,—belonged only to the day, and with the day
passed away. So it was resolved to raise funds for the establishment of
a permanent memorial, which, it is to be hoped, may be in existence,
active and prosperous, when a bi-centenary and a tri-centenary in their
turn come round. This will be a "Stephenson College of Physical
Science," to be erected at Newcastle, at a cost of £20,000. And a
Stephenson Scholarship Fund is also being raised, which will place the
higher education within the reach of youths of Stephenson's social rank
imitating Stephenson in his perseverance, energy, love of knowledge, and
patient industry.
Transcribers note.
Spelling, Punctuation and Hyphenation have been kept as the original.