George Stephenson

The latest in the series on Greatest Britons looks at railway pioneer George Stephenson.

Early Life

George Stephenson was born at Wylam, near Newcastle upon Tyne, on 9^th June 1781, the second child of Robert and Mabel. His father was a colliery fireman, and the family lived next to the Wylam Wagonway. This closeness to the transport system is believed to have contributed to his love of machinery from an early age. George began working at Dewley Colliery and paid to go to night school to learn reading, writing and arithmetic.

In 1802, Stephenson became a colliery engine man and in that same year he married Frances (Fanny) Henderson. On 16^th October 1803, their only son Robert was born. Fanny suffered from ill health and died of consumption in 1806.

Stephenson later took a job as engineman at Killingworth Colliery. Each weekend he would dismantle the engines to enable him to learn how they were built. As he increased his knowledge, he was employed as the colliery’s enginewright. Working in the colliery also enabled him to see the danger of explosive gases, and as a spare time project, Stephenson worked on developing a safety lamp to be used in the mines. It was proved safe in areas which were full of explosive gases. Unfortunately for him, Humphry Davy was also producing a safety lamp (Davy will be featured in a later article in Greatest Britons). Davy accused Stephenson of stealing his idea, but the two men had developed the lamps independently of each other. The lamp designed by Stephenson was used in the north east, Davy’s was used everywhere else.

In 1820 he married for the second time, but this time they had no children and his second wife died in 1845.

Locomotives

George Stephenson was best known for his work with steam locomotives. The first locomotive had been built by Richard Trevithick in 1804 so he is the one credited with inventing the locomotive. Stephenson managed to convince his colliery manager to allow him to design and build a steam locomotive, and in 1814 this emerged. The machine was named Blutcher and it was able to pull 30 tons uphill at a speed of four miles per hour.

Stephenson built a total of sixteen locomotives over the next five years at Killingworth. He impressed the owners of the local colliery and was given the task of building an eight mile long railway between Hetton and the River Wear in Sunderland. This was to be the first ever railway to operate without using any animal power at all.

In 1821, parliament passed a bill allowing a company owned by Edward Pease to build a railway between Stockton and Darlington. This line would run for 25 miles and connect collieries along the way to the River Tees at Stockton. Originally, the idea was to have horses pulling coal carts along metal rails, but Pease changed his mind about his after a meeting with Stephenson. The route of the line was surveyed and construction began in 1821.

Stephenson was offered the position of chief engineer of the Stockton & Darlington Company. Parliament gave permission for the company to make locomotives and then the rails were developed. William Losh worked alongside Stephenson and they patented their own make of cast iron rails, but in 1821, Bedlington Ironworks developed a new method of rolling wrought iron rails. Stephenson decided that he preferred the Bedlington rails to the ones he had made, and so, at great cost, he decided that these would be the rails to be used on the Stockton and Darlington Railway. The gauge of the track would be 4 ft 8½ in which was to become a standard gauge throughout the world.

In 1823, the world’s first locomotive building company was formed at Forth Street, Newcastle – The Robert Stephenson & Company. The first locomotive to be built for the company – Locomotion – was completed in September 1825, and was similar to the ones made for the Killingworth and Heaton collieries.

The Stockton & Darlington Railway opened on 27^th September 1825. Large crowds flocked to the event and George Stephenson drove Locomotion as it pulled 36 wagons which were filled with sacks of coal and flour. Also in the wagon train was a passenger carriage containing dignitaries – this was the first time passenger traffic had been carried on a steam railway. It took just under two hours to complete the nine mile journey. The locomotive managed to reach a speed of 15 mph during its final descent into Stockton. The railway was instrumental in reducing the transport costs for coal, and Stephenson was appointed the engineer and locomotive supplier for the Bolton & Leigh Railway, and also the chief engineer of the proposed Liverpool & Manchester line.

Rocket and the Rainhill Trials

Directors at the Liverpool & Manchester Railway had not decided whether to use locomotives or stationary engines on the route. Their final decision would be swayed by a competition in which the winning locomotive would win £500. If the loco was good enough in the competition then it would be the one to be used on the new line.

The competition was held at Rainhill in October 1829. Each loco in the contest had to pull a load three times its own weight at a speed of no less than 10mph. They had to run along the track twenty times, making an equivalent distance of a return journey between Liverpool and Manchester. Only locos weighing less than six tons were allowed in the competition, for fear of heavier ones breaking the rails. There were ten locos entered for the trials, but on the day only five turned up and of these two were withdrawn with mechanical problems. Novelty and Sans Pariel performed well, but the winner was Rocket, the loco entered by the Stephensons.

The railway opened on 15^th September 1830, with a parade of locomotives, one of which knocked down and killed William Huskisson, a government minister. However, the railway was a resounding success, and after this Stephenson was made chief engineer with the Manchester & Leeds Railway, Birmingham & Derby, Normanton & York and Sheffield and Rotherham. As well as this, he continued to improve the locos he had made, including fitting a steam jet to Rocket which increased its speed to 29 mph.

In 1838, he bought Tapton House near Chesterfield. Going into partnership with George Hudson and James Sanders, he opened coalmines, ironworks and limestone quarries in the region.
Stephenson married again in 1848, this time to his housekeeper. Six months later, he developed pleurisy and died on 12^th August 1848. He was buried in Holy Trinity Church, Chesterfield, beside his second wife.

Remembering Stephenson

Stephenson’s monument is all around us in the modern world – the railway. Although he was not the inventor of the locomotive, he worked on the first passenger railways and devised the standard gauge in use in many countries today. Britain led the world in the development of the railway through the work of men such as Joseph Locke, Robert Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel (who shall feature in a later article in the series).

The museum in Chesterfield contains Stephenson memorabilia, and the George Stephenson College was founded in 2001 on the University of Durham’s Queen’s Campus, Stockton on Tees. Also bearing his name is the George Stephenson High School in Killingworth, the Stephenson Railway Museum in North Shields and the Stephenson Locomotive Society. There is a bronze statue of Stephenson at Chesterfield station, which is overlooked by his old home, and he featured on the £5 note between 1990 and 2003.

As for his famous locomotive Rocket – the original is on display in the Science Museum in London with a replica displayed in the National Railway Museum in York.

George Stephenson is one Briton whose work has had a massive impact upon the modern world.