I8i8.j 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



29 7 



GEORGE STEPHENSON. 



On the death of a g^eat man it is a good time to think of what 

 he has done. We are struck by the loss : the thought comes 

 gloomily that he who so lately stood among us, whose smile still 

 beams upon lis, whose sayings are fresh in our ears, and whose 

 looks have not faded from our sight, has ended his days here and 

 sought another world. We begin to tell over his words and deeds, 

 the great and good things he has done, his strength and his fail- 

 ings, his sorrows and his joys ; — we hasten to snatch a last look 

 before the bright remembrance is dimmed. 



George Ste])henson was so lately amidst us, in strength of body 

 and mind unbroken, that it is hard to believe he lies in the cold 

 grave ; and the more so while his works speak so loudly of him. 

 In mind he is among us, if not in body — indeed, his remembrance 

 cannot so soon leave. The last duties have been paid — the earth 

 has been laid upon him, his name is written on his coffin, and the 

 newspapers have told of liis birth and his death : but his brethren 

 have yet much to think over. He has given the engineers of 

 England a European name ; he has opened for them anew field of 

 employment at home, a wider field of honour and of wealth abroad, 

 and they owe him heartfelt thanks. 



When we look to the man, our hearts are stirred within us. We 

 begin with his lowly birth, we witness his great rise, his wonderful 

 works, but still more his kindly feelings ; we wonder how he did 

 so much from small beginnings, and every young man burns to 

 foUow in the footsteps of one so truly great and good. We have 

 thought, tlierefore, a few words may be in good time now, gathered 

 from the several books and papers in which they lie scattered, and 

 which may perhaps be a spur to those able to do something worthier 

 of the man. 



His life is none the less useful as being that of a working-man, 

 who by his own straight-forwardness raised himself to the topmost 

 height ; and as he began without school-learning, and in a private 

 way, it opens many of those questions which have been much 

 written upon of late years as to the teaching of engineers, and how 

 far they should be under the sway of a government. Inasmuch, 

 too, as, unlike many men of learning, he was most happy in earning 

 wealth, and in keeping it, in a good name, and in the love of his 

 household, it may be worth while to ask why he should hav* had a 

 better lot than other men, and what share an upright and manly 

 mind had in helping on a quick and ready wit. Many, indeed, think 

 that a clever man may do as he likes, and that he need put no 

 bridle on his wishes, nor trouble himself whether his deeds be right 

 or wrong, but may be a good and successful engineer notwithstand- 

 ing. Stephenson's life will tell us something on all these heads. 



I. BOYHOOD. 



George Stephenson was born in 1760, at a small and lone cot- 

 tage between Close-House and Wylam, in Northumberland, and 

 within nine miles of Newcastle, in the colliery district. He 

 was one of several children, the son of poor people, who had long 

 dwelt in the same neighbourhood, and who were very respectable. 

 The elder Stephenson is said to have been a collier, but by otlier 

 more likely accounts ' an engine tenter at a colliery. That the 

 parents were people of high character is best proved by the early 

 life of the son, but most by his behaviour towards them. 



Schooling they were ill able to give him, and it is not certain 

 that he learned to read before he began to labour ; but he had that 

 best kind of teaching which comes from the heart. An open and 

 upright mind « as the true groundwork on which his greatness was 

 built, and he owed it to the humble home in which he was brought 

 up. We pride ourselves now-a-days that we have spread national 

 schools over the land, and that we have taken care for the 

 right bringing up of youth ; and we think it much better that all 

 c«n now learn to read and write. It may however well be asked, 

 how far this alone is good ; for we have struck a blow at that home- 

 <ichooling, under which for so many hundred years Englishmen 

 have been bred. Formerly, the cotter had the whole care of his 

 children; the father and the mother were held answerable for their 

 offspring, and if these ended ill, the shame was a by-word among 

 tlie neighbours. Now, the child is handed over to the schoolmaster, 

 without whose teaching life is held as nought, and whose reading 

 and writing are to breathe worth into the boyish mind. It is no 

 longer said learning is better than house or land, but that it stands 

 in the stead of everything, and is worth itself. The work of 

 father and mother is now at an end ; and if any ill befall, they 

 answer they sent the child to school, and if any be in the wrong it 

 njust be the schoolmaster. This is telling more than is believed, 

 and is one of those things which is sapping England. How often 



1 Derby Reporter, August, 184». 



must it be said that reading and writing are not to bring a child up, 

 while its body and its soul are untaught ? and better is it to have 

 the homely Plnglish breeding of George Stephenson than the mock 

 useful-knowledge-schooling of Dr. Bell or the Prussians. 



If not taught to write, George Stephenson was taught to be a 

 good son, and an upright man ; and thus in after-time to find in his 

 own son a true helpmate, and one who fondly loved him. It is 

 not likely that the lad felt any repining, but earnestly took up — 

 what should be the lot in life of all — to work for his bread by the 

 sweat of his brow. He never looked for anything else, — he had no 

 yearning for idleness, and his mind never gave way under the burthen 

 which was laid upon him in after-life. In common with his brothers 

 he was early set to work to earn his share of the hotisehold food — 

 so early, that his first earnings were only two-pence a day. He 

 led the horse at the ]>lough when almost too young to stride across 

 the furrow ;- riding him to his work betimes in the morning, when 

 many children were still asleep, and had not begun their boyish 

 play. 



So lowly were his first endeavours, that they were given to the 

 ploughshare or the coal-heap. Sometimes he wrought at picking 

 bats and dross from tlie coal ; and he was so young, and so young- 

 looking, that he had often to liide himself when the overseer went 

 round, lest he should be thought too little to earn his small living.' 

 From twopence a day he rose to fourpence, and at length to six- 

 pence a day, — as great a rise, and perhaps as fraught with brightest 

 hopes and swelling pride, as when in after-years his locomotives 

 mo\'ed from miles to scores, and when the maker of a short tram- 

 way became the undertaker of iron roads between London and the 

 millions of the north, and kings and statesmen smiled on the won- 

 ders he had wrought. 



In his boyhood he was most marked among tlie playmates of the 

 hamlet as foremost in their sports and pastimes, — and indeed we 

 need not wish for more. His mind was not talked beyond its 

 strength, nor made to yield unripe fruit. The healthy growth of 

 his body enabled him' to work out whatever his powerful mind 

 spurred him to do ; and for twenty years of his life (from forty to 

 sixty), he never flagged in tasks which the unbroken strength of 

 youth can seldom master. 



It is said that he early showed a meclianical turn, and that he 

 mended the clocks and watches of the pitmen, and even made their 

 shoes,* to eke out his boyish earnings ; but it seems more likely that 

 the watch and clock mending belonged to a later time of his life, 

 for had he shown such a happy knowledge, it is hardly likely that 

 his skill should have been so' little thought of, as until his man- 

 hood it seems to have been. 



Shortly after he had come into his teens, he worked as breaksman 

 for Waterrow pit, on the tramway lietween Wylam and Newburn. 

 By this time his fatlier had moved" from AVSlam to Walbottle. The 

 lad now set up his first servant, wliich was no other than a great 

 dog, whom he taught to bring his dinner daily from Walbottle 

 colliery to the tramway.'^ 



He is said even at this time to have helped in keeping his father 

 and mother," — a homely deed, but one of which he had a greater 

 riglit to be proud than of any engineering undertaking. A right 

 English feeling in his love of kindred was always lively in his mind, 

 and it showed itself in his fondness for his father, liis son, and the 

 children of his brothers, and in every deed of his life. While 

 earnest to make his own way, he was no less so that those about 

 him should get forward— nay, if it might be, e\en l)efore him; and 

 wliile his mind ivas still unbroken, he left his son to carry out alone 

 tlie great works in which they had begun togetlier. 



II. KILLINGWORTH. 



The Stephensons went to Willington and Killingworth, at which 

 latter is a colliery belonging to Lord Ravensworth and his partners. 

 Young George was now put to be stoker to a colliery engine, at 

 one shilling a-day, and as he himself told— "In my younger days 

 I worked at an engine in a coal-pit. I had then to work early and 

 late, often rising to my labour at one and two o'clock in the morn- 

 ing."' It was at Killingworth, however, that his lot in the world 

 was settled, for there he made his beginning as an engineer. 



As his strength grew so did his work, and he went on until he 

 became an engineman at 12s. a-week. This was a great step, as 

 he never forgot, for some months ago being at Newcastle, he sent 

 for an old fellow-workman to dine with him at the Queen's-Head 

 hotel, and talk over old times.— " Do you remember, George,__ 

 asked his friend after dinner, "when you got your wages raised? 

 " Well," said Stephenson, " what about that 't" " You came out 



2 Derby Reporter. 

 4 Leicestershire DIercury. 

 6 Derbyshire Courier. 



3 Derbyshire Courier, August 19, 1848. 

 5 Gateshead Observer, August 19, 1848, 

 ' Speech at Newcastle, June 18, 1844. 

 39 



