PREFACE. vn 



of the engineer in 1848, by the present Mayor of Leeds, 

 James Kitson, Esq., a large locomotive-manufacturer in 

 that town, and an intimate friend of both the Stephen- 

 sons. Mr. Kitson thought that the author's business 

 connection with railways, and his personal knowledge of 

 the elder Stephenson, with other qualifications, fitted him 

 for the task of writing his biography. The suggestion 

 was very tempting ; but the preparation of such a work 

 involved too much labour to be lightly undertaken, and 

 beyond putting together a few memoranda, which were 

 published as an article in a London journal, nothing 

 further was then done in the matter. 



In the mean time a very suggestive and able article 

 made its appearance in the Athenceum of December 8, 

 1849, urging the claims of the subject of railway enter- 

 prise and its early history upon the attention of literary 

 men. The reviewer pointed out that although there 

 then existed abundance of railway statistics, these would 

 be found of very little use to the historian who, a century 

 hence, looking to the extraordinary effects of the railway 

 system on the means and manners of Great Britain, 

 should try to relate how it arose, with what efforts and 

 influences, and by what manner of men it was brought 

 to pass within a few years to discover, in short, some- 

 thing like what we now vainly seek and regret to find 

 untold of the great mechanical novelties of the last 

 century. " It is this," he observed, " which we now 

 desire to have collected, while the memory of the chief 

 facts is yet fresh, while many of the first authors are 

 still living, and while of those deceased including a 

 principal author of the system, George Stephenson 

 there are survivors able to supply authentic and lively 



