88 



MR. BLACKETT, OF WYLAM. 



CHAP. VI. 



to repeat the Pen-y-darran experiment upon the Wylam 

 .-'waggon-way. He accordingly obtained from Trevi- 

 ; thick, in October, 1804, a plan of his engine, provided 

 /with " friction-wheels," and employed Mr. John Whin- 

 I field, of Pipewellgate, Gateshead, to construct it at his 

 I foundry there. The engine was constructed under 

 ' the superintendence of one John Steele, 1 an ingenious 

 mechanic, who had been in Wales, and worked under 

 Trevithick in fitting the engine at Pen-y-darran. When 

 the Gateshead locomotive was finished, a temporary way 

 was laid down in the works, on which it was run back- 

 wards and forwards many times. For some reason or 

 other, however it is said because the engine was deemed 

 too light for drawing the coal-trains it never left the 

 works, but was dismounted from the wheels, and set 

 to blow the cupola of the foundry, in which service it 

 was employed for many years. 



Several years elapsed before Mr. Blackett took any 

 further steps to carry out his idea. The final abandon- 

 ment of Trevithick' s locomotive at Pen-y-darran perhaps 

 contributed to deter him from proceeding further ; but 

 he had the wooden tramway taken up in 1808, and a 

 plate-way of cast-iron laid down instead a single line 



1 John Steele was one of the many 

 "born mechanics" of the Northum- 

 berland district. When a boy at 

 Colliery Dykes, his native place, he 

 was noted for his "turn for machi- 

 nery." He used to take his play- 

 fellows home to see and admire his 

 imitations of pit-engines. While a 

 mere youth he lost his leg by an acci- 

 dent; and those who remember him 

 at Whinfield's speak of his hopping 

 about the locomotive, of which he was 

 very proud, upon his wooden leg. It 

 was a great disappointment to him 

 when Mr. Blackett refused to take the 

 engine. One day he took a friend to 

 look at it when reduced to its degraded 

 office of blowing the cupola bellows ; 

 and, referring to the cause of its rejec- 

 tion, he observed that he was certain 



it would succeed, if made suffi- 

 ciently heavy. " Our master," he 

 continued, "will not be at the ex- 

 pense of following it up; but depend 

 upon it the day will come when such 

 an engine will be fairly tried, and then 

 it will be found to answer." Steele 

 was afterwards extensively employed 

 by the British Government in raising 

 sunken ships ; and later in life he 

 established engine-works at Eouen, 

 where he made marine-engines for the 

 French Government. He w r as unfor- 

 tunately killed by the explosion of an 

 engine-boiler (with the safety-valve of 

 which something had gone wrong), 

 when upon an experimental trip with 

 one of the steamers fitted up by him- 

 self, and while on his way to England 

 to visit his family near Newcastle. 



