458 STATUES TO STEPHENSON. CHAP. XX. 



business, closing their shops, and joining in the funeral 

 procession, which was headed by the corporation of the 

 town. Many of the surrounding gentry also attended. 

 The body was interred in Trinity Church, Chesterfield, 

 where a simple tablet marks the great engineer's last 

 resting-place. 



The statue of George Stephenson, which the Liver- 

 pool and Manchester and Grand Junction Companies 

 had commissioned, was on its way to England when 

 his death occurred ; and it served for a monument, 

 though his best monument will always be his^wofks. 

 The Liverpool Board placed a minute on their books, 

 embodying the graceful tribute of their secretary, Mr. 

 Henry Booth, in which they recorded their admiration 

 of the life, and their esteem for the character of the 

 deceased. " The directors," they say, " on the present 

 occasion look back with peculiar interest to their first 

 connexion with Mr. Stephenson, in the construction of 

 the Liverpool and Manchester Railway ; to a period 

 now twenty years past, when he floated their new line 

 over Chat Moss, and cut his way through the rock- 

 cutting at Olive Mount. Tracing the progress of rail- 

 ways from the first beginning to the present time, they 

 find Mr. Stephenson foremost in urging forward the 

 great railway movement ; earning and maintaining his 

 title to be considered, before any other man, the author 

 of that universal system of locomotion which has effected 

 such mighty results commercial, social, and political 

 throughout the civilized world. Two years ago, the 

 directors entrusted to Mr. Gibson, .of Eome, the duty 

 and the privilege of producing a statue that might do 

 honour to their friend, then living amongst them. They 

 did not anticipate that on the completion of this work of 

 art the great original would be no more, that they 

 should be constrained to accept the marble effigy of the 

 engineer in lieu of the living presence of the man." 



