464 EGBERT STEPHENSON'S DEATH AND FUNERAL. CHAP. XX. 



tion of his public services ; and at home the University 

 of Oxford made him a Doctor of Civil Laws. In 1855, 

 he was elected President of the Institute of Civil Engi- 

 neers, which office he held with honour and filled with 

 distinguished ability for two years, giving place to his 

 friend Mr. Locke at the end of 1857. 



It was when on a visit to Norway in the autumn of 

 1859 that Robert Stephenson was seized by the illness 

 which terminated his illustrious career. He had been 

 for some time ailing, and was in indifferent health when 

 he sailed. But a deep-seated disease lurked within him 

 an old liver-complaint which first developed itself in 

 jaundice and then in dropsy, of which he died on the 

 12th of October, in the fifty-sixth year of his age. 1 He 

 was buried by the side of Telford in Westminster Abbey, 

 amidst the departed great men of his country, and was 

 attended to his resting-place by many of the intimate 

 friends of his boyhood and his manhood. Among those 

 who assembled round his grave were some of the greatest 

 men of thought and action in England, who embraced 

 the sad occasion to pay the last mark of their respect 

 to this illustrious son of one of England's greatest work- 

 ing men. 



1 In 1829 Robert Stephenson mar- 

 ried Frances, daughter of John Sander- 

 son, merchant, London ; but she died 

 in 1842, without issue, and Mr. Ste- 

 phenson did not marry again. Writ- 

 ing to his friend Edward Pease, of 

 Darlington, shortly after his wife's 

 death, "in 1842, he said: "You have 

 my sincere thanks for your kind ex- 

 pressions relative to the heavy affliction 

 with which the Almighty in his wis- 

 dom has been pleased to visit me. It 



has, indeed, been severe, but I feel 

 that the weight of the blow was much 

 mitigated by my being mercifully 

 permitted to witness the last moments 

 of my beloved companion in life, which 

 were those of a fervent and laithliil 

 Christian ; and my prayer is that my 

 last end may be like hers." Until the 

 close of his life, Robert Stephenson 

 was accustomed twice in every year to 

 visit his wife's grave in Hampstead 

 churchyard. 



