480 GEORGE STEPHENSON'S POLITICS. CHAP. XXI. 



state his experience as an engineer to a society many of 

 whose members had been his own pupils or assistants. 

 And his son held the opinion that a society which had 

 elected many scientific gentlemen of their body as 

 honorary members, would not have done itself discredit 

 by admitting the Father of Railway Engineering on the 

 same terms. As it was, he turned his back, though 

 reluctantly, on the Institute of Civil Engineers, and 

 accepted the office of President of the Institution of 

 Mechanical Engineers at Birmingham, which he held 

 until his death. 



During the summer of 1847, George Stephenson was 

 invited to offer himself as a candidate for the repre- 

 sentation of South Shields in Parliament. But his 

 politics were at best of a very undefined sort ; indeed 

 his life had been so much occupied with subjects of a 

 practical character, that he had scarcely troubled himself 

 to form any decided opinion on the party political topics 

 of the day ; and to stand the cross fire of the electors 

 on the hustings might have been found an even more 

 distressing ordeal than the cross-questioning of the 

 barristers in the Committees of the House of Commons. 

 " Politics," he used to say, " are all matters of theory- 

 there is no stability in them ; they shift about like the 

 sands of the sea ; and I should feel quite out of my 

 element amongst them." He had accordingly the good 

 sense respectfully to decline the honour of contesting 

 the representation of South Shields. 



We have, however, been informed by Sir Joseph 

 Paxton, that although George Stephenson held no 

 strong opinions on political questions generally, there 

 was one question on which he entertained a decided 

 conviction, and that was the question of Free-trade. 

 The words used by him on one occasion to Sir Joseph 

 were very strong. " England," said he, " is, and must 

 be a shopkeeper ; and our docks and harbours are only 

 so many wholesale shops, the doors of which should 



