1853] 



ROBERT STEPHENSON, M.P. 



41 



His connexion with the Liverpool .and Manchester Line, placed 

 him iu the front rank of the engineers of that day, he also 

 became the proprietor of an extensive locomotive manufactory at 

 Newcastle, and an extensive owner of collieries and iron works. 

 His death took place in August, 1848. 



We have seen from his own narrative, that George Stephenson 

 fully appreciated the advantages of education, and he has told us 

 of his manly conflict and stern purpose to win the means where- 

 with to enable his son to receive that training of which he so 

 much felt the necessity himself, and the value of which he held 

 above all price. At the age of ten, Robert was sent to the aca- 

 demy of Mr. John Bruce, of Newcastle, where he remained until 

 about sixteen ; he then for a short time received private lessons 

 in mathematics from Mr. Riddell, (afterwards head-master of the 

 Royal Naval School at Greenwich,) and was subsequently 

 apprenticed as a coal-viewer to Mr. Nicholas "Wood, in which 

 occupation he remained three years. The name of George Ste- 

 phenson was by this time rising into eminence as an engineer, 

 and looking forward to better prospects for his son, he removed 

 him from his underground apprenticeship, and in 1821 placed 

 him in the University of Edinburgh, where he studied under Pro- 

 fessor Leslie, Dr. Hope, and Professor Jamieson. His father, 

 however, could afford him no more than one session, but during 

 that period he evinced an extraordinary capacity for acquiring 

 knowledge, and a just appreciation of its value. Incited by the 

 early lessons inculcated by the precepts and the examples of his 

 father, and by the necessity that he should be early at the profes- 

 sion he was destined to live by, his diligence knew no pause, — 

 every hour was improved; and he was rewarded by a correspond- 

 ing profieiency. At the age of nineteen he returned from Edin- 

 burgh, and entered upon a new field of study with his father, who 

 had about that time established his steam engine manufactory at 

 Newcastle. Here the same diligence which had characterized his 

 session at the university induced such incessant application to the 

 study of his profession, as to impair his health, and his father, 

 urged by the medical attendant, consented to his son's acceptance 

 of the charge of an expedition to explore the silver and gold 

 mines of Venezuela, New Grenada and Columbia, which had 

 been set on foot by Messrs. Herring, Graham and others. He 

 sailed on this expedition in 1824, and remained in Columbia 

 about four years. 



In 1828 he sailed from Carthagena, round Cape Horn, to New 

 York, whence he travelled through that State, and passing into 

 Upper Canada, he visited this city, then known as " Little York," 

 to which the prefix of " muddy " w-as, as Mr. Stephenson says, 

 justly added. From Toronto he proceeded through the Lower 

 Province, visited Montreal, and finally took ship at Quebec, for 

 England. 



When he sailed on his Columbian expedition, the " Surrey 

 Iron Railway," first chartered in 1801, and again in 1803, 

 connecting the Quarries at Merstham and Reigate with 

 Croydon and the Thames at Wandsworth, a length of 21 miles, 

 ■was the only public " Iron Road " in England; with this excep- 

 D 



i/on, the railways of England were private ones, and its commer 

 cial success was not such as to encourage the extension of similar 

 speculations. Many private tramways from coal, iron, and other 

 mines were, however, in existence, and on these some progress 

 had been made in the construction of locomotives. 



Locomotion by steam on common roads had been vague- 

 ly suggested by Watt, in 1759, and practically realized on 

 a small scale by Murdoch in 1784. The idea of apply- 

 ing steam to the propulsion of wheeled carriages did not there- 

 fore originate with Richard Trevithick, yet it is to him we are 

 indebted for its first application in a useful form, acting solely 

 by its expansive force. His first engine was tried on the Myrthir 

 Tydvil tramroad, in 1S04, with good success, drawing ten tons of 

 useful load, at the rate of five miles per hour. Trevithick's engine 

 had but one cylinder, and was but ill adapted to maintain 

 an equal continuous motion ; the adhesion of the driving wheels 

 to the rails was found to be variable, and these difficulties caused 

 him to suggest auxiliary means of propulsion, the presumed 

 necesssity for which induced the contrivance and patenting of 

 many expedients, some of them sufficiently ridiculous, and others 

 remarkable only for their intricacy. 



Passing over the continuous rack and wheel of Blenkinsop, 

 the notable chains and drums of the brothers Chapman, and 

 the automaton legs of Brunton, we find Mr. Blackett, of the 

 Wylan Railway, recurring to the adhesion of the wheels to 

 the rails which he found sufficient when the w T eight of the 

 engine was properly distributed. To make available the 

 full power of his engines, he used two cylinders, with the 

 cranks placed at right angles, and thus rendered his engines 

 capable of producing an equal, continuous motion — this was 

 in 1813. In 1S14, the elder Stephenson constructed his 

 first locomotive, in which and in his subsequent ones, he intro- 

 duced several improvements, which gave his engines a superiority 

 over those made b} T his contemporaries. 



Although Mr. Blackett, as we have said, applied double cylin- 

 ders to produce a continuous motion, his modes of attachment 

 and of connecting the wheels was defective ; — the wheels were 

 connected by endless chains. These, however, were sufficient to 

 establish the sufficiency of the bile of the wheels to draw the 

 requisite number of loaded waggons, and therefore general atten- 

 tion was re-directed to improving the means of applying the 

 power of the steam to the wheels. George Stephenson first in- 

 troduced an ingenious arrangement of geering to effect the desired 

 end. His first engine, when tried up an incline of 1 in 450, 

 dragged eight loaded waggons weighing 30 tons, at the rate of 

 about four miles per hour. In practice, however, it was found 

 that the spur geering caused considerable noise and jarring, which 

 increased with the wear. To remedy this, Mr. Stephenson, in 

 connexion with Mr. Dodds, patented in 1815 a method of attach- 

 ino- the connecting rods of the engines to crank-pins fixed in the 

 arms of the driving-wheels, and used endless chains to keep the 

 crank-pins at right angles with each other ; for these chains outside 

 connecting-rods were substituted; and, except that Nicholas 



