George Stephenson

EARLY LIFE 

George Stephenson was born on June 9, 1781 in Wylam, Northumberland, which is 9 miles (15 km) west of Newcastle upon Tyne.

George Stephenson

He was the second child of Robert and Mabel Stephenson, neither of whom could read or write.

George's father worked at a coal mine as a fireman feeding coal into the furnace of the steam engine.

CAREER 

Stephenson left school at early age and got a lowly paid job as a cowherd, before getting work helping his father as fireman at Water Row Pit in Newburn. By the age of 17 Stephenson was in charge of the steam engine there.

In his early teen years, Stephenson couldn't read or write but he paid 4p a week for night school lessons out of his earnings as a fireman.

In 1801, Stephenson began work at Black Callerton Colliery as a 'brakesman', controlling the winding gear at the pit. After getting married, Stephenson made shoes and mended clocks to supplement his income.

His skill with steam-driven machinery became well known and one day Stephenson was called to another coalmine. He mended the steam engine there and was given the important job of engineer at the Killingworth collieries.

Aware of the explosions often caused in mines by naked flames, Stephenson devised a safety lamp for use at Killingworth Colliery, that would burn in a gaseous atmosphere without causing an explosion. Cornishman Humphry Davy was also looking at the problem and came up with his own lamp at the same time.

For his invention Davy was awarded £2,000, whilst Stephenson was accused of stealing the idea from the Cornish chemist, because he was not seen as an adequate scientist who could have produced the lamp by any approved scientific method. However, Stephenson's lamp was widely adopted in the north of England.

Stephenson's safety lamp shown with Davy's lamp on the left

In 1814 Stephenson persuaded the manager of the Killingworth colliery to allow him to build a steam-powered travelling engine. The locomotive he built designed for hauling coal on the Killingworth wagonway, was named after the Prussian general Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. The Blücher locomotive could haul 30 tons of coal up a hill at 4 mph (6.4 km/h), and was the first successful flanged-wheel adhesion locomotive. Altogether, Stephenson is said to have produced 16 locomotives at Killingworth.

One of the Killingworth engines

In 1821, a parliamentary bill was passed to allow the building of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the world's first public railway. Stephenson surveyed the line in 1821, and assisted by his eighteen-year-old son Robert, construction began the same year.

The Stockton and Darlington Railway opened on September 27, 1825 using George Stephenson's eight ton no. 1 engine, called Locomotion. Driven by Stephenson, Locomotion hauled an 80-ton load of coal and flour. In addition, the first purpose-built passenger car, Experiment, was attached and carried dignitaries on the opening journey.

The No. 1 engine, called Locomotion, for the Stockton & Darlington Railway

It was the first time passenger traffic had been run on a steam locomotive railway. Stephenson's steam locomotive raced along at an average 15 mph reaching a speed of 24 miles per hour (39 kilometres per hour) on one stretch. At that time most people believed nobody could survive speeds above 16 mph so there was some alarm.

The gauge Stephenson chose for the Stockton and Darlington Railway line was 4 feet 8 1⁄2 inches (1,435 mm). Sometimes called the "Stephenson gauge", it subsequently was adopted as the standard gauge for most of the world's railways.

In 1829 Stephenson built the eight ton The Rocket which entered and won the Rainhill Trials, the competition to see which engine would be used on the Liverpool and Manchester railway. Stephenson was awarded the then huge sum of £500 as his prize.

Rocket (1829) Replica. By Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK 

The grand opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway took place on September 15, 1830. The line included the famous Rainhill Skew Bridge, which was the first bridge to cross any railway at an angle. It was designed with a skew span of 54 feet (16 m), in order to give a clear span across the railway of 30 feet (9.1 m) at a skew angle of 56° . Stephenson built a full-sized wooden model in an adjacent field before completing the bridge in 1830.

The Liverpool and Manchester railway was a resounding success. Stephenson became famous, and was offered the position of chief engineer for a wide variety of other railways.

Stephenson established his company as the pre-eminent builder of steam locomotives used on railways in the United Kingdom, the United States and much of Europe.

The talented engineer once invented a cucumber straightener, a transparent glass tube open at one end in which a half grown cucumber was placed and as it continued to grow it straightened.

PERSONAL LIFE 

George Stephenson fell in love with Anne Henderson when he lodged with her family. She was not interested in him, so he transferred his attentions to her sister Frances (Fanny), who was nine years his senior. George and Fanny married at Newburn Church on November 28, 1802.

Their first child Robert was born in 1803, and their second child, a daughter was born in July 1805. She was named Frances after her mother. Little Frances died after just three weeks and was buried in St Bartholomew's Parish Church near Newcastle.

In 1806 George's wife Frances died probably of consumption (tuberculosis). She was buried in the same churchyard as their daughter on May 16, 1806.

George Stephenson married for the second time on March 29, 1820, when he wed Betty Hindmarsh at Newburn. The marriage seems to have been happy, but there were no children and Betty died in 1845.

Stephenson got married for the third time, to Ellen Gregory, on January 11, 1848 at St John's Church in Shrewsbury. She had been his housekeeper.

Stephenson realized the value of education and paid to study at night school to learn reading, writing and arithmetic until the age of 18. Once he learnt to read, he liked to learn all he could about engines.

The cottage at Wylam, Northumberland, where Stephenson was born still stands.

Dial Cottage. By Bill Henderson,

Stephenson's home from 1804 was Dial Cottage on Great Lime Road at Killingworth, Tyne and Wear, near Newcastle. 
Stephenson constructed the Blücher travelling engine in the colliery workshop behind his Dial Cottage home.

George Stephenson moved to the parish of Alton Grange (now part of Ravenstone) in Leicestershire in 1830.

Stephenson remained at Alton Grange until 1838 before moving to Tapton House north east of Chesterfield in Derbyshire.

LAST YEARS AND DEATH 

After Stephenson settled into semi-retirement, he spent his time supervising his mining interests in Derbyshire. The tunneling for the North Midland Railway revealed a rich seam of coal lying under Chesterfield town and he formed a company to work it.

Six months after marrying his third wife, Stephenson contracted pleurisy and died, aged 67, on August 12, 1848 at Tapton House in Chesterfield, Derbyshire.

The "father of railways" was buried at Holy Trinity Church, Chesterfield, alongside his second wife.

From 1990 until 2003, Stephenson's portrait appeared on the reverse of Series E £5 notes issued by the Bank of England. Stephenson's face was shown alongside an engraving of the Rocket steam engine and the Skerne Bridge on the Stockton to Darlington Railway.

Source Food For Thought by Ed Pearce