George Stephenson
Excerpted from The Stockton and Darlington Railway --
The Birthplace of the Railway
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/johnmoore/1825/george_stephenson.htm
George
Stephenson, the son of a colliery fireman, was born
at Wylam, eight miles from Newcastle-upon-Tyne,
on 9th June, 1781. The cottage where the Stephenson
family lived was next to the Wylam Wagonway, and
George grew up with a keen interest in machines.
George's first employment was herding cows but when
he was fourteen he joined his father at the Dewley
Colliery. George was an ambitious boy and at the
age of eighteen he began attending evening classes
where he learnt to read and write. In 1802 Stephenson
became a colliery engineman and later that year
he married Frances Henderson, a servant at a local
farm. To earn extra money, in the evenings, he repaired
clocks and watches. On 16th October, 1803, his only
son, Robert was born. Frances suffered from poor
health and she died of consumption in 1806. When
he was twenty-seven, Stephenson found employment
as an engineman at Killingworth Colliery. Every
Saturday he took the engines to pieces in order
to understand how they were constructed. This included
machines made by Thomas Newcomen and James Watt.
By 1812 Stephenson's knowledge of engines resulted
in him being employed as the colliery's engine-wright.
Working
at a colliery, George Stephenson was fully aware of the large number of
accidents caused by explosive gases. In his spare time Stephenson began work on
a safety lamp for miners. By 1815 he had developed a lamp that did not cause
explosions even in parts of the pit that were full of inflammable gases.
Unknown to Stephenson, Humphry Davy was busy producing his own safety lamp. In
1813 Stephenson became aware of attempts by William Hedley and Timothy
Hackworth, at Wylam Colliery, to develop a locomotive. Stephenson successfully
convinced his colliery manager, Nicholas Wood, to allow him to try to produce a
steam-powered machine. By 1814 he had constructed a locomotive that could pull
thirty tons up a hill at 4 mph.
Stephenson
called his locomotive, the Blutcher, and like other machines made at this time,
it had two vertical cylinders let into the boiler, from the pistons of which
rods drove the gears. Where Stephenson's locomotive differed from those
produced by John Blenkinsop, William Hedley and Timothy Hackworth, was that the
gears did not drive the rack pinions but the flanged wheels. The Blutcher was
the first successful flanged-wheel adhesion locomotive. Stephenson continued to
try and improve his locomotive and in 1815 he changed the design so that the
connecting rods drove the wheels directly. These wheels were coupled together
by a chain. Over the next five years Stephenson built sixteen engines at Killingworth.
Most of these were used locally but some were produced for the Duke of
Portland's wagon way from Kilmarnock to Troon. The owners of the colliery were
impressed with Stephenson's achievements and in 1819 he was given the task of
building a eight mile railroad from Hetton to the River Wear at Sunderland.
The locomotive
'Blutcher' built by George
Stephenson
Stephenson
arranged a meeting with Pease and suggested that he should consider building a
locomotive railway. Stephenson told Pease that "a horse on an iron road
would draw ten tons for one ton on a common road". Stephenson added that
the Blutcher locomotive that he had built at Killingworth was "worth fifty
horses". That summer Edward Pease took up Stephenson's invitation to visit
Killingworth Colliery. When Pease saw the Blutcher at work he realised George
Stephenson was right and offered him the post as the chief engineer of the
Stockton & Darlington company. It was now now necessary for Pease to apply
for a further Act of Parliament. This time a clause was added that stated that
Parliament gave permission for the company "to make and erect locomotive or
moveable engines". Stephenson began working with William Losh, who owned
an ironworks in Newcastle. Together they patented their own make of cast iron
rails. In 1821 John Birkinshaw, an engineer at Bedlington Ironworks, developed
a new method of rolling wrought iron rails in fifteen feet lengths. Stephenson
went to see these malleable rails and decided they were better than those that
he was making with Losh. Although it cost him a considerable amount of money,
Stephenson decided to use Birkinshaw's rails, rather than those he made with
Losh, on the Stockton & Darlington line. In 1823 Edward Pease joined with
Michael Longdridge, George Stephenson and his son Robert Stephenson, to form a
company to make the locomotives. The Robert Stephenson & Company, at Forth
Street, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, became the world's first locomotive builder.
Stephenson recruited Timothy Hackworth, one of the engineers who had helped
William Hedley to produce Puffing Billy, to work for the company. The first
railway locomotive, Locomotion, was finished in September 1825. The locomotive
was similar to those that Stephenson had produced at the collieries at
Killingworth and Heaton. Work on the track began in 1822. George Stephenson
used malleable iron rails carried on cast iron chairs. These rails were laid on
wooden blocks for 12 miles between Stockton and Darlington. The 15 mile track
from the collieries and Darlington were laid on stone blocks. While building
this railway George Stephenson discovered that on a smooth, level track, a traction
force of ten pounds would move a ton of weight. However, when there was a
gradient of 1 in 200, the hauling power of a locomotive was reduced by 50 per
cent. Stephenson came to the conclusion that railways must be specially
designed with the object of avoiding as much as possible changes in gradient.
This meant that considerable time had to be spent on cuttings, tunnels and
embankments. The Stockton & Darlington line was opened on 27th September,
1825. The Stockton & Darlington line successfully reduced the cost of
transporting coal and in 1826 Stephenson was appointed engineer and provider of
locomotives for the Bolton & Leigh railway.
The
directors of the Liverpool & Manchester company were unsure whether to use
locomotives or stationary engines on their line. To help them reach a decision,
it was decided to hold a competition where the winning locomotive would be
awarded _500. The idea being that if the locomotive was good enough, it would
be the one used on the new railway. The competition was held at Rainhill during
October 1829. Each competing locomotive had to haul a load of three times its
own weight at a speed of at least 10 mph. The locomotives had to run twenty
times up and down the track at Rainhill which made the distance roughly
equivalent to a return trip between Liverpool and Manchester. Afraid that heavy
locomotives would break the rails, only machines that weighed less than six
tons could compete in the competition. Ten locomotives were originally entered
for the Rainhill Trials but only five turned up and two of these were withdrawn
because of mechanical problems. Sans Pariel and Novelty did well but it was the
Rocket, produced by George and his son, Robert Stephenson, that won the
competition. The Liverpool & Manchester railway was opened on 15th
September, 1830. After his success with the Liverpool & Manchester railway,
Stephenson was the chief engineer of the following railways: Manchester &
Leeds, Birmingham & Derby, Normanton & York and Sheffied &
Rotherham. George Stephenson continued to work on improving the quality of the
locomotives used on the railway lines he constructed. This included the
addition of a steam-jet developed by Goldsworthy Gurney that increased the speed
of the Rocket to 29 mph.
.
In 1838
Stephenson purchased Tapton House, a Georgian mansion near Chesterfield.
Stephenson married again, but his second wife, Elizabeth Hindley, died in 1845.
George Stephenson married for a third time just before he died at Tapton House,
Chesterfield on 12th August, 1848.
Hackworth's Sans Pariel