George Stephenson

by Hunter Davies

  One of the handbills carried a stern warning in true Quaker fashion to any friends of inn keepers who might contemplate enjoying themselves. ‘The company takes this opportunity of enjoining on all their work people that attention to Sobriety and Decorum which they have hitherto had the pleasure of observing.’

  The day before the opening, George Stephenson gave a test ride on Locomotion for the benefit of Edward Pease and three of his sons, Joseph, Edward and Henry, plus Thomas Richardson, the London Quaker banker. Locomotion had been brought down by road from Newcastle drawn by a team of horses. Its engine had been started for the first time earlier that morning by an engineman who got the fire going by the simple device of using an hour glass (which he normally used to start his pipe) on an old piece of waste material left in the engine by one of the Forth Street fitters. His workmate had gone for a lantern to light the fire, leaving him sitting in the sun, lighting his pipe, when he thought he would try to get the fire going on his own. It’s nice to know that nature had a hand in man’s first attempts at locomotion.

  Along with Locomotion came the company’s first passenger coach, the Experiment. This too had been built by Robert Stephenson and Company. It had cost £80 and looked very much like a grander version of a stage coach of the times. It was cushioned and carpeted, though without springs, and sat eighteen passengers with a table down the middle. For the trial run it was linked to Locomotion and off they went with George’s brother James doing the driving while George pointed out the finer details to the Pease family.

  They were lucky with the weather for the grand opening next day – propitious, so the local papers called it – and crowds were gathering from as early as 5.30 at Brussleton Bank near Shildon at the collieries end of the line. At 8 o’clock a stationary engine fixed beside the hill drew the VIPs in their coach up the incline then let it down the other side where they were met by the waiting, panting, giant Locomotion, driven by George Stephenson. The grand procession then headed east for Darlington, some nine miles away, and after that, a further nine miles on to Stockton for the elegant banquet which was waiting for the chosen gentry.

  You only have to look at the smallness and simpleness of Locomotion, which stands to this day on Darlington station, to wonder all over again that such a fragile machine ever managed to get to Stockton. Behind it, when it started off, were thirty-three wagons and three hundred passengers. By the time it eventually got to Stockton the passengers were estimated at being nearer 650, as so many spectators had clambered on board, making the total load almost ninety tons. George Stephenson must have been highly apprehensive when they started off, wondering about the strength of his untried locomotive, which had just come from the works, wondering about the safety of the rails, the bridges and embankments, about the lives of the people on board and of those watching, and wondering whether the whole procession might result in tragedy and the end, not the beginning, of locomotion.

  The total train, some four hundred feet long, consisted firstly of Locomotion with its tender. Next came six wagons, five containing coal and one with flour, followed by Experiment, the company’s passenger coach which contained the directors and leading proprietors. Then came six wagons full of ‘strangers’ (presumably the more important guests), fourteen wagons full of workmen and finally six more wagons laden with coals. Following Locomotion and its train came twenty-four horsedrawn wagons filled with workmen.

  At the head of the procession went several men on horse-back. ‘These heralds held flags in their hands,’ says Jeans, ‘and gave notice to all whom it concerned that the locomotive was approaching.’ Scattered throughout the train were four other large flags, especially made by the company for the occasion. They were more like banners than flags, of the kind which used to be seen at the Durham Miners Gala, emblazoned with stirring words. One displayed the company’s Latin motto over a landscape of an engine drawing several coal wagons. One flag announced simply, ‘May the Stockton and Darlington Railway give public satisfaction and reward its liberal promoters’.

  Thousands of spectators had come for miles around, in carts and donkeys and on foot, to see the procession depart. The Durham County Advertiser, in its long, glowing description of the opening, reported that when Locomotion got up steam some of the more simple country folk, the Johnny Raws, were terrified.

  About this time the locomotive engine, or steam horse, as it was more generally termed, gave ‘note of preparation’ by some heavy aspirations which seemed to excite astonishment and alarm among the ‘Johnny Raws’ who had been led by curiosity to the spot and who, when a portion of the steam was let off, fled in fright, accompanied by the old women and young children who surrounded them, under the idea, we supposed, that some horrible explosion was about to take place; they afterwards, however, found courage sufficient to return to their posts but only to fly again when the safety valve was opened. Everything being now arranged, the welcome cry of ‘all ready’ was heard and the engine and its appendages moved forward in beautiful style.

  Some spectators, according to Jeans, had expected Locomotion to literally be an iron horse. ‘Excitement in many minds took the form of disappointment when it was found that the locomotive was not built after the fashion of a veritable four footed quadruped, some of the older folks expecting to see the strange phenomenon of an automatical semblance of a horse stalking along on four legs.’

  There were several moments of worry on the way to Darlington, once when a coach came off the line and again when the engine stopped because some waste had blocked a valve, but each time the faults were soon rectified and they managed to continue without anyone being hurt. As they went through the fields some hunting gentlemen on horseback tried to race the train, riding alongside the track, but failed. A stage coach pulled by four horses tried in vain to do the same, much to the amusement of a reporter from the Scotsman.

  The passengers by the engine had the pleasure of accompanying and cheering their brother passengers by the stage coach which passed alongside and observing the striking contrast exhibited by the power of the engine and the horse – the engine with her 600 passengers and load and the coach with four horse and only 16 passengers.

  There was a crowd of twelve thousand to greet the train’s arrival at Darlington ‘who gave vent to their feelings by loud and reiterated cheers’. Six of the coal wagons were uncoupled and the coal distributed to the poor of the town. Two wagons full of passengers, one containing the Yarm town band, were then joined on. They’d lost almost an hour in stoppages since leaving Shildon colliery but Locomotion, despite its ever increasing load, had averaged eight miles per hour. In their eagerness to join the train, spectators were now clambering on top of the coal wagons, hanging on to the sides, even hanging on to the original passengers.

  Downhill, on the way into Stockton, a speed of fifteen miles per hour was reached. One workman who was clinging to the side of a coal wagon fell off and had his leg crushed. Apart from that there were, surprisingly, no other accidents. At Stockton the crowd was estimated at being nearly forty thousand. Guns were fired in salute. The band struck up ‘God Save the King’ and the vast crowd joined in giving ‘three times three stentorian cheers’.

  The very elegant banquet in the evening was attended by 102 gentlemen, including representatives from the proposed Liverpool and Manchester, Leeds and Hull railways, and went on till midnight. Mr Meynell, the chairman, took the chair and once again doesn’t appear to have distinguished himself by either the brilliance or the length of his speech. (Not a word of it is recorded in any contemporary account.) No doubt they were too busy praising each other to have much time for speechifying. But every contemporary account records the fact that twenty-three toasts were drunk, the first to the King and finishing with great gusto, as was only fitting, to George Stephenson, their esteemed Engineer.

  Edward Pease, alas, missed the opening day celebrations, though he might well have felt a trifle discomfited during those twenty-three toasts. The previous night his son Isaac ha
d died and no member of the Pease family attended the opening. At least he’d had the pleasure of being given a private preview the day before and had experienced for himself the fruits of his long labours.

  There was someone else of importance missing, someone else whom everyone would have liked to have been there. As managing partner of the Forth Street works Robert Stephenson would certainly have had a place of honour. As George’s dearly beloved only son, as his instrument of education in those early dark days, as his professional support during the building of the Darlington line, one would have expected young Robert to have been at his father’s right hand. Instead, Robert had gone off on his own to South America.

  7

  ROBERT

  Our friend Samuel Smiles would have us believe that Robert Stephenson left his father and the north east to go to South America for health reasons. ‘His health had been very delicate for some time, partly occasioned by his rapid growth, but principally because of his close application to work and study.’ According to Smiles, it was decided that a ‘temporary residence in a warm climate was the very thing likely to be most beneficial to him’.

  As a child, Robert was never robust, but he was by now almost twenty-two and had surely got over the worst effects of all that rapid growing. There are no reports of him being ill during those two open air surveys, on the Darlington line and then the Liverpool line. If anything they must have been good for his health. His years of working in a colliery, which certainly can’t have been good for anyone’s health, were now well behind him. If in 1824 he was feeling a bit peaky, a bit off colour with too much studying, a few weeks at Brighton might have done the trick, or at the most a trip to the south of France. Going off to South America sounds on the face of it patently ridiculous. Even today, one wouldn’t think of rushing to South America for its beneficial climate. But in 1824 it was a hazardous, lengthy and most certainly an unhealthy expedition. So what made him go? Mr Smiles, alas, furnishes no further clues as to his real motives.

  Mr Smiles’ book first came out in 1857, while Robert was still alive, and Smiles acknowledged (in later editions) that Robert had assisted him. We have to assume, then, Robert preferred it to be thought that he was going for health reasons. When Jeaffreson’s biography of Robert himself came out in 1864, after Robert’s death, poor health is still given as the main motivation.

  The threatening symptoms of pulmonary disease, which had from childhood made his friends anxious for him, seemed decidedly on the increase; and in his secret heart he believed that the harsh winds of Newcastle would, before many years, lay him in a premature grave. In the warm luxurious atmosphere of Columbia, surrounded by the gorgeous beauties of animal and vegetable life, he anticipated renewed vigour of mind and body.

  For almost a hundred years after this all commentators on the Stephensons have accepted health as the explanation for Robert’s departure. It was only with the late L.T.C. Rolt, in his book about the two Stephensons, that it was put forward that there might have been a row between them, a rift in the partnership, as he called it. Robert himself never talked or wrote about any row, but the whole incident does suggest a mystery which has never been properly explained. The basic facts about his departure for South America are known, but not his underlying motives, which was why Rolt’s book in 1960 created something of a stir in railway circles and why he made his ‘Rift in the Partnership’ chapter such an important part of his book.

  Firstly, some of the known facts. There was of course a specific reason why Robert chose to go to South America, as opposed to any other part of the globe, and it all started through the Pease connection.

  We first encountered Thomas Richardson, Edward Pease’s cousin, when he became a major subscriber in the Stockton and Darlington Railway. He was the founder of the important London banking house of Overend, Gurney, and took a keen personal interest in the progress of the railway. It was he who went with Pease to look at the Killingworth engines when they were making up their mind about locomotion. Like his cousin, he saw great possibilities in railways and it appears from Warren’s history of Robert Stephenson and Company that Richardson put up half of Pease’s original stake in the capital. Soon afterwards he loaned the company more money and became officially a partner. Naturally he became a friend of both George and Robert.

  Around 1823, certain normally staid and sensible firms in the City of London got themselves very worked up about the possibilities of great fortunes to be made in South America. The idea was admittedly very exciting. Everybody knew the old stories, even if many of them were legendary, about the Inca gold mines, about the Spanish conquistadores and the undreamt of mineral wealth which they had found. These mines had been worked by hand, without machines, and long since left abandoned. Think what can now be done, suggested some bright speculator, using all our new and marvellous steam engines! As the Tyneside coal fields had been made deeper and longer through having steam winding engines and steam pumps, so the South American mines could now be opened up and all that gold and silver would be there for the taking. To this day the City of London goes slightly mad every ten years or so and it’s very often at the prospect of unlimited mineral wealth. A hill made of gold in the outback of Australia can still get everyone very excited. In 1823 ‘a mania of speculation’, as Nicholas Wood called it, became centred on South America.

  There had been a similar stampede about ten years previously which everybody seems to have forgotten. In the excitement Richard Trevithick, that brilliant but impressionable engineer, had found himself with his bags and engines packed and on the way to Peru. He’d hardly been heard of since. It transpired later that he’d got caught up in Simon Bolivar’s revolution against the Spanish dictators, and other adventures, but at the time no one had yet heard whether he’d made his fortune or not, or even if he were still alive.

  This time, said the speculators, things are different. We’re not going to Peru looking for Inca mines. We’re going much further north, to Mexico, where things are peaceful and this time, thanks to the wonderful developments of the last ten years, we really have got excellent engines, made by the very wonderful engineers in our Tyneside collieries.

  Thomas Richardson, in his wisdom, despite being a sobersided Quaker, was one of the City men getting together an expedition to Mexico. He turned naturally to George Stephenson, probably trying to get him to go out there, but George wasn’t so gullible. He had too much to do at home, what with the Stockton and Darlington and other railway ventures, but he agreed to give his considered advice on which sort of machines and equipment should be sent out.

  Young Robert was much more excited. He jumped at the idea of leading an exploratory mining expedition to Mexico. Michael Longridge, his partner in the newly founded locomotive works, where Robert was supposed to be managing partner, wasn’t at all pleased. Robert argued that it would just be for a short visit and Longridge could easily hold the fort while he was away. His father was even more against it,

  Let me beg of you not to say anything against my going out to America [so Robert wrote to his father]. I have already ordered so many instruments that it would make me look extremely foolish to call off. Even if I had not ordered any instruments, it seems as if we were all working one against one another. Only consider what an opening it is for me as an entry into business. I am informed by all who have been there that it is a very healthy country. I must close this letter, expressing my hope that you will not go against me this time.

  George doesn’t appear at this stage to have said yes or no but Robert nonetheless went ahead with his Mexican plans. In February 1824 he went down to Cornwall to look at likely men and machines to be taken to Mexico. He was accompanied on this trip by his Uncle Robert, George’s brother, who was also involved in the Mexican scheme.

  From Devon on 5 March Robert wrote to his father, keeping up his efforts to persuade him, slipping in extra reasons for going, working them in as subtly as possible.

  As far as I have proceeded on my journey to th
e Cornish mines, I have every reason to think it will not be misspent time; for when one is travelling about, something new generally presents itself, and though it is perhaps not superior to some schemes of our own for the same purpose, it seldom fails to open a new channel of ideas, which may not infrequently prove advantageous in the end. This I think is one of the chief benefits of leaving the fireside where the young imagination received its first impression.

  However, the Mexican trip was called off around late March 1824. There were problems with land concessions out in Mexico and it looks as if Robert himself decided it wasn’t such a good venture. But a month later, Robert accepts another South American venture which has suddenly come up, this time to Colombia. Once again, Thomas Richardson is one of the promoters. On this occasion there appears to be very little preparation. On an impulse, or so it would seem, Robert has decided that this time he is definitely going, whatever happens. And off he goes.

  Rolt’s theory about the motivation for this impulse rests on a very interesting letter, first discovered in 1930, which Robert Stephenson wrote to William James. The letter is dated 18 April 1824 – the very, time when the Mexican trip is called off. In this letter Robert says he has relinquished the Mexican trip and then, most surprisingly, asks James for employment. As Rolt says, young Robert is known to have enjoyed his work with James on the Liverpool–Manchester survey, and was a great admirer of James, but it seems very strange that he should now contemplate going to work with James instead of going back to the factory in Newcastle. He would appear not to want to go back to his father at any cost, but to be with William James.