This Week's Great Day

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, Issue 205, 13 August 1927, Page 4

This Week's Great Day

Memorable Events in the i higtorM of flic Empire.

By

Charles Conway

Death of George Stephenson (Copyrighted.)

QEVENTY-NINE YEARS AGO, on the 12th August, 1848, George Stephenson, the famous pioneer of steam locomotion, died at the age of 67.

He was born in 1781 at Wylam, in Northumberland, where his father worked as a colliery fireman, an occupation which gave him a weekly wage of twelve shillings, upon which pittance he had to maintain himself, his wife and six children, of whom George was the second son. None of the children had any education, for at an early age they were all compelled to earn money for the upkeep of their home, which consisted of one small room.

As a child George was employed as a cow-herd, and at the age of 14 he went in the colliery as assistant to his father at a wage of six shillings per week. Four years later he became a fully qualified fireman, and he was then able to spare from his wages each week the sum of three pence to pay for tuition at a night school. It was thus that he secured his first education and he made rapid progress, although much of his leisure, alter world ng for twelve hours a day in the colliery, was devoted to earning extra money by odd jobs, such as boot and clock repairing. His industry and study speedily gained him Letter-paid employment in other collieries, and he established a local reputation as an ingenious engineer. When he was 30 he invented a safety lamp for miners, which divided honours with the one produced simultaneously by Sir Humphrey Davy, and this brought him a large sum of money and considerable fame.

In 1813 he turned his attention to the problem of steam traction. During the early days of the 19th century steam locomotives had been constructed by Trevithick, Murdoch, and others, but none of them had proved entirely satisfactory, and Stephenson was the first to design

in 1822 he was appointed engineer ior the construction of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, and persuaded the promoters to try steam traction instead of horses for hauling the wagons. It was originally intended that this line should onlv be used for the conveyance of freight, but passengers were carried from the opening day, and it was the first public steam railroad in the world. Stephenson demonstrated the many advantages of the new method of travelling at the formal opening of line on the 27th September, 1920, when he drove the first engine over the road and hauled 34 wagons, a total weight of 90 tons, at a speed ranging from 10 to 15 miles per hour. ,

Shortly afterwards he became construction engineer of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, and he then succeeded in building the road-bed across a great stretch of bog-land known as Chat Moss, a feat which every other engineer in the country had declared to be an impossibility. It was for this railway that he built his famous engine—“The Rocket”— which embodied all the principles of the modern locomotive, and the changes effected during tne past century have been mainly a gradual increase in size and power with improvements in design, material and mechanical construction.

Shepheson was responsible for the building of several other railroads in Great Britain, and he lived to see a new era of prosperity and enterprise established throughout the civilised world as a direct result of the cheap and speedy means of transportation with which his name will ever be closely associated.

a travelling engine of real practical e ’t Hls 6arliesfc locomotive—‘MyT/"Fd —was built ip 1814 for the Killingworth Colliery, where it was used for hauling coal from the mine to a shipping port nine miles away,