Having left his little boy in good keeping, he set out upon his long journey to Scotland on foot, with his kit upon his back. While working at Montrose he gave a striking proof of that practical ability in contrivance for which he was afterwards so distinguished. It appears that the water required for the purposes of his engine, as well as for the use of the works, was pumped from a considerable depth, being supplied from the adjacent extensive sand strata. The pumps frequently got choked by the sand drawn in at the bottom of the well through the snore-holes, or apertures through which the water to be raised is admitted. The barrels soon became worn, and the bucket and clack leathers destroyed, so that it became necessary to devise a remedy; and with this object the engineman proceeded to adopt the following simple but original expedient. He had a wooden box or boot made, twelve feet high, which he placed in the sump or well, and into this he inserted the lower end of the pump. The result was, that the water flowed clear from the outer part of the well over into the boot, and being drawn up without any admixture of sand, the difficulty was thus conquered.[38]
Being paid good wages, Stephenson contrived, during the year he worked at Montrose, to save a sum of £28, which he took back with him to Killingworth. Longing to get back to his kindred, his heart yearning for the son whom he had left behind, our engineman took leave of his employers, and trudged back to Northumberland on foot as he had gone. While on his journey southward he arrived late one evening, footsore and wearied, at the door of a small farmer’s cottage, at which he knocked, and requested shelter for the night. It was refused, and then he entreatedthat, being tired, and unable to proceed further, the farmer would permit him to lie down in the outhouse, for that a little clean straw would serve him. The farmer’s wife appeared at the door, looked at the traveller, then retiring with her husband, the two confabulated a little apart, and finally they invited Stephenson into the cottage. Always full of conversation and anecdote, he soon made himself at home in the farmer’s family, and spent with them a few pleasant hours. He was hospitably entertained for the night, and when he left the cottage in the morning, he pressed them to make some charge for his lodging, but they refused to accept any recompense. They only asked him to remember them kindly, and if he ever came that way, to be sure and call again. Many years after, when Stephenson had become a thriving man, he did not forget the humble pair who had succoured and entertained him on his way; he sought their cottage again, when age had silvered their hair; and when he left the aged couple, they may have been reminded of the old saying that we may sometimes “entertain angels unawares.”
Reaching home, Stephenson found that his father had met with a serious accident at the Blucher Pit, which had reduced him to great distress and poverty. While engaged in the inside of an engine, making some repairs, a fellow-workman accidentally let in the steam upon him. The blast struck him full in the face; he was terribly scorched, and his eyesight was irretrievably lost. The helpless and infirm man had struggled for a time with poverty; his sons who were at home, poor as himself, were little able to help him, while George was at a distance in Scotland. On his return, however, with his savings in his pocket, his first step was to pay off his father’s debts, amounting to about £15; and shortly after he removed the aged pair from Jolly’s Close to a comfortable cottage adjoining the tramroad near the West Moor at Killingworth, where the old man lived for many years, supported entirely by his son.
Stephenson was again taken on as a brakesman at theWest Moor Pit. He does not seem to have been very hopeful as to his prospects in life about this time (1807–8). Indeed the condition of the working class generally was very discouraging. England was engaged in a great war, which pressed upon the industry, and severely tried the resources, of the country. There was a constant demand for men to fill the army. The working people were also liable to be pressed for the navy, or drawn for the militia; and though they could not fail to be discontented under such circumstances, they scarcely dared even to mutter their discontent to their neighbours.
Stephenson was drawn for the militia: he must therefore either quit his work and go a-soldiering, or find a substitute. He adopted the latter course, and borrowed £6, which, with the remainder of his savings, enabled him to provide a militiaman to serve in his stead. Thus the whole of his hard-won earnings were swept away at a stroke. He was almost in despair, and contemplated the idea of leaving the country, and emigrating to the United States. Although a voyage thither was then a much more formidable thing for a working man to accomplish than a voyage to Australia is now, he seriously entertained the project, and had all but made up his mind to go. His sister Ann, with her husband, emigrated about that time, but George could not raise the requisite money, and they departed without him. After all, it went sore against his heart to leave his home and his kindred, the scenes of his youth and the friends of his boyhood; and he struggled long with the idea, brooding over it in sorrow. Speaking afterwards to a friend of his thoughts at the time, he said: “You know the road from my house at the West Moor to Killingworth. I remember once when I went along that road I wept bitterly, for I knew not where my lot in life would be cast.”
In 1808, Stephenson, with two other brakesmen, took a small contract under the colliery lessees for brakeing the engines at the West Moor Pit. The brakesmen found theoil and tallow; they divided the work amongst them, and were paid so much per score for their labour. It was the interest of the brakesmen to economise the working as much as possible, and George no sooner entered upon the contract than he proceeded to devise ways and means of making it “pay.” He observed that the ropes which, at other pits in the neighbourhood, lasted about three months, at the West Moor Pit became worn out in about a month. He immediately set about ascertaining the cause of the defect; and finding it to be occasioned by excessive friction, he proceeded, with the sanction of the head engine-wright and the colliery owners, to shift the pulley-wheels and re-arrange the gearing, which had the effect of greatly diminishing the tear and wear, besides allowing the work of the colliery to proceed without interruption.
About the same time he attempted an improvement in the winding-engine which he worked, by placing a valve between the air-pump and condenser. This expedient, although it led to no practical result, showed that his mind was actively engaged in studying new mechanical adaptations. It continued to be his regular habit, on Saturdays, to take his engine to pieces, for the purpose, at the same time, of familiarising himself with its action, and of placing it in a state of thorough working order. By mastering its details, he was enabled, as opportunity occurred, to turn to practical account the knowledge he thus diligently and patiently acquired.
Such an opportunity was not long in presenting itself. In the year 1810, a new pit was sunk by the “Grand Allies” (the lessees of the mines) at the village of Killingworth, now known as the Killingworth High Pit. An atmospheric or Newcomen engine, made by Smeaton, was fixed there for the purpose of pumping out the water from the shaft; but somehow it failed to clear the pit. As one of the workmen has since described the circumstance—“She couldn’t keep her jack-head in water: all the enginemen in the neighbourhood were tried, as well as Crowtherof the Ouseburn, but they were clean bet.” The engine had been fruitlessly pumping for nearly twelve months, and began to be spoken of as a total failure. Stephenson had gone to look at it when in course of erection, and then observed to the over-man that he thought it was defective; he also gave it as his opinion that, if there were much water in the mine, the engine would never keep it under. Of course, as he was only a brakesman, his opinion was considered to be worth very little on such a point. He continued, however, to make frequent visits to the engine, to see “how she was getting on.” From the bank-head where he worked his brake he could see the chimney smoking at the High Pit; and as the men were passing to and from their work, he would call out and inquire “if they had gotten to the bottom yet?” And the reply was always to the same effect—the pumping made no progress, and the workmen were still “drowned out.”
One Saturday afternoon he went over to the High Pit to examine the engine more carefully than he had yet done. He had been turning the subject over thoughtfully in his mind; and seemed to have satisfied himself as to the cause of the failure. Kit Heppel, one of the sinkers, asked him, “Weel, George, what do you mak’ o’ her? Do you think you could do anything to improve her?” Said George, “I could alter her, man, and make her draw: in a week’s time I could send you to the bottom.”
Forthwith Heppel reported this conversation to Ralph Dodds, the head viewer, who, being now quite in despair, and hopeless of succeeding with the engine, determined to give George’s skill a trial. At the worst he could only fail, as the rest had done. In the evening, Dodds went in search of Stephenson, and met him on the road, dressed in his Sunday’s suit, on the way to “the preaching” in the Methodist Chapel, which he attended. “Well, George,” said Dodds, “they tell me that you think you can put the engine at the High Pit to rights.” “Yes, sir,” said George. “I think I could.” “If that’s the case, I’ll give you a fairtrial, and you must set to work immediately. We are clean drowned out, and cannot get a stop further. The engineers hereabouts are all bet; and if you really succeed in accomplishing what they cannot do, you may depend upon it I will make you a man for life.”
Stephenson began his operations early next morning. The only condition that he made, before setting to work, was that he should select his own workmen. There was, as he knew, a good deal of jealousy amongst the “regular” men that a colliery brakesman should pretend to know more about their engine than they themselves did, and attempt to remedy defects which the most skilled men of their craft, including the engineer of the colliery, had failed to do. But George made the condition asine quâ non. “The workmen,” said he, “must either be all Whigs or all Tories.” There was no help for it, so Dodds ordered the old hands to stand aside. The men grumbled, but gave way; and then George and his party went in.
The engine was taken entirely to pieces. The cistern containing the injection water was raised ten feet; the injection cock, being too small, was enlarged to nearly double its former size, and it was so arranged that it should be shut off quickly at the beginning of the stroke. These and other alterations were necessarily performed in a rough way, but, as the result proved, on true principles. Stephenson also, finding that the boiler would bear a greater pressure than five pounds to the inch, determined to work it at a pressure of ten pounds, though this was contrary to the directions of both Newcomen and Smeaton. The necessary alterations were made in about three days, and many persons came to see the engine start, including the men who had put her up. The pit being nearly full of water, she had little to do on starting, and, to use George’s words, “came bounce into the house.” Dodds exclaimed, “Why, she was better as she was; now, she will knock the house down.” After a short time, however, the engine got fairly to work, and by ten o’clock that night the water waslower in the pit than it had ever been before. It was kept pumping all Thursday, and by the Friday afternoon the pit was cleared of water, and the workmen were “sent to the bottom,” as Stephenson had promised. Thus the alterations effected in the pumping apparatus proved completely successful.
Dodds was particularly gratified with the manner in which the job had been done, and he made Stephenson a present of ten pounds, which, though very inadequate when compared with the value of the work performed, was accepted with gratitude. George was proud of the gift as the first marked recognition of his skill as a workman; and he used afterwards to say that it was the biggest sum of money he had up to that time earned in one lump. Ralph Dodds, however, did more than this. He released the brakesman from the handles of his engine at West Moot, and appointed him engineman at the High Pit, at good wages, during the time the pit was sinking,—the job lasting for about a year; and he also kept him in mind for further advancement.
Stephenson’s skill as an engine-doctor soon became noised abroad, and he was called upon to prescribe remedies for all the old, wheezy, and ineffective pumping-machines in the neighbourhood. In this capacity he soon left the “regular” men far behind, though they in their turn were very mach disposed to treat the Killingworth brakesman as no better than a quack. Nevertheless, his practice was really founded upon a close study of the principles of mechanics, and on an intimate practical acquaintance with the details of the pumping-engine.
Another of his smaller achievements in the same line is still told by the people of the district. At the corner of the road leading to Long Benton, there was a quarry from which a peculiar and scarce kind of ochre was taken. In the course of working it out, the water had collected in considerable quantities; and there being no means of draining it off, it accumulated to such an extent that the further working ofthe ochre was almost entirely stopped. Ordinary pumps were tried, and failed; and then a windmill was tried, and failed too. On this, George was asked what ought to be done to clear the quarry of the water. He said, “he would set up for them an engine little bigger than a kail-pot, that would clear them out in a week.” And he did so. A little engine was speedily erected, by means of which the quarry was pumped dry in the course of a few days. Thus his skill as a pump-doctor soon became the marvel of the district.
In elastic muscular vigour, Stephenson was now in his prime, and he still continued to be zealous in measuring his strength and agility with his fellow workmen. The competitive element in his nature was always strong; and his success in these feats of rivalry was certainly remarkable. Few, if any, could lift such weights, throw the hammer and putt the stone so far, or cover so great a space at a standing or running leap. One day, between the engine hour and the rope-rolling hour, Kit Heppel challenged him to leap from one high wall to another, with a deep gap between. To Heppel’s surprise and dismay, George took the standing leap, and cleared the eleven feet at a bound. Had his eye been less accurate, or his limbs less agile and sure, the feat must have cost him his life.
But so full of redundant muscular vigour was he, that leaping, putting, or throwing the hammer were not enough for him. He was also ambitious of riding on horseback, and, as he had not yet been promoted to an office enabling him to keep a horse of his own, he sometimes borrowed one of the gin-horses for a ride. On one of these occasions, he brought the animal back reeking; when Tommy Mitcheson, the bank horse-keeper, a rough-spoken fellow, exclaimed to him: “Set such fellows as you on horseback, and you’ll soon ride to the De’il.” But Tommy Mitcheson lived to tell the joke, and to confess that, after all, there had been a better issue to George’s horsemanship than that which he predicted.
Old Cree, the engine-wright at Killingworth High Pit, having been killed by an accident, George Stephenson was, in 1812, appointed engine-wright of the colliery at the salary of £100 a year. He was also allowed the use of a galloway to ride upon in his visits of inspection to the collieries leased by the “Grand Allies” in that neighbourhood. The “Grand Allies” were a company of gentlemen, consisting of Sir Thomas Liddell (afterwards Lord Ravensworth), the Earl of Strathmore, and Mr. Stuart Wortley (afterwards Lord Wharncliffe), the lessees of the Killingworth collieries. Having been informed of the merits of Stephenson, of his indefatigable industry, and the skill which he had displayed in the repairs of the pumping-engines, they readily acceded to Mr. Dodds’ recommendation that he should be appointed the colliery engine-wright; and, as we shall afterwards find, they continued to honour him by distinguished marks of their approval.
Killingworth High Pit
Glebe Farm House, Benton
George Stephenson had now been diligently employed for several years in the work of self-improvement, and he experienced the usual results in increasing mental strength, capability, and skill. Perhaps the secret of every man’s best success is to be found in the alacrity and industry with which he takes advantage of the opportunities which present themselves for well-doing. Our engineman was an eminent illustration of the importance of cultivating this habit of life. Every spare moment was laid under contribution by him, either for the purpose of adding to his earnings, or to his knowledge. He missed no opportunity of extending his observations, especially in his own department ofwork, ever aiming at improvement, and trying to turn all that he did know to useful practical account.
He continued his attempts to solve the mystery of Perpetual Motion, and contrived several model machines with the object of embodying his ideas in a practical working shape. He afterwards used to lament the time he had lost in these futile efforts, and said that if he had enjoyed the opportunity which most young men now have, of learning from books what previous experimenters had accomplished, he would have been spared much labour and mortification. Not being acquainted with what other mechanics had done, he groped his way in pursuit of some idea originated by his own independent thinking and observation; and, when he had brought it into some definite form, lo! he found that his supposed invention had long been known and recorded in scientific books. Often he thought he had hit upon discoveries, which he subsequently found were but old and exploded fallacies. Yet his very struggle to overcome the difficulties which lay in his way, was of itself an education of the best sort. By wrestling with them, he strengthened his judgment and sharpened his skill, stimulating and cultivating his inventiveness and mechanical ingenuity. Being very much in earnest, he was compelled to consider the subject of his special inquiry in all its relations; and thus he gradually acquired practical ability even through his very efforts after the impracticable.
Many of his evenings were now spent in the society of John Wigham, whose father occupied the Glebe Farm at Benton, close at hand. John was a fair penman and a sound arithmetician, and Stephenson sought his society chiefly for the purpose of improving himself in writing and “figures.” Under Andrew Robertson, he had never quite mastered the Rule of Three, and it was only when Wigham took him in hand that he made much progress in the higher branches of arithmetic. He generally took his slate with him to the Wighams’ cottage, when he had his sums set, that he might work them out while tending his engine onthe following day. When too busy to be able to call upon Wigham, he sent the slate to have the former sums corrected and new ones set. Sometimes also, at leisure moments, he was enabled to do a little “figuring” with chalk upon the sides of the coal-waggons. So much patient perseverance could not but eventually succeed; and by dint of practice and study, Stephenson was enabled to master successively the various rules of arithmetic.
John Wigham was of great use to his pupil in many ways. He was a good talker, fond of argument, an extensive reader as country reading went in those days, and a very suggestive thinker. Though his store of information might be comparatively small when measured with that of more highly-cultivated minds, much of it was entirely new to Stephenson, who regarded him as a very clever and ingenious person. Wigham taught him to draw plans and sections; though in this branch Stephenson proved so apt that he soon surpassed his master. A volume of ‘Ferguson’s Lectures on Mechanics,’ which fell into their hands, was a great treasure to both the students. One who remembers their evening occupations says he used to wonder what they meant by weighing the air and water in so odd a way. They were trying the specific gravities of objects; and the devices which they employed, the mechanical shifts to which they were put, were often of the rudest kind. In these evening entertainments, the mechanical contrivances were supplied by Stephenson, whilst Wigham found the scientific rationale. The opportunity thus afforded to the former of cultivating his mind by contact with one wiser than himself proved of great value, and in after-life Stephenson gratefully remembered the assistance which, when a humble workman, he had derived from John Wigham, the farmer’s son.
His leisure moments thus carefully improved, it will be inferred that Stephenson continued a sober man. Though his notions were never extreme on this point, he was systematically temperate. It appears that on the invitationof his master, he had, on one or two occasions, been induced to join him in a forenoon glass of ale in the public-house of the village. But one day, about noon, when Dodds had got him as far as the public-house door, on his invitation to “come in and take a glass o’ yel,” Stephenson made a dead stop, and said, firmly, “No, sir, you must excuse me; I have made a resolution to drink no more at this time of day.” And he went back. He desired to retain the character of a steady workman; and the instances of men about him who had made shipwreck of their character through intemperance, were then, as now, unhappily but too frequent.
But another consideration besides his own self-improvement had already begun to exercise an important influence on his life. This was the training and education of his son Robert, now growing up an active, intelligent boy, as full of fun and tricks as his father had been. When a little fellow, scarcely able to reach so high as to put a clock-head on when placed upon the table, his father would make him mount a chair for the purpose; and to “help father” was the proudest work which the boy then, and ever after, could take part in. When the little engine was set up at the Ochre Quarry to pump it dry, Robert was scarcely absent for an hour. He watched the machine very eagerly when it was set to work; and he was very much annoyed at the fire burning away the grates. The man who fired the engine was a sort of wag, and thinking to get a laugh at the boy, he said, “Those bars are getting varra bad, Robert; I think we main cut up some of that hard wood, and put it in instead.” “What would be the use of that, you fool?” said the boy quickly. “You would no sooner have put them in than they would be burnt out again!”
So soon as Robert was of proper age, his father sent him over to the road-side school at Long Benton, kept by Rutter, the parish clerk. But the education which Rutter could give was of a very limited kind, scarcely extending beyond the primer and pothooks. While working as a brakesman on the pit-head at Killingworth, the father had oftenbethought him of the obstructions he had himself encountered in life through his want of schooling; and he formed the noble determination that no labour, nor pains, nor self-denial on his part should be spared to furnish his son with the best education that it was in his power to bestow.
Rutter’s School House, Long Benton
It is true his earnings were comparatively small at that time. He was still maintaining his infirm parents; and the cost of living continued excessive. But he fell back upon his old expedient of working up his spare time in the evenings at home, or during the night shifts when it was his turn to tend the engine, in mending and making shoes, cleaning clocks and watches, making shoe-lasts for the shoe-makers of the neighbourhood, and cutting out the pitmen’s clothes for their wives; and we have been told that to thisday there are clothes worn at Killingworth made after “Geordy Steevie’s cut.” To give his own words:—“In the earlier period of my career,” said he, “when Robert was a little boy, I saw how deficient I was in education, and I made up my mind that he should not labour under the same defect, but that I would put him to a good school, and give him a liberal training. I was, however, a poor man; and how do you think I managed? I betook myself to mending my neighbours’ clocks and watches at nights, after my daily labour was done, and thus I procured the means of educating my son.”[52]
Carrying out the resolution as to his boy’s education, Robert was sent to Mr. Bruce’s school in Percy Street, Newcastle, at Midsummer, 1815, when he was about twelve years old. His father bought for him a donkey, on which he rode into Newcastle and back daily; and there are many still living who remember the little boy, dressed in his suit of homely grey stuff, cut out by his father, cantering along to school upon the “cuddy,” with his wallet of provisions for the day and his bag of books slung over his shoulder.
When Robert went to Mr. Bruce’s school, he was a shy, unpolished country lad, speaking the broad dialect of the pitmen; and the other boys would occasionally tease him, for the purpose of provoking an outburst of his Killingworth Doric. As the shyness got rubbed off, his love of fun began to show itself, and he was found able enough to hold his own amongst the other boys. As a scholar he was steady and diligent, and his master was accustomed to hold him up to the laggards of the school as an example of good conduct and industry. But his progress, though satisfactory, was by no means extraordinary. He used in after-life to pride himself on his achievements in mensuration, though another boy, John Taylor, beat him at arithmetic. He also madeconsiderable progress in mathematics; and in a letter written to the son of his teacher, many years after, he said, “It was to Mr. Bruce’s tuition and methods of modelling the mind that I attribute much of my success as an engineer; for it was from him that I derived my taste for mathematical pursuits and the facility I possess of applying this kind of knowledge to practical purposes and modifying it according to circumstances.”
Bruce’s School, Newcastle
During the time Robert attended school at Newcastle, his father made the boy’s education instrumental to his own. Robert was accustomed to spend some of his spare time at the rooms of the Literary and Philosophical Institute; and when he went home in the evening, he would recount to his father the results of his reading. Sometimeshe was allowed to take with him to Killingworth a volume of the ‘Repertory of Arts and Sciences,’ which father and son studied together. But many of the most valuable works belonging to the Newcastle Library were not lent out; these Robert was instructed to read and study, and bring away with him descriptions and sketches for his father’s information. His father also practised him in reading plans and drawings without reference to the written descriptions. He used to observe that “A good plan should always explain itself;” and, placing a drawing of an engine or machine before the youth, would say, “There, now, describe that to me—the arrangement and the action.” Thus he taught him to read a drawing as easily as he would read a page of a book. Both father and son profited by this excellent practice, which enabled them to apprehend with the greatest facility the details of even the most difficult and complicated mechanical drawing.
While Robert went on with his lessons in the evenings, his father was usually occupied with his watch and clock cleaning; or in contriving models of pumping-engines; or endeavouring to embody in a tangible shape the mechanical inventions which he found described in the odd volumes on Mechanics which fell in his way. This daily and unceasing example of industry and application, in the person of a loving and beloved father, imprinted itself deeply upon the boy’s heart in characters never to be effaced. A spirit of self-improvement was thus early and carefully planted and fostered in Robert’s mind, which continued to influence him through life; and to the close of his career, he was proud to confess that if his professional success had been great, it was mainly to the example and training of his father that he owed it.
Robert was not, however, exclusively devoted to study, but, like most boys full of animal spirits, he was very fond of fun and play, and sometimes of mischief. Dr. Bruce relates that an old Killingworth labourer, when asked by Robert, on one of his last visits to Newcastle, if heremembered him, replied with emotion, “Ay, indeed! Haven’t I paid your head many a time when you came with your father’s bait, for you were always a sad hempy?”
The author had the pleasure, in the year 1854, of accompanying Robert Stephenson on a visit to his old home and haunts at Killingworth. He had so often travelled the road upon his donkey to and from school, that every foot of it was familiar to him; and each turn in it served to recall to mind some incident of his boyish days. His eyes glistened when he came in sight of Killingworth pit-head. Pointing to a humble red-tiled house by the road-side at Benton, he said, “You see that house—that was Rutter’s, where I learnt my A B C, and made a beginning of my school learning. And there,” pointing to a colliery chimney on the left, “there is Long Benton, where my father put up his first pumping-engine; and a great success it was. And this humble clay-floored cottage you see here, is where my grandfather lived till the close of his life. Many a time have I ridden straight into the house, mounted on my cuddy, and called upon grandfather to admire his points. I remember the old man feeling the animal all over—he was then quite blind—after which he would dilate upon the shape of his ears, fetlocks, and quarters, and usually end by pronouncing him to be a ‘real blood.’ I was a great favourite with the old man, who continued very fond of animals, and cheerful to the last; and I believe nothing gave him greater pleasure than a visit from me and my cuddy.”
On the way from Benton to High Killingworth, Mr. Stephenson pointed to a corner of the road where he had once played a boyish trick upon a Killingworth collier. “Straker,” said he, “was a great bully, a coarse, swearing fellow, and a perfect tyrant amongst the women and children. He would go tearing into old Nanny the huxter’s shop in the village, and demand in a savage voice, ‘What’s ye’r best ham the pund?’ ‘What’s floor the hunder?’ ‘What d’ye ax for prime bacon?’—his questionsoften ending with the miserable order, accompanied with a tremendous oath, of ‘Gie’s a penny rrow (roll) an’ a baubee herrin!’ The poor woman was usually set ‘all of a shake’ by a visit from this fellow. He was also a great boaster, and used to crow over the robbers whom he had put to flight; mere men in buckram, as everybody knew. We boys,” he continued, “believed him to be a great coward, and determined to play him a trick. Two other boys joined me in waylaying Straker one night at that corner,” pointing to it. “We sprang out and called upon him, in as gruff voices as we could assume, to ‘stand and deliver!’ He dropped down upon his knees in the dirt, declaring he was a poor man, with a sma’ family, asking for ‘mercy,’ and imploring us, as ‘gentlemen, for God’s sake, t’ let him a-be!’ We couldn’t stand this any longer, and set up a shout of laughter. Recognizing our boys’ voices, he sprang to his feet and rattled out a volley of oaths; on which we cut through the hedge, and heard him shortly after swearing his way along the road to the yel-house.”
On another occasion, Robert played a series of tricks of a somewhat different character. Like his father, he was very fond of reducing his scientific reading to practice; and after studying Franklin’s description of the lightning experiment, he proceeded to expend his store of Saturday pennies in purchasing about half a mile of copper wire at a brazier’s shop in Newcastle. Having prepared his kite, he sent it up in the field opposite his father’s door, and bringing the wire, insulated by means of a few feet of silk cord, over the backs of some of Farmer Wigham’s cows, he soon had them skipping about the field in all directions with their tails up. One day he had his kite flying at the cottage-door as his father’s galloway was hanging by the bridle to the paling, waiting for the master to mount. Bringing the end of the wire just over the pony’s crupper, so smart an electric shock was given it, that the brute was almost knocked down. At this juncture the father issued from the door, riding-whip in hand, and was witness to the scientific trick just played off upon his galloway. “Ah! you mischievous scoondrel!” cried he to the boy, who ran off. He inwardly chuckled with pride, nevertheless, at Robert’s successful experiment.[57]
Stephenson’s Cottage, West Moor
At this time, and for many years after, Stephenson dwelt in a cottage standing by the side of the road leading from the West Moor colliery to Killingworth. The railway from the West Moor Pit crosses this road close by the east end of the cottage. The dwelling originally consisted of but one apartment on the ground-floor, with the garretover-head, to which access was obtained by means of a step-ladder. But with his own hands Stephenson built an oven, and in the course of time he added rooms to the cottage, until it became a comfortable four-roomed dwelling, in which he lived as long as he remained at Killingworth.
He continued as fond of birds and animals as ever, and seemed to have the power of attaching them to him in a remarkable degree. He had a blackbird at Killingworth so fond of him that it would fly about the cottage, and on holding out his finger, would come and perch upon it. A cage was built for “blackie” in the partition between the passage and the room, a square of glass forming its outer wall; and Robert used afterwards to take pleasure in describing the oddity of the bird, imitating the manner in which it would cock its head on his father’s entering the house, and follow him with its eye into the inner apartment.
Neighbours were accustomed to call at the cottage and have their clocks and watches set to rights when they went wrong. One day, after looking at the works of a watch left by a pitman’s wife, George handed it to his son; “Put her in the oven, Robert,” said he, “for a quarter of an hour or so.” It seemed an odd way of repairing a watch; nevertheless, the watch was put into the oven, and at the end of the appointed time it was taken out, going all right. The wheels had merely got clogged by the oil congealed by the cold; which at once explains the rationale of the remedy adopted.
There was a little garden attached to the cottage, in which, while a workman, Stephenson took a pride in growing gigantic leeks and astounding cabbages. There was great competition amongst the villagers in the growth of vegetables, all of whom he excelled, excepting one of his neighbours, whose cabbages sometimes outshone his. In the protection of his garden-crops from the ravages of the birds, he invented a strange sort of “fley-craw,” which moved its arms with the wind; and he fastened hisgarden-door by means of a piece of ingenious mechanism, so that no one but himself could enter it. His cottage was quite a curiosity-shop of models of engines, self-acting planes, and perpetual-motion machines. The last-named contrivances, however, were only unsuccessful attempts to solve a problem which had effectually baffled hundreds of preceding inventors. His odd and eccentric contrivances often excited great wonder amongst the Killingworth villagers. He won the women’s admiration by connecting their cradles with the smoke-jack, and making them self-acting. Then he astonished the pitmen by attaching an alarum to the clock of the watchman whose duty it was to call them betimes in the morning. He also contrived a wonderful lamp which burned under water, with which he was afterwards wont to amuse the Brandling family at Gosforth,—going into the fish-pond at night, lamp in hand, attracting and catching the fish, which rushed wildly towards the flame.
Dr. Bruce tells of a competition which Stephenson had with the joiner at Killingworth, as to which of them could make the best shoe-last; and when the former had done his work, either for the humour of the thing, or to secure fair play from the appointed judge, he took it to the Morrisons in Newcastle, and got them to put their stamp upon it. So that it is possible the Killingworth brakesman, afterwards the inventor of the safety lamp and the originator of the railway system, and John Morrison, the last-maker, afterwards the translator of the Scriptures into the Chinese language, may have confronted each other in solemn contemplation over the successful last, which won the verdict coveted by its maker.
Sometimes he would endeavour to impart to his fellow-workmen the results of his scientific reading. Everything that he learnt from books was so new and so wonderful to him, that he regarded the facts he drew from them in the light of discoveries, as if they had been made but yesterday. Once he tried to explain to some of the pitmen how the earth was round, and kept turning round. But his auditorsflatly declared the thing to be impossible, as it was clear that “at the bottom side they must fall off!” “Ah!” said George, “you don’t quite understand it yet.” His son Robert also early endeavoured to communicate to others the information which he had gathered at school; and Dr. Bruce has related that, when visiting Killingworth on one occasion, he found him engaged in teaching algebra to such of the pitmen’s boys as would become his pupils.
The Sundial
While Robert was still at school, his father proposed to him during the holidays that he should construct a sun-dial, to be placed over their cottage-door at West Moor. “I expostulated with him at first,” said Robert, “that I had not learnt sufficient astronomy and mathematics to enable me to make the necessary calculations. But he would have no denial. ‘The thing is to be done,’ said he; ‘so just set about it at once.’ Well; we got a ‘Ferguson’s Astronomy,’ and studied the subject together. Many a sore head I had while making the necessary calculations to adapt the dial to the latitude of Killingworth. But at length it was fairly drawn out on paper, and then my father got a stone, and we hewed, and carved, and polished it, until we made a very respectable dial of it; and there it is, you see,” pointing to it over the cottage-door, “still quietly numbering the hours when the sun is shining. I assure you, not a little was thought of that piece of work by the pitmen when it was put up, and began to tell its tale of time.” The date carved upon the dial is “August 11th, MDCCCXVI.” Bothfather and son were in after-life very proud of the joint production. Many years after, George took a party of savans, when attending the meeting of the British Association at Newcastle, over to Killingworth to see the pits, and he did not fail to direct their attention to the sun-dial; and Robert, on the last visit which he made to the place, a short time before his death, took a friend into the cottage, and pointed out to him the very desk, still there, at which he had sat while making his calculations of the latitude of Killingworth.
From the time of his appointment as engineer at the Killingworth Pit, George Stephenson was in a measure relieved from the daily routine of manual labour, having, as we have seen, advanced himself to the grade of a higher class workman. But he had not ceased to be a worker, though he employed his industry in a different way. It might, indeed, be inferred that he had now the command of greater leisure; but his spare hours were as much as ever given to work, either necessary or self-imposed. So far as regarded his social position, he had already reached the summit of his ambition; and when he had got his hundred a year, and his dun galloway to ride on, he said he never wanted to be any higher. When Robert Whetherly offered to give him an old gig, his travelling having so much increased of late, he accepted it with great reluctance, observing, that he should be ashamed to get into it, “people would think him so proud.”
When the High Pit had been sunk, and the coal was ready for working, Stephenson erected his first winding-engine to draw the coals out of the pit, and also a pumping-engine for Long Benton Colliery, both of which proved quite successful. Amongst other works of this time, he projected and laid down a self-acting incline along the declivity which fell towards the coal-loading place near Willington, where he had officiated as brakesman; and he so arranged it, that the full waggons descending drew the empty waggons up the railroad. This was one of the first self-acting inclines laid down in the district.
Stephenson had now much better opportunities than hitherto for improving himself in mechanics. His familiar acquaintance with the steam-engine proved of great value to him. His shrewd insight, and his intimate practical acquaintance with its mechanism, enabled him to apprehend, as if by intuition, its most abstruse and difficult combinations. The practical study which he had given to it when a workman, and the patient manner in which he had groped his way through all the details of the machine, gave him the power of a master in dealing with it as applied to colliery purposes.
Sir Thomas Liddell was frequently about the works, and took pleasure in giving every encouragement to the engine-wright in his efforts after improvement. The subject of the locomotive engine was already closely occupying Stephenson’s attention; although it was still regarded as a curious and costly toy, of comparatively little real use. But he had at an early period detected its practical value, and formed an adequate conception of the might which as yet slumbered within it; and he now bent his entire faculties to the development of its extraordinary powers.
Colliers’ Cottages at Long Benton
The rapid increase in the coal-trade of the Tyne about the beginning of the present century had the effect of stimulating the ingenuity of mechanics, and encouraging them to devise improved methods of transporting the coal from the pits to the shipping places. From our introductory chapter, it will have been observed that the improvements which had thus far been effected were confined almost entirely to the road. The railway waggons still continued to be drawn by horses. By improving and flattening the tramway, considerable economy in horse-power had indeed been secured; but unless some more effective method of mechanical traction could be devised, it was clear that railway improvement had almost reached its limits.
Many expedients had been tried with this object. One of the earliest was that of hoisting sails upon the waggons, and driving them along the waggon-way, as a ship is driven through the water by the wind. This method seems to have been employed by Sir Humphrey Mackworth, an ingenious coal-miner at Neath in Glamorganshire, about the end of the seventeenth century.
After having been lost sight of for more than a century, the same plan of impelling carriages was revived by Richard Lovell Edgworth, with the addition of a portable railway, since revived also, in Boydell’s patent. But although Mr. Edgworth devoted himself to the subject for many years, he failed in securing the adoption of his sailing carriage. It is indeed quite clear that a power so uncertain as wind could never be relied on for ordinary traffic, andMr. Edgworth’s project was consequently left to repose in the limbo of the Patent Office, with thousands of other equally useless though ingenious contrivances.
A much more favourite scheme was the application of steam power for the purpose of carriage traction. Savery, the inventor of the working steam-engine, was the first to propose its employment to propel vehicles along the common roads; and in 1759 Dr. Robison, then a young man studying at Glasgow College, threw out the same idea to his friend James Watt; but the scheme was not matured.
Cugnot’s Engine
The first locomotive steam-carriage was built at Paris by the French engineer Cugnot, a native of Lorraine. It is said to have been invented for the purpose of dragging cannon into the field independent of horses. The original model of this machine was made in 1763. Count Saxe was so much pleased with it, that on his recommendation a full-sized engine was constructed at the cost of the French monarch; and in 1769 it was tried in the presence of the Duc de Choiseul, Minister of War, General Gribeauval, and other officers. At one of the experiments it ran with such force as to knock down a wall in its way. But the new vehicle, loaded with four persons, could not travel faster than two and a half miles an hour. The boiler was insufficient in size, and it could only work for about fifteen minutes; after which it was necessary to wait until the steam had again risen to a sufficient pressure. To remedy this defect, Cugnot constructed a new machine in 1770,the working of which was more satisfactory. It was composed of two parts—the fore part consisting of a small steam-engine, formed of a round copper boiler, with a furnace inside, provided with two small chimneys and two single-acting brass steam cylinders, whose pistons acted alternately upon the single driving-wheel. The hinder part consisted merely of a rude carriage on two wheels to carry the load, furnished with a seat in front for the conductor. This engine was tried in the streets of Paris; but when passing near where the Madeleine now stands, it overbalanced itself on turning a corner, and fell over with a crash; after which, its employment being thought dangerous, it was locked up in the arsenal to prevent further mischief. The machine is, however, still to be seen in the collection of the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers at Paris. It has very much the look of a long brewer’s cart, with the addition of the circular boiler hung on at one end. Rough though it looks, it was a highly creditable piece of work, considering the period at which it was executed; and as the first actual machine constructed for the purpose of travelling on ordinary roads by the power of steam, it is certainly a most curious and interesting mechanical relic, well worthy of preservation.
But though Cugnot’s road locomotive remained locked up from public sight, the subject was not dead; for we find inventors employing themselves from time to time in attempting to solve the problem of steam locomotion in places far remote from Paris. The idea had taken root in the minds of inventors, and was striving to grow into a reality. Thus Oliver Evans, the American, invented a steam carriage in 1772 to travel on common roads; in 1787 he obtained from the State of Maryland an exclusive right to make and use steam-carriages, but his invention never came into use. Then, in 1784, William Symington, one of the early inventors of the steamboat, was similarly occupied in Scotland in endeavouring to develop the latent powers of the steam-carriage. He had a working model of oneconstructed, which he exhibited in 1786 to the professors of Edinburgh College; but the state of the Scotch roads was then so bad that he found it impracticable to proceed further with his scheme, which he shortly after abandoned in favour of steam navigation.
Section of Murdock’s Model
The same year in which Symington was occupied upon his steam-carriage, William Murdock, the friend and assistant of Watt, constructed his model of a locomotive at the opposite end of the island—at Redruth in Cornwall. His model was of small dimensions, standing little more than a foot high; and it was until recently in the possession of the son of the inventor, at whose house we saw it a few years ago. The annexed section will give an idea of the arrangements of this machine.
It acted on the high-pressure principle, and, like Cugnot’s engine, ran upon three wheels, the boiler being heated by a spirit-lamp. Small though the machine was, it went so fast on one occasion that it fairly outran its inventor. It seems that one night after returning from his duties at the Redruth mine, Murdock determined to try the working of his model locomotive. For this purpose he had recourse to the walk leading to the church, about a mile from the town. It was rather narrow, and was bounded on each side by high hedges. The night was dark, and Murdock set out alone to try his experiment. Having lit his lamp, the water boiled speedily, and off started the engine with the inventor after it. He soon heard distant shouts of terror. It was too dark to perceive objects; but he found, on following up the machine, that the cries proceeded from the worthy pastor of the parish, who, going towards the town, was met on this lonely road by the hissing and fiery littlemonster, which he subsequently declared he had taken to be the Evil Onein propriá personâ. No further steps were, however, taken by Murdock to embody his idea of a locomotive carriage in a more practical form.
The idea was next taken up by Murdock’s pupil, Richard Trevithick, who resolved on building a steam-carriage adapted for common roads as well as railways. He took out a patent to secure the right of his invention in 1802. Andrew Vivian, his cousin, joined with him in the patent—Vivian finding the money, and Trevithick the brains. The steam-carriage built on this patent presented the appearance of an ordinary stage-coach on four wheels. The engine had one horizontal cylinder, which, together with the boiler and the furnace-box, was placed in the rear of the hind axle. The motion of the piston was transmitted to a separate crank-axle, from which, through the medium of spur-gear, the axle of the driving-wheel (which was mounted with a fly-wheel) derived its motion. The steam-cocks and the force-pump, as also the bellows used for the purpose of quickening combustion in the furnace, were worked off the same crank-axle.
John Petherick, of Camborne, has related that he remembers this first English steam-coach passing along the principal street of his native town. Considerable difficulty was experienced in keeping up the pressure of steam; but when there was pressure enough, Trevithick would call upon the people to “jump up,” so as to create a load upon the engine. It was soon covered with men attracted by the novelty, nor did their number seem to make any difference in the speed of the engine so long as there was steam enough; but it was constantly running short, and the horizontal bellows failed to keep it up.
This road-locomotive of Trevithick’s was one of the first high-pressure working engines constructed on the principle of moving a piston by the elasticity of steam against the pressure only of the atmosphere. Such an engine had been described by Leopold, though in his apparatus it wasproposed that the pressure should act only on one side of the piston. In Trevithick’s engine the piston was not only raised, but was also depressed by the action of the steam, being in this respect an entirely original invention, and of great merit. The steam was admitted from the boiler under the piston moving in a cylinder, impelling it upward. When the motion had reached its limit, the communication between the piston and the under side was shut off, and the steam allowed to escape into the atmosphere. A passage being then opened between the boiler and the upper side of the piston, which was pressed downwards, the steam was again allowed to escape as before. Thus the power of the engine was equal to the difference between the pressure of the atmosphere and the elasticity of the steam in the boiler.
This steam-carriage excited considerable interest in the remote district near the Land’s End where it had been erected. Being so far removed from the great movements and enterprise of the commercial world, Trevithick and Vivian determined upon exhibiting their machine in the metropolis. They accordingly set out with it to Plymouth, whence it was conveyed by sea to London.
The carriage safely reached the metropolis, and excited much public interest. It also attracted the notice of scientific men, amongst others of Mr. Davies Gilbert, President of the Royal Society, and Sir Humphry Davy, both Cornishmen like Trevithick, who went to see the private performances of the engine, and were greatly pleased with it. Writing to a Cornish friend shortly after its arrival in town, Sir Humphry said: “I shall soon hope to hear that the roads of England are the haunts of Captain Trevithick’s dragons—a characteristic name.” The machine was afterwards publicly exhibited in an enclosed piece of ground near Euston Square, where the London and North-Western Station now stands, and it dragged behind it a wheel-carriage full of passengers. On the second day of the performance, crowds flocked to see it; but Trevithick,in one of his odd freaks, shut up the place, and shortly after removed the engine. It is, however, probable that the inventor came to the conclusion that the state of the roads at that time was such as to preclude its coming into general use for purposes of ordinary traffic.
While the steam-carriage was being exhibited, a gentleman was laying heavy wagers as to the weight which could be hauled by a single horse on the Wandsworth and Croydon iron tramway; and the number and weight of waggons drawn by the horse were something surprising. Trevithick very probably put the two things together—the steam-horse and the iron-way—and kept the performance in mind when he proceeded to construct his second or railway locomotive. The idea was not, however, entirely new to him; for, although his first engine had been constructed with a view to its employment upon common roads, the specification of his patent distinctly alludes to the application of his engine to travelling on railroads. Having been employed at the iron-works of Pen-y-darran, in South Wales, to erect a forge engine for the Company, a convenient opportunity presented itself, on the completion of this work, for carrying out his design of a locomotive to haul the minerals along the Pen-y-darran tramway. Such an engine was erected by him in 1803, in the blacksmiths’ shop at the Company’s works, and it was finished and ready for trial before the end of the year.
The boiler of this second engine was cylindrical in form, flat at the ends, and made of wrought iron. The furnace and flue were inside the boiler, within which the single cylinder, eight inches in diameter and four feet six inches stroke, was placed horizontally. As in the first engine, the motion of the wheels was produced by spur gear, to which was also added a fly-wheel on one side, to secure a rotatory motion in the crank at the end of each stroke of the piston in the single cylinder. The waste steam was thrown into the chimney through a tube inserted into it at right angles; but it will be obvious that this arrangement was not calculatedto produce any result in the way of a steam-blast in the chimney. In fact, the waste steam seems to have been turned into the chimney in order to get rid of the nuisance caused by throwing the jet directly into the air. Trevithick was here hovering on the verge of a great discovery; but that he was not aware of the action of the blast in contributing to increase the draught and thus quicken combustion, is clear from the fact that he employed bellows for this special purpose; and at a much later date (1815) he took out a patent which included a method of urging the fire by means of fanners.[70]
Trevithick’s High Pressure Tram-Engine
At the first trial of this engine it succeeded in dragging after it several waggons, containing ten tons of bar-iron, at the rate of about five miles an hour. Rees Jones, who worked at the fitting of the engine, and remembers its performances, says, “She was used for bringing down metal from the furnaces to the Old Forge. She worked very well; but frequently, from her weight, broke the tram-plates and the hooks between the trams. After working for some time in this way, she took a load of iron from Pen-y-darran down the Basin-road, upon which road she was intended to work. On the journey she broke a great many of the tram-plates, and before reaching the basin ran off the road, and had to be brought back to Pen-y-darran by horses. The engine was never after used as a locomotive.”[71]
It seems to have been felt that unless the road were entirely reconstructed so as to bear the heavy weight of the locomotive—so much greater than that of the tram-waggons, to carry which the original rails had been laid down—the regular employment of Trevithick’s high-pressure tram-engine was altogether impracticable; and as the owners of the works were not prepared to incur so serious a cost, it was determined to take the locomotive off the road, and employ it as an engine for other purposes. It was accordingly dismounted, and used for some time after as a pumping-engine, for which purpose it was found well adapted. Trevithick himself seems from this time to have taken no further steps to bring the locomotive into general use. We find him, shortly after, engaged upon schemes of a more promising character, abandoning the engine to othermechanical inventors, though little improvement was made in it for several years. An imaginary difficulty seems to have tended, amongst other obstacles, to prevent its adoption; viz., the idea that, if a heavy weight were placed behind the engine, the “grip” or “bite” of its smooth wheels upon the equally smooth iron rail, must necessarily be so slight that they would whirl round upon it, and, consequently, that the machine would not make progress. Hence Trevithick, in his patent, provided that the periphery of the driving-wheels should be made rough by the projection of bolts or cross-grooves, so that the adhesion of the wheels to the road might be secured.
Following up the presumed necessity for a more effectual adhesion between the wheels and the rails, Mr. Blenkinsop of Leeds, in 1811, took out a patent for a racked or tooth-rail laid along one side of the road, into which the toothed-wheel of his locomotive worked as pinions work into a rack. The boiler of his engine was supported by a carriage with four wheels without teeth, and rested immediately upon the axles. These wheels were entirely independent of the working parts of the engine, and therefore merely supported its weight upon the rails, the progress being effected by means of the cogged-wheel working into the cogged-rail. The engine had two cylinders, instead of one as in Trevithick’s engine. The invention of the double cylinder was due to Matthew Murray, of Leeds, one of the best mechanical engineers of his time; Mr. Blenkinsop, who was not a mechanic, having consulted him as to all the practical arrangements. The connecting-rods gave the motion to two pinions by cranks at right angles to each other; these pinions communicating the motion to the wheel which worked into the cogged-rail.
Mr. Blenkinsop’s engines began running on the railway from the Middleton Collieries to Leeds, about 3½ miles, on the 12th of August, 1812. They continued for many years to be one of the principal curiosities of the place, and were visited by strangers from all parts. In 1816, theGrand Duke Nicholas (afterwards Emperor) of Russia observed the working of Blenkinsop’s locomotive with curious interest and admiration. An engine dragged as many as thirty coal-waggons at a speed of about 3¼ miles per hour. These engines continued for many years to be thus employed in the haulage of coal, and furnished the first instance of the regular employment of locomotive power for commercial purposes.
The Messrs. Chapman, of Newcastle, in 1812, endeavoured to overcome the same fictitious difficulty of the want of adhesion between the wheel and the rail, by patenting a locomotive to work along the road by means of a chain stretched from one end of it to the other. This chain was passed once round a grooved barrel-wheel under the centre of the engine: so that, when the wheel turned, the locomotive, as it were, dragged itself along the railway. An engine, constructed after this plan, was tried on the Heaton Railway, near Newcastle; but it was so clumsy in its action, there was so great a loss of power by friction, and it was found to be so expensive and difficult to keep in repair, that it was soon abandoned. Another remarkable expedient was adopted by Mr. Brunton, of the Butterley Works, Derbyshire, who, in 1813, patented his Mechanical Traveller, to goupon legsworking alternately like those of a horse.[73]But this engine never got beyond the experimental state, for, at its very first trial, the driver, to make sure of a good start, overloaded the safety-valve, when the boiler burst and killed a number of the bystanders, wounding many more. These, and other contrivances with the same object, projected about the same time, show that invention was actively at work, and that many minds were anxiouslylabouring to solve the important problem of locomotive traction upon railways.
But the difficulties contended with by these early inventors, and the step-by-step progress which they made, will probably be best illustrated by the experiments conducted by Mr. Blackett, of Wylam, which are all the more worthy of notice, as the persevering efforts of this gentleman in a great measure paved the way for the labours of George Stephenson, who, shortly after, took up the question of steam locomotion, and brought it to a successful issue.
The Wylam waggon-way is one of the oldest in the north of England. Down to the year 1807 it was formed of wooden spars or rails, laid down between the colliery at Wylam—where old Robert Stephenson had worked—and the village of Lemington, some four miles down the Tyne, where the coals were loaded into keels or barges, and floated down past Newcastle, to be shipped for London. Each chaldron-waggon had a man in charge of it, and was originally drawn by one horse. The rate at which the waggons were hauled was so slow that only two journeys were performed by each man and horse in one day, and three on the day following. This primitive waggon-way passed, as before stated, close in front of the cottage in which George Stephenson was born; and one of the earliest sights which met his infant eyes was this wooden tramroad worked by horses.
Mr. Blackett was the first colliery owner in the North who took an active interest in the locomotive. Having formed the acquaintance of Trevithick in London, and inspected the performances of his engine, he determined to repeat the Pen-y-darran experiment upon the Wylam waggon-way. He accordingly obtained from Trevithick, in October, 1804, a plan of his engine, provided with “friction-wheels,” and employed Mr. John Whinfield, of Pipewellgate, Gateshead, to construct it at his foundry there. The engine was constructed under the superintendence of one John Steele, an ingenious mechanic who had been inWales, and worked under Trevithick in fitting the engine at Pen-y-darran. When the Gateshead locomotive was finished, a temporary way was laid down in the works, on which it was run backwards and forwards many times. For some reason, however—it is said because the engine was deemed too light for drawing the coal-trains—it never left the works, but was dismounted from the wheels, and set to blow the cupola of the foundry, in which service it long continued to be employed.
Several years elapsed before Mr. Blackett took any further steps to carry out his idea. The final abandonment of Trevithick’s locomotive at Pen-y-darran perhaps contributed to deter him from proceeding further; but he had the wooden tramway taken up in 1808, and a plate-way of cast-iron laid down instead—a single line furnished with sidings to enable the laden waggons to pass the empty ones. The new iron road proved so much smoother than the old wooden one, that a single horse, instead of drawing one, was now enabled to draw two, or even three, laden waggons.
Encouraged by the success of Mr. Blenkinsop’s experiment at Leeds, Mr. Blackett determined to follow his example; and in 1812 he ordered a second engine, to work with a toothed driving-wheel upon a rack-rail. This locomotive was constructed by Thomas Waters, of Gateshead, under the superintendence of Jonathan Foster, Mr. Blackett’s principal engine-wright. It was a combination of Trevithick’s and Blenkinsop’s engines; but it was of a more awkward construction than either. The boiler was of cast-iron. The engine was provided with a single cylinder six inches in diameter, with a fly-wheel working at one side to carry the crank over the dead points. Jonathan Foster described it to the author in 1854, as “a strange machine, with lots of pumps, cog-wheels, and plugs, requiring constant attention while at work.” The weight of the whole was about six tons.
When finished, it was conveyed to Wylam on a waggon,and there mounted upon a wooden frame supported by four pairs of wheels, which had been constructed for its reception. A barrel of water, placed on another frame upon wheels, was attached to it as a tender. After a great deal of labour, the cumbrous machine was got upon the road. At first it would not move an inch. Its maker, Tommy Waters, became impatient, and at length enraged, and taking hold of the lever of the safety valve, declared in his desperation, that “eithersheorheshould go.” At length the machinery was set in motion, on which, as Jonathan Foster described to the author “she flew all to pieces, and it was the biggest wonder i’ the world that we were not all blewn up.” The incompetent and useless engine was declared to be a failure; it was shortly after dismounted and sold; and Mr. Blackett’s praiseworthy efforts thus far proved in vain.
He was still, however, desirous of testing the practicability of employing locomotive power in working the coal down to Lemington, and he determined on another trial. He accordingly directed his engine-wright to proceed with the building of a third engine in the Wylam workshops. This new locomotive had a single 8-inch cylinder, was provided with a fly-wheel like its predecessor, and the driving-wheel was cogged on one side to enable it to travel in the rack-rail laid along the road. This engine proved more successful than the former one; and it was found capable of dragging eight or nine loaded waggons, though at the rate of little more than a mile an hour, from the colliery to the shipping-place. It sometimes took six hours to perform the journey of five miles. Its weight was found too great for the road, and the cast-iron plates were constantly breaking. It was also very apt to get off the rack-rail, and then it stood still. The driver was one day asked how he got on? “Get on?” said he, “we don’t get on; we only get off!” On such occasions, horses had to be sent to drag the waggons as before, and others to haul the engine back to the work-shops. It was constantly getting out of order; its plugs,pumps, or cranks, got wrong; it was under repair as often as at work; at length it became so cranky that the horses were usually sent out after it to drag it when it gave up; and the workmen generally declared it to be a “perfect plague.” Mr. Blackett did not obtain credit amongst his neighbours for these experiments. Many laughed at his machines, regarding them only in the light of crotchets,—frequently quoting the proverb that “a fool and his money are soon parted.” Others regarded them as absurd innovations on the established method of hauling coal; and pronounced that they would “never answer.”
Notwithstanding, however, the comparative failure of this second locomotive, Mr. Blackett persevered with his experiments. He was zealously assisted by Jonathan Foster the engine-wright, and William Hedley, the viewer of the colliery, a highly ingenious person, who proved of great use in carrying out the experiments to a successful issue. One of the chief causes of failure being the rack-rail, the idea occurred to Mr. Hedley that it might be possible to secure adhesion enough between the wheel and the rail by the mere weight of the engine, and he proceeded to make a series of experiments for the purpose of determining this problem. He had a frame placed on four wheels, and fitted up with windlasses attached by gearing to the several wheels. The frame having been properly weighted, six men were set to work the windlasses; when it was found that the adhesion of the smooth wheels on the smooth rails was quite sufficient to enable them to propel the machine without slipping. Having found the proportion which the power bore to the weight, he demonstrated by successive experiments that the weight of the engine would of itself produce sufficient adhesion to enable it to draw upon a smooth railroad the requisite number of waggons in all kinds of weather. And thus was the fallacy which had heretofore prevailed on this subject completely exploded, and it was satisfactorily proved that rack-rails, toothed wheels, endless chains, and legs, were alike unnecessary forthe efficient traction of loaded waggons upon a moderately level road.