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November, 1930
A Notable Forerunner (George Stephenson)
The centenary of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, celebrated recently, gives the name and fame of George Stephenson a passing interest. Stephenson is generally remembered as a locomotive engineer and railway pioneer, but it is significant that most of his life was spent in close contact with collieries. Born in 1781, he never went to school, but at an early age was minding cows at 2d. per day, amusing himself making engines with bog clay and pipes of hemlock. Later he drove a colliery gin horse, and when 15 years old he became fireman, eventually being put in charge of a pumping engine at Throckley Bridge.
At 17 he was engineman (or "plugman"), and, receiving 12s. per week, considered himself "a made man for life." He now began to learn arithmetic, reading and spelling, and among many distractions (all typically practical in nature) he continued his engine-modelling. At 20 he was a brakesman at Black Callerton ; at 21 he moved to Willington Quay and married, his one-roomed home being the scene of many scientific experiments. After three years here he made his way to West Moor Colliery, Killingworth, where he was fated to spend an important phase of his now rapidly-broadening life.
A great deal of practical engine experience came, and he ceaselessly continued his experiments and studies in a typically dogged and practical manner. Much haulage, pumping and winding work came his way. The early "travelling engines," which invariably blew up or failed, drew his attention. Encouraged by Lord Ravensworth, his chief mechanic being the colliery blacksmith, he made the "Blucher" in 1814. This clumsy and springless creation pulled 30 tons of coal at 4 m.p.h. In 1815 he used waste steam to aid the draught. For a long time his "Puffing Billy" was taken for granted locally. He had also, after much workaday experience and experiments, evolved the "Geordie" safety-lamp — which actually worked upon practically the same lines as the Davy lamp and had shown its utility before the latter was invented. Tardy recognition was afterwards given to Stephenson.
Locomotive engineering gradually took more of his attention. Ridiculed by many authorities (academic and otherwise) for his insistence that smooth wheels could grip the rails, he proceeded to improve the "iron way," and was eventually commissioned to construct the Hetton Collieries Railway. The Stockton & Darlington Railway for coal transportation was his next project, and he became committed to railway schemes for a number of years.
He never quite lost touch with his colliery interests, however, and was associated with the sinking of a pit at Snibston, the shaft being "tubbed" for the first time in the Midlands. He died at Tapton on August 12, 1848, soon after reading a paper to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers at Birmingham, having attained the age of 67 years.
G. E. Moore.
Article reproduced from a copy of the magazine held at Scottish Mining Museum, Newtongrange, Midlothian.
