George Stephenson was a 19th century self-made railway engineer who designed the earliest steam-railway systems in Britain. His work set in motion the development of rail transport and greatly accelerated the growth of the Industrial Revolution.
Key Facts about George Stephenson:
- Born 1781, died 1848
- Rose from humble beginnings as an archetypal ‘self-made man’
- Built the earliest freight and passenger railways and locomotives
- Established rail as the major means of transport for a century
A Short BiographyGeorge Stephenson
The Industrial Revolution brought work which had previously been spread widely among small artisans into centralized production in factories. This meant that supplies had to be transported longer distances and in larger quantities, so efficient and economical transportation was, and still is, a key requirement for industrialization. The development of a canal network across Britain in the 18th century was the first method used, with horse-drawn barges transporting heavy goods through a network of improved rivers and narrow canals. Barges were slow and their loads limited and by the middle of the 19th century their use declined rapidly as the new railway system developed. George Stephenson was instrumental in developing the first railways lines that enabled transportation of goods on a vast scale and, almost accidentally, of people too, creating an accessible form of mass-transport that had a profound impact on society.
Stephenson’s career did not have auspicious beginnings. He was born in a village outside the North-England town of Newcastle upon Tyne, on June 9th, 1781 to illiterate working-class parents. Because they had no money to pay for his education, Stephenson was also illiterate until he was 18, when he paid for night school with some of the earnings from his “wark int mines”. By the time he was 20 he was operating the lifting machinery that moved men and coal in and out of the mines. His interest in machinery led him to spend his spare-time at the mine taking machines apart to understand their workings. In 1811 this autodidactic approach paid off and he was promoted to engine-wright at the Killingworth Colliery, responsible for the running of the steam-operated pumps and machinery at the mine. The experienced he gained at this work proved invaluable to his future.
The first sign of his inventive abilities came when he tackled the problem of lights in the mines. Miners at the time worked underground with naked flames and this created a serious risk of explosion when flammable gases were released from the rocks. Stephenson invented a lamp with a screen which prevented the flame from igniting these gases, but the eminent chemist Humphry Davy had simultaneously invented a safety lamp too and this triggered a controversy over credit for the invention which lingered for years. The experience gave Stephenson such a distrust of the British establishment that he had his son Robert ‘properly’ educated so as to eliminate the northern accent that Stephenson believed had weakened his status in the dispute over the safety lamp.
At that time transportation within and around the mines was chiefly by horse-drawn waggons, sometimes running on wooden tracks. At the nearby Wylam Colliery there was a five-mile wooden track that had been built in 1748 which took the coal to the river Tyne to be loaded on boats. Stephenson heard that they were attempting at Wylam to build a steam engine to run on this track and he convinced his Killingworth manager to let him try to build one there. In 1814 his first locomotive, the Blücher, pulled 30 tons of coal up a hill at four mph. His real design breakthrough was in the wheels, where he used flanged wheels to both keep the locomotive on the track and increase the surface area to gain greater traction. In 1820 he built the first fully steam-powered railway on an eight-mile track at the Hetton Colliery.
In 1821 the British parliament approved plans for the 25-mile Stockton and Darlington Railway to transport coal. It was designed for horse-drawn wagons, but when the company director met Stephenson he changed his plans and hired Stephenson to construct the railway with a steam engine. Stephenson and his son Robert began work on the project in 1822. With partners they set up ‘Robert Stephenson & Co.’ to build the locomotives and named their first train Locomotion. The railway opened in 1825, with Stephenson driving Locomotion at speeds of up to 24 mph, pulling 80 tons of coal and flour and a passenger car called Experiment filled with dignitaries. This made it the world’s first passenger-train trip.
Stephenson went on to build the Bolton and Leigh Railway, and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, which opened in 1830 with great excitement, making Stephenson famous and sought after to build other railways. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway featured the famous train Rocket, which had outclassed the competition in a contest to determine who gained the contract to supply the locomotives for the railway. Rocket was packed with innovations and was more the product of Robert Stephenson than of his father.
With his reputation established Stephenson received many contracts, including the first locomotives for the earliest railway lines in the United States. He ended owning several coal mines of his own, which must have given him great satisfaction after starting his life at the other end of that hierarchy. Robert’s mother had died in 1806 and Stephenson re-married in 1820. This wife died in 1845 and in January 1848 he married his housekeeper. However later that year he contracted pleurisy and died on August 12th, 1848, aged 67. His only child Robert went on to fame as a railway engineer but died childless.
His Legacy
George Stephenson established Britain as the pre-eminent railway nation. Although his was not the very first steam-locomotive – the credit for that goes to Richard Trevithick – he did turn it into a practical means of transport. By encouraging the use of his track-width of 4 feet 8 ½ inches as the standard gauge still used today, he made the task of linking separate individual lines into a network a practical possibility.
Sites to Visit
Stephenson’s birthplace in the village of Wylam, outside Newcastle upon Tyne can be visited. The cottage is owned and operated by the National Trust.
There is a statue of Stephenson facing the Mining Institute near the railway station in Newcastle upon Tyne.
There is a statue of Stephenson at the railway station in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, where he spent the last 10 years of his life.
He is buried at the Holy Trinity church in the same town. There is a memorial in the church and stained-glass windows dedicated to him, but the actual grave is marked with just a rough stone slab with ‘G.S.1848’ carved into it.
The Chesterfield Museum has a collection of memorabilia of Stephenson on display.
There are replicas of Rocket at the Henry Ford Museum Dearborn, Michigan and at the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago. They were built by Robert Stephenson in 1929.
Further Research
Biographies of Stephenson include:
George Stephenson: The Remarkable Life of the Founder of the Railway, by Hunter Davies (2012).
The Life of George Stephenson, by Samuel Smiles (1859, 2006).
Lives of the Engineers: The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson, by Samuel Smiles (1862, 2011).
[Samuel Smiles used Stephenson as an example of his doctrine of ‘Self-help’ which made him famous as one of the first personal-development gurus.]
