George Stephenson Biography
George Stephenson (9 June 1781 – 12 August 1848) - builder of first railway line
George Stephenson was a self made mechanical engineer, largely credited with building the first railway line and becoming the 'father of the railways'. His rail gauge of 8.5 inches became the global standard gauge. He also developed a miners safety lamp.
George was born in Wylam, Northumberland, 9.3 miles (15.0 km) west of Newcastle upon Tyne. He was the second child of a working class family Robert and Mabel. Both his parents were illiterate and they did not have enough money to send George to school. However, George was keen to get an education and so devoted his evenings to learning to read and write.
At the age of 17, he entered a coal mine, working as an engineer in Water Row pit, Newburn. He later got jobs as a brakesman in different North east pits around the area of Newcastle.
He gained a reputation as an excellent engineer and impressed with ability to fix a pumping engine at High Pit, Killingworth in 1811. In particular he became an expert in steam-driven engineering. His knowledge was essentially practical, learning through trial and error, rather than through theoretical science.
His common sense, and willingness to experiment led him to develop a miner's safety lamp in 1818. At the time, many explosions were caused by naked flames. And the Royal Society had offered a large reward for a successful lamp. George invented his version of the safety lamp around the same time as Sir Humphry Davy. Davy was convinced that Stephenson had copied his idea. Though this was never proved. It may have been the fact that Davy didn't trust a largely uneducated miner to develop a lamp without the science Davy had used.
A local enquiry exonerated Stephenson, and his lamp was used in the north east and Davy's in the rest of the country. In 1833, a House of Commons committed found Stephenson had equal share in the invention of the lamp.
Stephenson wasn't the first to design a realistic steam engine (that is credited to Richard Trevithick in 1804. However, Stephenson was able to improve on initial designs creating a locomotive that was capable of carrying substantial amounts of coal. In 1814, he developed his first engine - Blucher.
In 1820, Stephenson built the first railway from Hetton colliery to Sunderland which didn't used animal power but relied on Steam.
This was followed by the Stockton Darlington Railway of 1825. THe 25 mile railway was an important stage in steam only railways. It was opened to great fanfare, the engine, Locomotion reached a speed of 24 miles per hour on one stretch. It was also the first engine to have a passenger car.
Rocket and Liverpool and Manchester Railway
In 1829, the L & MR railway had a competition for best design of a train. George's entry - Rocket won. George also played a key role in designing bridges and embankments along the new railway.
It opened in 1930 to great fanfare including the presence of the Prime Minister - The Duke of Wellington.
This was really the start of the great railway age. It led to a period of rapid railway building which transformed transport within the UK and later the world. Journey which took days, could now be completed in a matter of hours. The railway was a key element in the new industrial age. George was one of the first to realise the individual railways would soon be joined together so he insisted on a common gauge, which would become the national and global standard.
Stephenson became inundated with request to help build railways. His reputation was very high, though he was often more cautious in building of railways and he became eclipsed by other engineers such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
George married three times and had two children Robert and Fanny who died in childbirth.
Citation : Pettinger, Tejvan. "Biography of Mary Wollstonecraft", Oxford, www.biographyonline.net 23 Feb. 2010
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