SIR GOLDSWORTHY GURNEY, KNT., INVENTOR
This man of remarkable versatility and genius was the fourth son of John Gurney, of Trevargus; he was born at Treator, near Padstow, on February 14th, 1793, and was baptized at Padstow on the ensuing 26th June.
He was named after his godmother, a daughter of General Goldsworthy and a maid of honour to Queen Charlotte. He was educated at the Truro Grammar School, and during part of his holidays was wont to stay with a relative, the rector of S. Erth, in which parish lived Mr. Davies Giddy (who afterwards changed his name, and was better known as Mr. Davies Gilbert, President of the Royal Society), in whose house he very frequently met Richard Trevithick, a plain, unpretending man, of great genius, connected with the neighbouring copper mines, who lived near, and who often consulted Mr. Giddy on mathematical calculations connected with the steam-engine and his mechanical inventions. Although so young, Mr. Gurney, whose natural bent was for these subjects, soon formed an acquaintance with this singularly original and talented man, and he continued during the period of his medical studies in correspondence with him.
Mr. Gurney saw Trevithick's first steam-carriage in 1804, and followed closely his improvements and experiments on locomotion, and he remembered, moreover, the contemptuous treatment this gifted man received at the hands of the engineers of the day.
S. C. Smith, del. W. Sharp, lithog.
SIR GOLDSWORTHY GURNEY
His views were described as "wild theories," and his plans were scoffed at. But Mr. Giddy or Gilbert encouraged Trevithick to go on and not be discouraged, and Richard Trevithick became the inventor of the locomotive as well as of the high-pressure engine. His first locomotive was constructed to travel on common roads; he afterwards modified it and set it to run on rails at Merthyr Tydvil. The trial was made there on February 4th, 1804. In the year 1813 he exhibited his locomotive on a temporary railway, laid for the purpose near Euston Square, and showed the great speed it was capable of attaining. This speed, however, was only maintained while the accumulated steam in the boiler was worked off, but his experiment showed that, if a sufficient quantity of steam could be "kept up," as he termed it, the speed might be maintained for any distance and any length of time. But how was this to be effected? That was the difficulty, and that difficulty arose out of another—how was a sufficient draught to be created to keep the fire in the furnace at full activity? As the locomotive moved it created a draught the reverse of that required for the fire, and unless a strong and steady draught into the furnace could be created, sufficient heat could not be generated to produce a sufficient and continuous amount of steam.
Trevithick in his first locomotive had discharged the steam up the funnel to get rid of it, but without any idea of creating a vacuum by means of which a draught could be caused. Stephenson did the same. Mr. Smiles has claimed that the "steam-jet" was invented by Stephenson, but this was not the case. The steam used in Trevithick's and Stephenson's engines was waste or exhaust steam, discharging itself through the funnel indeed, but not filling it, so that it created no perceptible draught.