[Born at Newbury, 1774. Died 1844. Aged 70.]
Originally a stockbroker. One of the founders of the Astronomical Society, and for many years its President. Also Fellow and Vice-President of the Royal Society. Author of many astronomical works; amongst others, of a volume detailing the repetition of the Cavendish experiment for the determination of the earth’s density.
[Executed in marble, by E. H. Daily, R.A. Posthumous. 1848.]
432. William Yarrell. Naturalist.
[Born in London, 1784. Still living.]
The author of “A History of British Birds,” and of various papers on subjects connected with natural history. Is treasurer to the Linnæan Society of London.
[By Henry Weigall.]
433. George Stephenson. Engineer.
[Born 1781. Died 1848. Aged 67.]
A sturdy plant of English growth. A working mind born ripe for its time. An uncultivated power endowed with immeasurable capability. The story of George Stephenson reads well for his country, well for himself, well for the high faculties which Providence has given to man, irrespectively of birth, station, education, or any accidental condition. His parentage was of the poorest. He could not have begun his race at a more distant point from the goal of fortune. He did not even start with his fellows in open day, under the bright sun, on the earth’s surface. He was a pit-engine boy, and his pay was twopence a day. It was a great rise for him when he was made stoker, and he was on the high road to prosperity when he found himself breaksman. Promoted to the office of engineman, he declared that he was “now a man for life.” He first made known his mechanical genius in the service of Lord Ravensworth, when he repaired and improved, as an amateur, a condensing pump-engine, which had baffled the skill of some professional engineers. Having been, for a time, occupied in laying down some unimportant lines of rail, he went to Liverpool to plan a line of railway between that city and Manchester. He held out great inducements to enterprize, and made unheard-of prophecies of success. He even undertook that a locomotive should accomplish ten miles of distance in every hour. We must not be surprised that the people called him “mad” for proffering the assurance. Similar madmen had preceded him,—Columbus, Galileo,—the inventor of gas, the discoverer of vaccination and others. The line, as we know, was made,—the experiment tried. Stephenson was right, a locomotive can travel at the rate of ten miles an hour. The rise of Stephenson was now rapid as the strides of his own locomotives. He took the lead at once in railway engineering; became a great locomotive manufacturer, an extensive railway contractor, a large owner of collieries and iron-works, and a man of mark in the nation. Our railway system is the result of the multiform operations of his strong practical mind. Stephenson disputed with Sir Humphry Davy the invention of the safety lamp. Other claimants are in the field. We shall never know the discoverer, any more than we shall learn the birth-place of Homer; and George Stephenson may spare the extra laurel from his iron crown.