Lives of the Engineers / The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson

by Samuel Smiles

lower in the pit than it had ever been before. It was kept pumping all Thursday, and by the Friday afternoon the pit was cleared of water, and the workmen were “sent to the bottom,” as Stephenson had promised. Thus the alterations effected in the pumping apparatus proved completely successful.

Dodds was particularly gratified with the manner in which the job had been done, and he made Stephenson a present of ten pounds, which, though very inadequate when compared with the value of the work performed, was accepted with gratitude. George was proud of the gift as the first marked recognition of his skill as a workman; and he used afterwards to say that it was the biggest sum of money he had up to that time earned in one lump. Ralph Dodds, however, did more than this. He released the brakesman from the handles of his engine at West Moot, and appointed him engineman at the High Pit, at good wages, during the time the pit was sinking,—the job lasting for about a year; and he also kept him in mind for further advancement.

Stephenson’s skill as an engine-doctor soon became noised abroad, and he was called upon to prescribe remedies for all the old, wheezy, and ineffective pumping-machines in the neighbourhood. In this capacity he soon left the “regular” men far behind, though they in their turn were very mach disposed to treat the Killingworth brakesman as no better than a quack. Nevertheless, his practice was really founded upon a close study of the principles of mechanics, and on an intimate practical acquaintance with the details of the pumping-engine.

Another of his smaller achievements in the same line is still told by the people of the district. At the corner of the road leading to Long Benton, there was a quarry from which a peculiar and scarce kind of ochre was taken. In the course of working it out, the water had collected in considerable quantities; and there being no means of draining it off, it accumulated to such an extent that the further working of

the ochre was almost entirely stopped. Ordinary pumps were tried, and failed; and then a windmill was tried, and failed too. On this, George was asked what ought to be done to clear the quarry of the water. He said, “he would set up for them an engine little bigger than a kail-pot, that would clear them out in a week.” And he did so. A little engine was speedily erected, by means of which the quarry was pumped dry in the course of a few days. Thus his skill as a pump-doctor soon became the marvel of the district.

In elastic muscular vigour, Stephenson was now in his prime, and he still continued to be zealous in measuring his strength and agility with his fellow workmen. The competitive element in his nature was always strong; and his success in these feats of rivalry was certainly remarkable. Few, if any, could lift such weights, throw the hammer and putt the stone so far, or cover so great a space at a standing or running leap. One day, between the engine hour and the rope-rolling hour, Kit Heppel challenged him to leap from one high wall to another, with a deep gap between. To Heppel’s surprise and dismay, George took the standing leap, and cleared the eleven feet at a bound. Had his eye been less accurate, or his limbs less agile and sure, the feat must have cost him his life.

But so full of redundant muscular vigour was he, that leaping, putting, or throwing the hammer were not enough for him. He was also ambitious of riding on horseback, and, as he had not yet been promoted to an office enabling him to keep a horse of his own, he sometimes borrowed one of the gin-horses for a ride. On one of these occasions, he brought the animal back reeking; when Tommy Mitcheson, the bank horse-keeper, a rough-spoken fellow, exclaimed to him: “Set such fellows as you on horseback, and you’ll soon ride to the De’il.” But Tommy Mitcheson lived to tell the joke, and to confess that, after all, there had been a better issue to George’s horsemanship than that which he predicted.

Old Cree, the engine-wright at Killingworth High Pit, having been killed by an accident, George Stephenson was, in 1812, appointed engine-wright of the colliery at the salary of £100 a year. He was also allowed the use of a galloway to ride upon in his visits of inspection to the collieries leased by the “Grand Allies” in that neighbourhood. The “Grand Allies” were a company of gentlemen, consisting of Sir Thomas Liddell (afterwards Lord Ravensworth), the Earl of Strathmore, and Mr. Stuart Wortley (afterwards Lord Wharncliffe), the lessees of the Killingworth collieries. Having been informed of the merits of Stephenson, of his indefatigable industry, and the skill which he had displayed in the repairs of the pumping-engines, they readily acceded to Mr. Dodds’ recommendation that he should be appointed the colliery engine-wright; and, as we shall afterwards find, they continued to honour him by distinguished marks of their approval.