engine, the “Locomotion,” and one of the stage-coaches travelling from Darlington to Stockton by the ordinary road; and it was regarded as a great triumph of mechanical skill that the locomotive reached Stockton first, beating the stage-coach by about a hundred yards! The same engine continued in good working order in the year 1846, when it headed the railway procession on the opening of the Middlesborough and Redcar Railway, travelling at the rate of about fourteen miles an hour. This engine, the first that travelled upon the first public railway, has recently been placed upon a pedestal in front of the railway station at Darlington.
For some years, however, the principal haulage of the line was performed by horses. The inclination of the gradients being towards the sea, this was perhaps the cheapest mode of traction, so long as the traffic was not very large. The horse drew the train along the level road, until, on reaching a descending gradient, down which the train ran by its own gravity, the animal was unharnessed, and, when loose, he wheeled round to the other end of the waggons, to which a “dandy-cart” was attached, its bottom being only a few inches from the rail. Bringing his step into unison with the speed of the train, the horse learnt to leap nimbly into his place in this waggon, which was usually fitted with a well-filled hay-rack.
The details of the working were gradually perfected by experience, the projectors of the line being scarcely conscious at first of the importance and significance of the work which they had taken in hand, and little thinking that they were laying the foundations of a system which was yet to revolutionise the internal communications of the world, and confer the greatest blessings on mankind. It is important to note that the commercial results of the enterprise were considered satisfactory from the opening of the railway. Besides conferring a great public benefit upon the inhabitants of the district and throwing open entirely new markets for coal, the profits derived from the traffic
created by the railway yielded increasing dividends to those who had risked their capital in the undertaking, and thus held forth an encouragement to the projectors of railways generally, which was not without an important effect in stimulating the projection of similar enterprises in other districts. These results, as displayed in the annual dividends, must have been eminently encouraging to the astute commercial men of Liverpool and Manchester, who were then engaged in the prosecution of their railway. Indeed, the commercial success of the Stockton and Darlington Company may be justly characterised as the turning-point of the railway system.
Before leaving this subject, we cannot avoid alluding to one of its most remarkable and direct results—the creation of the town of Middlesborough-on-Tees. When the railway was opened in 1825, the site of this future metropolis of Cleveland was occupied by one solitary farmhouse and its outbuildings. All round was pasture-land or mud-banks; scarcely another house was within sight. In 1829 some of the principal proprietors of the railway joined in the purchase of about 500 or 600 acres of land five miles below Stockton—the site of the modern Middlesborough—for the purpose of there forming a new seaport for the shipment of coals brought to the Tees by the railway. The line was accordingly extended thither; docks were excavated; a town sprang up; churches, chapels, and schools were built, with a custom-house, mechanics’ institute, banks, shipbuilding yards, and iron-factories. In ten years a busy population of some 6000 persons (since increased to about 23,000) occupied the site of the original farmhouse. [144] More recently, the discovery
of vast stores of ironstone in the Cleveland Hills, closely adjoining Middlesborough, has tended still more rapidly to augment the population and increase the commercial importance of the place.
It is pleasing to relate, in connexion with this great work—the Stockton and Darlington Railway, projected by Edward Pease and executed by George Stephenson—that when Mr. Stephenson became a prosperous and a celebrated man, he did not forget the friend who had taken him by the hand, and helped him on in his early days. He continued to remember Mr. Pease with gratitude and affection, and that gentleman, to the close of his life, was proud to exhibit a handsome gold watch, received as a gift from his celebrated protégé, bearing these words;—“Esteem and gratitude: from George Stephenson to Edward Pease.”
CHAPTER IX.
The Liverpool and Manchester Railway projected.
The rapid growth of the trade and manufactures of South Lancashire gave rise, about the year 1821, to the project of a tramroad for the conveyance of goods between Liverpool and Manchester. Since the construction of the Bridgewater Canal by Brindley, some fifty years before, the increase in the business transacted between the two towns had become quite marvellous. The steam-engine, the spinning-jenny, and the canal, working together, had accumulated in one focus a vast aggregate of population, manufactures, and trade.