The Life of George Stephenson and of his Son Robert Stephenson / Comprising Also a History of the Invention and Introduction of the Railway Locomotive

by Samuel Smiles

In the immediate neighborhood of London there was another very early railroad, the Wandsworth and Croydon tram-way, about ten miles long, which was afterward extended southward to Merstham, in Surrey, for about eight miles more, making a total length of nearly eighteen miles. The first act for the purpose of authorizing the construction of this road was obtained in 1800.

All these lines were, however, worked by horses, and in the case of the Croydon and Merstham line, donkeys shared in the work, which consisted chiefly in the haulage of stone, coal, and lime. No proposal had yet been made to apply the power of steam as a substitute for horses on railways, nor were the rails then laid down of a strength sufficient to bear more than a loaded wagon of the weight of three tons, or, at the very outside, of three and a quarter tons.

It was, however, observed from the first that there was an immense saving in the cost of haulage; and on the day of opening the southern portion of the Merstham Railroad in 1805, a train of twelve wagons laden with stone, weighing in all thirty-eight tons, was drawn six miles in an hour by one horse, with apparent ease, down an incline of 1 in 120; and this was bruited about as an extraordinary feat, highly illustrative of the important uses of the new iron-ways.

About the same time, the subject of road locomotion was again brought into prominent notice by an important practical experiment conducted in a remote corner of the kingdom. The experimenter was a young man, then obscure, but afterward famous, who may be fairly regarded as the inventor of the railway locomotive, if any single individual be entitled to that appellation. This was Richard Trevithick, a person of extraordinary mechanical skill but of marvelous ill fortune, who, though the inventor of many ingenious contrivances, and the founder of the fortunes of many, himself died in cold obstruction and in extreme poverty, leaving behind him nothing but his great inventions and the recollection of his genius.

Richard Trevithick was born on the 13th of April, 1771, in the parish of Illogan, a few miles west of Redruth, in Cornwall. In the immediate neighborhood rises Castle-Carn-brea, a rocky eminence, supposed by Borlase to have been the principal seat of Druidic worship in the West of England. The hill commands an extraordinary view over one of the richest mining fields of Cornwall, from Chacewater and Redruth to Camborne.

Trevithick's father acted as purser at several of the mines. Though a man in good position and circumstances, he does not seem to have taken much pains with his son's education. Being an only child, he was very much indulged—among other things, in his dislike for the restraints and discipline of school; and he was left to wander about among the mines, spending his time in the engine-rooms, picking up information about pumping-engines and mining machinery.

His father, observing the boy's strong bent toward mechanics, placed him for a time as pupil with William Murdock, while the latter lived at Redruth superintending the working and repairs of Boulton and Watt's pumping-engines in that neighborhood. During his pupilage, young Trevithick doubtless learned much from that able mechanic. It is probable that he got his first idea of the high-pressure road locomotive which he afterward constructed from Murdock's ingenious little model above described, the construction and action of which must have been quite familiar to him, for no secret was ever made of it, and its performances were often exhibited.

Many new pumping-engines being in course of erection in the neighborhood about that time, there was an unusual demand for engineers, which it was found difficult to supply; and young Trevithick, whose skill was acknowledged, had no difficulty in getting an appointment. The father was astonished at his boy's presumption (as he supposed it to be) in undertaking such a responsibility, and he begged the mine agents to reconsider their decision. But the result showed that they were justified in making the appointment; for young Trevithick, though he had not yet attained his majority, proved fully competent to perform the duties devolving upon him as engineer.

So long as Boulton and Watt's patent continued to run, constant attempts were made in Cornwall and elsewhere to upset it. Their engines had cleared the mines of water, and thereby rescued the mine lords from ruin, but it was felt to be a great hardship that they should have to pay for the right to use them. They accordingly stimulated the ingenuity of the local engineers to contrive an engine that should answer the same purpose, and enable them to evade making any farther payments to Boulton and Watt. The first to produce an engine that seemed likely to answer the purpose was Jonathan Hornblower, who had been employed in erecting Watt's engines in Cornwall. After him one Edward Bull, who had been first a stoker and then an assistant-tender of Watt's engines, turned out another pumping-engine, which promised to prove an equally safe evasion of the existing patent. But Boulton and Watt having taken the necessary steps to defend their right, several actions were tried, in which they proved successful, and then the mine lords were compelled to disgorge. When they found that Hornblower could be of no farther use to them, they abandoned him—threw him away like a sucked orange; and shortly after we find him a prisoner for debt in the King's Bench, almost in a state of starvation. Nor do we hear any thing more of Edward Bull after the issue of the Boulton and Watt trial.

Like the other Cornish engineers, young Trevithick took an active part from the first in opposing the Birmingham patent, and he is said to have constructed several engines, with the assistance of William Bull (formerly an erector of Watt's machines), with the object of evading it. These engines are said to have been highly creditable to their makers, working to the entire satisfaction of the mine-owners. The issue of the Watt trial, however, which declared all such engines to be piracies, brought to an end for a time a business which would otherwise have proved a very profitable one, and Trevithick's partnership with Bull then came to an end.