Life of Robert Stephenson by William Pole: Chapter III

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CHAPTER III. Robert Stephenson the Schoolboy (age 9-16)

AS soon as little Robert was strong enough to help his father, he was put to do such jobs as were suited to his powers. One of his earliest recollections in after life was of having to carry the pitmen’s picks to the smith’s shop in Long Benton, when they needed repair. This commission he executed on his way to Tommy Rutter’s school, and as he returned home he used to bring the implements back. Two years before his death, after his brilliant career of adventure and success, he visited Long Benton with some friends, and pointed out to them the route over the fields, along which he used to trudge laden with the hewers’ implements. But George’s chief injunction to his only child was to ‘ mind the bulks.’ The father was determined that his boy should not commence the real battle of life, as he had done, unable to cipher, or write, or even to read.

An erroneous impression exists that George Stephenson denied himself the indulgences appropriate to his condition in order that he might give his boy a superior education, and that in sending his son to school he showed his superiority to most of his fellow-workmen. He felt personally the disadvantages of a very defective education, and he determined that his son should not labour under the same want.

In 1812, on the death of Cree, the engine-wright of the Killingworth colliery, George Stephenson was appointed engineer, with a salary of £100 per annum, to the contiguous collieries possessed by Sir Thomas Liddell, Mr. Stuart Wortley, and the Earl of Strathmore - the ‘ grand allies,’ as they were called in the neighbourhood. In addition to this salary, George had the proceeds of his clock-mending and clock-cleaning business - a much more important source of gain than has hitherto been supposed. He not only kept in order the clocks of the pitmen and superior workmen, but performed the same service for surrounding farmers. Farmer Hobson paid him half-a-crown for cleaning watch or clock. He was also regularly employed at a fixed annual sum to attend to the clocks in the establishments of several wealthy gentlemen of the vicinity. Moreover, throughout the term of his Killingworth residence, he lived rent-free and had his fuel from the pit. During the year, also, he increased his income considerably by jobs connected with the repair of machinery. His income therefore amounted in 1812 to about £150. With such means at his command it was only natural that he should give his son the rudiments of education at the village school. Thus in sending Robert Stephenson to Butter’s school, George Stephenson only did as every reputable father of his own station and of similar means in the parish of Long Benton did as a matter of course.

On gaining the important post of engineer to the collieries of the ‘ grand allies,’ George Stephenson’s advances towards success became quicker, and at the same time easier. Watchful of all hat was going on in the neighbourhood relative to the steam engine, he knew the result of the memorable experiments on the Wylam line, as soon as they were accomplished. On that line it was first proved by Mr. Hedley, the viewer of Mr. Blackett’s colliery, that the adhesion of smooth wheels on smooth rails would afford sufficient resistance to enable an engine to drag a train of loaded carriages. And it was on that same line, between Wylam and Lemington, that engines with smooth wheels, running on smooth rails, first took the place of horses and oxen for purposes of traffic.

The alacrity with which George Stephenson, the self-taught engineer, comprehended the importance of the Wylam discoveries, and put them in practice upon the Killingworth line, in locomotives of his own construction, which were fully equal in efficiency to those on the Wylam way, attracted general attention to his proceedings. It was seen that he was a man who, with favourable opportunities, would become a distinguished engineer. The Wylam way was laid with plate rails, whilst the Killingworth line had edge rails. George Stephenson therefore built ‘ the first locomotive engine that propelled itself by the adhesion of its wheels on edge rails.’ The first trial of the engine took place on July 25, 1814, with marked success. When the training and antecedents of the young workman (then only thirty-three years of age) are taken into consideration, the achievement seems almost incredible.

Amongst the gentlemen of the neighbourhood who watched the progress and hailed the success of George Stephenson’s first engine, no one was more enthusiastic than Mr. Losh, the senior partner of the firm of ‘ Losh, Wilson, and Bell.’ This highly cultivated gentleman, the fellow-student and friend of Humboldt, survived in a venerable old age in the autumn of 1860, to tell the story of his intercourse with George Stephenson. With a large capital embarked in the Walker iron-works, as well as in his chemical factories, he saw in the engine- wright a man well fitted to carry out his enterprises and to suggest new ones. He made overtures to him ; and, in the beginning of the year 1815, an arrangement was made that George Stephenson should come to the Walker iron-works for two days in each week, receiving for his services a salary of £100 per annum, besides participation in all profits arising from his inventions. To secure his good fortune in this compact from all drawback, the ‘ grand allies,’ with proper liberality to an engineer who had served them well, gave him permission to accept Mr. Losh’s offer, and at the same time retain his post at Killingworth with an undiminished salary.

George Stephenson, with these two concurrent appointments yielding him a clear £200 per annum, besides perquisites and the participation in profits reserved to him by Losh, Wilson, and Bell, began to feel himself a rising man. Industrious as ever, he retained his clock-cleaning business; and he had made some not unimportant savings. A prosperous mechanic, with a good income, unmarried, and with brighter prospects opening before him, could not think of giving his only child no better education than that which a village schoolmaster imparted to the children of ordinary workmen.

It was no part of his plan to bring up his son with an expense and refinement unusual in his station, but he wished to educate him in accordance with the rules of his rank. He placed him, therefore, when he was nearly twelve years old, as a day-pupil in an academy at Newcastle, kept by Mr. Bruce.

The friend and biographer of Dr. Hutton, and the author of several educational works of great merit, Mr. John Bruce had raised his school to such excellence that it then ranked higher than the Newcastle grammar school, where Lord Stowell, Lord Eldon, and Lord Collingwood received their early instruction. The ‘Percy Street Academy ’ - as Mr. Bruce’s seminary was and still is called - was then attended by more than a hundred pupils, who might be described as a good style of ‘middle-class boys.’ Some few were the sons of the minor gentry of the vicinity, but the majority were the sons of professional men and traders of Newcastle and Gateshead. Not one half of the boys learned either Greek or Latin. Amongst those who did not receive classical instruction was Robert Stephenson, who entered the school on August 14, 1815, and remained there four years. During that time, the whole sum paid for his education fell short of £40. The expenditure, therefore, for a father in George Stephenson’s circumstances, was sufficient and appropriate, but nothing more.

On Robert Stephenson’s appearance at the Percy Street academy he had to encounter the criticisms of lads who regarded him as beneath them in social condition. ‘A thin-framed, thin-faced, delicate boy, with his face covered with freckles,’ dressed in corduroy trowsers and a blue coat-jacket, the handiwork of the tailor employed by the Killingworth pitmen, the new-comer presented many marks for play-ground satire. On his shoulder he carried a bag containing his books and a dinner of rye-bread and cheese. The clattering made by the heavy iron-cased soles of his boots on the school floor did not escape the notice of the lads. Mr. Bruce was on the look-out to see that he was not improperly annoyed; but there was no occasion for the master’s interference. In Robert’s dark eyes there was a soft light of courtesy that conciliated the elder boys. When they entered into conversation with him, however, they could not refrain from laughing outright. Gruff as their own voices were with Northumbrian ‘burr,’ they were unused to the deep, guttural pit-intonations with which Robert expressed himself. It was no slight trial to a sensitive child just twelve years old to find himself the object of ridicule. Puzzled as to what he had said that was ludicrous, and deeply mortified, he turned away, and kept silence till the business of school-hours commenced.

At first Robert Stephenson walked to and from school - a distance in all of about ten miles; and this labour disinclined him for joining in the sports of the play-ground. At dinner he held no intercourse with his schoolfellows ; for while they consumed the more luxurious fare provided for them by Mrs. Bruce, he ate the inexpensive provision put into his satchel by Aunt Eleanor, or partook of the frugal fare of an uncle’s family. Gradually, however, he became a favourite with the lads. But it soon became clear that Robert Stephenson was not strong enough to bear the long walk each night and morning. He was liable to catch cold, and the tendency it had to strike at his lungs made his father apprehensive that tubercular consumption might attack him. At this time, too, the boy was afflicted with profuse nightly perspirations, to obviate which the doctors made him sleep on a hay mattress. A step more likely to do good was taken by George Stephenson, who purchased for the boy a donkey, which was for years the pride of Long Benton. Robert had for a long time been in possession of a dog and a blackbird, which he used to aver were the cleverest inhabitants of the village. His new acquisition gave him lively satisfaction, and he was prouder of it than he was in after fife of any horse in his stable. To spare his ‘ cuddy,’ he used, in fine weather, to walk and ride to school on alternate days.

John Tate (in 1860 the foreman blacksmith at the colliery,) the son of George Stephenson’s old friend, Robert Tate, formerly the landlord of the Killingworth ‘Three Tuns,’ was in early boyhood the familiar companion of Robert Stephenson. The two lads had many a prank together. Shortly before Robert left Rutter’s school, they were out birds’-nesting, when Robert fell from a high branch of a tree to the ground, and lay for a minute stunned. On recovering his consciousness, he experienced so much pain on moving one of his arms that he nearly fainted. ‘ My arm is broken, John Tate,’ the little fellow said quietly; ‘you must carry me home.’ Luckily John Tate had not far to carry him. In due course the broken arm was set; but throughout the operation, and indeed from the time when he told John Tate to carry him home until he was asleep, he did not utter a cry of pain. A child of eleven years who could evince such fortitude was clearly made of the right stuff.

The first half year of Robert Stephenson’s career at the Percy Street academy was an eventful one with his father. It saw the invention of the Geordie safety lamp, and the outbreak of that contest between Sir Humphry Davy and the Northumbrian engine-wright, in which the latter unquestionably displayed the greater dignity and moderation. George Stephenson’s first lamp was tried on October 21, 1815. In the Northumbrian coal fields three lamps are used more than any of the others which inventors have contrived for the protection of the miner,— Dr. Clanny’s lamp of the year 1813, and the lamps invented two years later by the scientific reasoner Sir Humphry Davy, and the practical mechanician George Stephenson. The principle in each of these last-named lamps is identical, but the two originators arrived at it by very different processes. To decide on the respective merits of these lamps is no part of this work. Each has its supporters; and the partizans of a particular kind of ‘safety-lamp’ are scarcely less vehement and uncharitable in their zeal, than are the defenders of a particular school of religious opinion. In the mines where ‘the Clanny’ is used, nothing but ‘the Clanny’ has a chance of trial, or a good word. The same is the case with ‘the Davy’ and ‘the Geordie.’ One thing, however, is certain. An efficient and luminous safety-lamp is still to be invented. It is amusing to hear the virtuous indignation of those who, never having visited the narrow passages of a coal mine, vehemently condemn the fool-hardiness and perversity of miners who prefer the candle to the lamp. So dim a ray is emitted by ‘the Davy’ or ‘the Geordie,’ it is far from wonderful that underground toilers should regard them as obstacles to industry rather than as agents for the preservation of life.

With regard to George Stephenson and his invention, the time has come for the final sweeping away of a fiction. The true nobility of the elder Stephenson is only insulted by those who would surround it with the vulgar glare of melodramatic heroism. Amongst the many anecdotes by which indiscreet eulogists have hoped to exalt the fame of a remarkable man, is the story that George Stephenson, to test the worth of his lamp, took it on the memorable night of October 21, 1815, into the foulest part of a foul mine, at the peril of instant destruction. Had such a risk been necessary to preserve the fives of his fellow-creatures, such conduct would have entitled him to endless praise for self-sacrificing intrepidity. But as he knew there was no need to incur such danger, the act attributed to him would have deserved no commendation. Wilfully and deliberately to encounter extreme peril, with the full knowledge that it is needless, is the part of a fool—not of a hero. Whatever may be George Stephenson’s claim to be regarded as the latter, he certainly had nothing in common with the former. The important experiment, which has been so greatly misrepresented, was made on a certain insulated quantity of gas, and under circumstances that precluded the possibility of serious disaster. Mr. Nicholas Wood, the well-known writer on Railroads, at that time the ‘viewer ’ of the colliery, assisted at that trial, and says, ‘ the box, or cabin, in which the lamp was tried was not of such dimensions as would, if an explosion had taken place, have produced the effect described ; as only a small quantity of gas was required, and we had had sufficient experience not to employ more gas than was necessary: at most, an explosion might have burnt the hands of the operator, but would not extend a few feet from the blower.’

To George Stephenson one of the best consequences of his invention was the quarrel which it provoked between his friends and the supporters of Sir Humphry Davy. The coal-owners of the district formed themselves into two parties. A newspaper war was waged, in which the advocates of Stephenson were altogether victorious. The partizans of Sir Humphry gave him as a reward for his invention £2,000, awarding to George Stephenson 100 guineas for the lamp they professed to regard as a clumsy contrivance, if not an imitation. This award was officially communicated to George Stephenson by his dogged, but honest, opponent, Mr. Buddle.

To make head against this demonstration of Sir Humphry’s friends, George’s supporters got up another testimonial, amounting to £1,000. A part of this sum was expended on a silver tankard which, together with the balance of the money, was presented to the inventor of ‘ the Geordie,’ after a public dinner given at the Assembly Rooms at Newcastle. The chair was taken by George’s hearty patron, Mr. Brandling, of Glosforth Hall; and of course George, as the distinguished guest of the night, had to return thanks for the honour done him. In his palmiest days George Stephenson was' not an orator, although when he spoke pn subjects which he thoroughly comprehended he expressed himself in a plain, 'sensible, and terse manner, which carried conviction of his sincerity and of the truthfulness of his narration.

Sorely did he stand in need of eloquence when he stood up in the Newcastle Assembly Rooms, and addressed a company of wealthy merchants and enlightened gentlemen. His speech he had learnt by heart, having composed it and written it out with great care. Fortunately, this interesting document, which ought to be committed to the custody of the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Institution, has been preserved, and a facsimile. is given in the Appendix. The speech ran thus : — :

Sir,— In Receiving this valuable present which you and the Gentleman of this Meeting has bean pleas’d to present me with this day I except with Gratitude But permit me to say valuable as this present is and gratefull as I feal for it I still feal more by being honour’d by such and highley respectable meeting the Gentlemen of which having not only rewarded me beyond any hopes of mine for my endeavours in construting a safity Lamp but has supported me in my claims as to priority in my invention to that of that distinguished Pholosopher S H Davy. For when I conseder the manner that I have been brought up and liv’d the manner of which is known to many of the Gentleman present and when I consider the high station of S H. Davy his high Character that he holds among society, and his influence on scientific men and scientific bodys. All of which Sir lays me under a Debt of Gratitude to the Gentlemen of this meeting which Gratitude shall remain with me so long .p,s ever I shall live. I shall conclude, sir, with my heart felt thanks to the Gentlemen of this meeting for their great reward thare support in my struggle with my competitor and hear I beg leave to thank in particular R Brandling, Esqr. which I trust the Gentleman of this meeting will give me Credit for. for I beleive this meeting knows well the active part he has taken in my behalf And I hear do thank him publicly for it.

Keeping close to the letter of this programme, he acquitted himself creditably, but at a family gathering where the great event of the dinner was discussed in all its bearings, he confessed that his embarrassment whilst he delivered the oration was so great, that his face seemed to him ‘ all on fire.’ ‘ Oh, Grace,’ he said to his sister-in-law Grace Henderson, who had become the wife of Bartholomew Twizell, ‘if thou could but ha’ seen ma meeting so many gentlemen at the ’Sciubly Eooms, thou maught ha’ fit a canle at ma face.’ On this, Jane, another married sister-in-law, laughed, and made a joke at his rise in fife. ‘Noo thou’ll be for having a bra’ ruffle to th’ shirt, and then thou’ll be looking doon on a’ th’ own frien’s.’

‘ No, Jane,’ he answered slowly and seriously, ‘ thou ’ll nivar see no change in ma.’

At the narration of this story nearly three years since, more than one of George’s humble kin who were present bore testimony that ‘he never did change—he was always the same—riches made no difference in him towards his poor relations.’

Whilst George Stephenson steadily progressed in his professional career, his son continued his attendance at Bruce’s school. He did not figure conspicuously in the Percy Street play-ground, but at home he displayed no less physical than mental energy. Every evening his father kept him hard at work over the tasks set him at school, and over plans of steam-engines and other mechanical contrivances. The neighbours sometimes thought George was an ‘ o’er strict father,’ and pitied the poor boy who was kept so close to his books. Robert, however, had leisure for amusement. Every autumn he and his friends stripped of fruit the best trees in Captain Robson’s orchard. Like his father, too, the boy excelled in athletic sports, throwing the hammer and putting the stone with skill and force.

In throwing the hammer — a favourite sport with Northumbrian workmen—the thrower stands with his legs wide apart, when, putting his arms behind his back, and grasping the hammer by the handle with both hands, he casts it forwards between his legs. Apart from the muscular force employed, the knack greatly consists in letting the hammer go at the right moment. Eelinquished too soon, the missile strikes the ground close at the player’s feet; retained after the proper moment, it is apt to rise up into the thrower’s face. In his sixteenth year, Robert was engaged at this pastime, and made the mis; take of keeping the hammer too long in hand. The consequence was that the ponderous implement, weighing a little under 28 lb., rose, struck him on the forehead, and laid him flat and perfectly stunned upon the ground. John Tate witnessed the accident; but on the following day he saw Robert throwing the hammer with as much resolution as ever.

Robert’s schoolfellows at the Percy Street academy failed to detect in him any remarkable signs of talent, and some of them still express their his subsequent scientific acquirements achievements.

Before leaving Robert Stephenson’s school life, we may remark, that his father’s experiences and difficulties were the measure of what he thought requisite for the instruction of his son. The subtler influence of letters and the more valuable results of culture Were matters about which George Stephenson thought hl lie. Learning he regarded in a strictly utilitarian sense, as an engine necessary for the achievement of certain ends. His ambition was to be a skilful engineer, and a perfect man of this ambition ignorance of with facility, or logical exactness. be himself, that he also wished his son to be. Robert Stephenson should be an engineer and a director of labour; but he should not have his bravest exertions baffled by defective knowledge. In this spirit George caused his son to learn French, because it would be useful to him in business. '

Up to the time when he left Bruce’s school, Robert did not exhibit any marked enthusiasm for the pursuits. in which his father was most warmly interested. Possibly George Stephenson was too urgent that he should prosecute the study of mechanics, and by continually goading him to work harder and harder ‘ at his bulks ’ gave him a transient distaste for subjects to which he was naturally inclined. As a member of the Philosophical and Literary Society of Newcastle, Robert brought home standard popular works and encyclopaedic volumes treating of natural science and of inventions. These books his father read and compelled him to read ; but the labour went very much against the boy’s grain.

The earliest ‘ drawing ’ by Robert Stephenson’s hand of which there is any record, was that of a sun-dial, copied from Ferguson’s ‘ Astronomy,’ and presented by the lad to Mr. Losh, in the year 1816, in token of his gratitude to him as his father’s benefactor. This drawing set the father and son on another work—the construction of a real sun-dial, which, on its completion, was fixed over George’s cottage door, where it still remains, bearing the date, ‘ August 11th, MDCCCXVI.’

A good story is told of ‘the hempy boy,’ who dearly loved mischief. From the meadow before the West Moor cabin he sent up his enormous kite, reined in by copper wire instead of string, the copper wire being insulated by a piece of silk cord. Anthony Wigham’s cow, peacefully grazing in the meadow, was first favoured with a smart dose of electricity, one end of the copper wire being brought down to the top of the animal’s tail. Standing at his cottage window, George Stephenson watched the discomfiture of his neighbour’s cow in high glee; but when the operator, ignorant whose eyes were upon him, relinquished the torture of the ‘coo,’ and proceeded to give his father’s pony a fillip with the subtle fluid, George rushed out from his cottage with upraised whip, exclaiming, ‘Ah! thou mischeevous scoondrel - aal paa thee.’ It is needless to say that Robert Stephenson did not wait to ‘ be paid.’

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