Lives of George and Robert Stephenson by Samuel Smiles: Part 2: Chapter 19

Chapter XIX. Closing years of George Stephenson’s life. Illness and death. Character.

IN describing the completion of the series of great works detailed in the preceding chapter, we have somewhat anticipated the closing years of George Stephenson's life. He could not fail to take an anxious interest in the success of his son's designs, and he paid many visits to Conway and to Menai during the progress of the bridges. He was present on the occasion of the floating and raising of the first Conway tube, and there witnessed a proof of the soundness of Robert's judgment as to the efficiency and strength of the structure, of which he had at first expressed some doubt; but before the like test could be applied at the Britannia Bridge, George Stephenson's mortal anxieties were at an end, for he had then ceased from all his labours.

Toward the close of his life, George Stephenson almost entirely withdrew from the active pursuit of his profession. He devoted himself chiefly to his extensive collieries and lime-works, taking a local interest only in such projected railways as were calculated to open up new markets for their products.

At home he lived the life of a country gentleman, enjoying his garden and grounds, and indulging his love of nature, which, through all his busy life, had never left him. It was not until the year 1845 that he took an active interest in horticultural pursuits. Then he began to build new melon-houses, pineries, and vineries, of great extent; and he now seemed as eager to excel all other growers of exotic plants in his neighbourhood, as he had been some thirty years before to surpass the villagers of Killingworth in the production of cabbages and cauliflowers. He had a pine-house built 68 feet in length and a vinery 140 feet. Workmen were constantly employed in enlarging them, until at length he had no fewer than ten glass forcing-houses. He did not take so much pleasure in flowers as in fruits. At one of the county agricultural meetings he said that he intended yet to grow pineapples at Tapton as big as pumpkins. The only man to whom he would "knock under" was his friend Paxton, the gardener to the Duke of Devonshire; but he was so old in the sendee, and so skilful, that he could scarcely hope to beat him. Yet his "Queen" pines did take the first prize at a competition with the duke, though this was not until shortly after his death, when the plants had become fully grown. Stephenson's grapes also took the first prize at Rotherham, at a competition open to all England.

He was extremely successful in producing melons, having invented a method of suspending them in baskets of wire gauze, which, by relieving the stalk from tension, allowed nutrition to proceed more freely, and better enabled the fruit to grow and ripen.

He also took much pride in his growth of cucumbers. He raised them very fine and large, but he could not make them grow straight. Place them as he would, notwithstanding all his propping and humouring of them by modifying the application of heat and the admission of light, they would still insist on growing crooked in their own way. At last he had a number of glass cylinders made at Newcastle, and into these the growing cucumbers were inserted, when at last he succeeded in growing them perfectly straight. Carrying one of the new products into his house one day, and exhibiting it to a party of visitors, he told them of the expedient he had adopted, and added, "I think I have bothered them noo!" Farming operations were also carried on by him with success.

He experimented on manure, and fed cattle after methods of his own. He was very particular as to breed and build in stockbreeding. You see, sir," he said to one gentleman, I like to see the coo's back at a gradient something like this" (drawing an imaginary line with his hand), "and then the ribs or girders will carry more flesh than if they were so or so." When he attended the county agricultural meetings, which he frequently did, he was accustomed to take part in the discussions, and he brought the same vigorous practical mind to bear upon questions of tillage, drainage, and farm economy which he had before been accustomed to exercise on mechanical and engineering matters.

All his early affection for birds and animals revived. He had favourite dogs, and cows, and horses; and again he began to keep rabbits, and to pride himself on the beauty of his breed. There was not a bird's nest in the grounds that he did not know of; and from day to day he went round watching the progress which the birds made with their building, carefully guarding them from harm. His minute knowledge of the habits of British birds was the result of a long, loving, and close observation of nature.

At Tapton he remembered the failure of his early experiment in hatching birds' eggs by heat, and he now performed it successfully, being able to secure a proper apparatus for maintaining a uniform temperature. He was also curious about the breeding and fattening of fowls; and when his friend Edward Pease, of Darlington, visited him at Tapton, he explained a method which he had invented of fattening chickens in half the usual time.

The chickens were confined in boxes, which were so made as to exclude the light. Dividing the day into two or three periods, the birds were shut up at the end of each after a heavy feed, and went to sleep. The plan proved very successful, and Mr. Stephenson jocularly said that if he were to devote himself to chickens he could soon make a little fortune.

Mrs. Stephenson tried to keep bees, but found they would not thrive at Tapton. Many hives perished, and there was no case of success. The cause of failure was long a mystery to the engineer; but one day his acute powers of observation enabled him to unravel it. At the foot of the hill on which Tapton House stands, he saw some bees trying to rise up from among the grass, laden with honey and wax. They were already exhausted, as if with long flying; and then it occurred to him that the height at which the house stood above the bees' feeding-ground rendered it difficult for them to reach their hives when heavy laden, and hence they sank exhausted. He afterward incidentally mentioned the circumstance to Mr. Jesse, the naturalist, who concurred in his view as to the cause of failure, and was much struck by the keen observation which had led to its solution.

George Stephenson had none of the habits of the student. He read very little; for reading is a habit which is generally acquired in youth, and his youth and manhood had been, for the most part, spent in hard work. Books wearied him and sent him to sleep. Novels excited his feelings too much, and he avoided them, though he would occasionally read through a philosophical work on a subject in which he felt particularly interested. He wrote very few letters with his own hand. Nearly all his letters were dictated, and he avoided even dictation when he could.

His greatest pleasure was in conversation, from which he gathered most of his imparted information.

It was his practice, when about to set out on a journey by railway, to walk along the train before it started, and look into the carriages to see if he could find "a conversible face." On one of such occasions, at the Euston Station, he discovered in a carriage a very handsome, manly, and intelligent face, which he afterward found was that of the late Lord Denman. He was on his way down to his seat at Stony Middelton, in Derbyshire. Stephenson entered the carriage, and the two were shortly engaged in interesting conversation. It turned upon chronometry and horology, and the engineer amazed his lordship by the extent of his knowledge on the subject, in which he displayed as much minute information, even down to the latest improvements in watch-making, as if he had been bred a watchmaker and lived by the trade. Lord Denman was curious to know how a man whose time must have been mainly engrossed by engineering had gathered so much knowledge on a subject quite out of his own line, and he asked the question. "I learned clock making and watch making," was the answer, "while a working-man at Killingworth, when I made a little money in my spare hours by cleaning the pitmen's clocks and watches; and since then I have kept up my information on the subject." This led to farther questions, and then he proceeded to tell Lord Denman the interesting story of his life, which held him entranced during the remainder of the journey.

Many of his friends readily accepted invitations to Tapton House to enjoy his hospitality, which never failed. With them he would "fight his battles o'er again," reverting often to his battle for the locomotive; and he was never tired of telling, nor were his auditors of listening to, the lively anecdotes with which he was accustomed to illustrate the struggles of his early career.

While walking in the woods or through the grounds, he would arrest his friends' attention by allusion to some simple object such as a leaf, a blade of grass, a bit of bark, a nest of birds, or an ant carrying its eggs across the path and descant in glowing terms on the creative power of the Divine Mechanician, whose contrivances were so exhaustless and so wonderful. This was a theme upon which he was often accustomed to dwell in reverential admiration when in the society of his more intimate friends.

One night, when walking under the stars, and gazing up into the field of suns, each the probable centre of a system, forming the Milky Way, a friend observed, "What an insignificant creature is man in sight of so immense a creation as this!" "Yes!" was his reply: "but how wonderful a creature also is man, to be able to think and reason, and even in some measure to comprehend works so infinite!" A microscope which he had brought down to Tapton was a source of immense enjoyment, and he was never tired of contemplating the minute wonders which it revealed. One evening, when some friends were visiting him, he induced each of them to puncture his skin so as to draw blood, in order that he might examine the globules through the microscope. One of the gentlemen present was a teetotaller, and Stephenson pronounced his blood to be the most lively of the whole. He had a theory of his own about the movement of the globules in the blood, which has since become familiar. It was, that they were respectively charged with electricity, positive at one end and negative at the other, and that they thus attracted and repelled each other, causing a circulation. No sooner did he observe any thing new than he immediately set about devising a reason for it. His training in mechanics, his practical familiarity with matter in all its forms, and the strong bent of his mind, led him first of all to seek for a mechanical explanation; and yet he was ready to admit that there was a something in the principle of life so mysterious and inexplicable which baffled mechanics, and seemed to dominate over and control them. He did not care much, either, for abstruse mechanics, but only for the experimental and practical, as is usually the case with those whose knowledge has been self -acquired.

Even at his advanced age the spirit of frolic had not left him. When proceeding from Chesterfield Station to Tapton House with his friends, he would almost invariably challenge them to a race up the steep path, partly formed of stone steps, along the hill-side.

And he would struggle, as of old, to keep the front place, though by this time his "wind" greatly failed him. He would occasionally invite an old friend to take a wrestle with him on the lawn, to keep up his skill, and perhaps to try some new "knack" of throwing. In the evening he would sometimes indulge his visitors by reciting the old pastoral of "Damon and Phyllis," or singing his favourite song of "John Anderson my Joe." But his greatest enjoyment on such occasion was "a crowdie." "Let's have a crowdie night," he would say; and forthwith a kettle of boiling water was ordered in, with a basin of oatmeal.

Taking a large bowl, containing a sufficiency of hot water, and placing it between his knees, he poured in oatmeal with one hand, and stirred the mixture vigorously with the other. When enough meal had been added, and the stirring was completed, the crowdie was made. It was then supped with new milk, and Mr.

Stephenson generally pronounced it "capital!" It was the diet to which he had been accustomed when a working-man, and all the dainties with which he had become familiar in recent years had not spoiled his simple tastes. To enjoy crowdie at his years, besides, indicated that he still possessed that quality on which no doubt much of his practical success in life had depended a strong and healthy digestion.

He would also frequently invite to his house the humbler companions of his early life, and take pleasure in talking over old times with them. He never assumed any of the bearings of the great man on such occasions, but treated his visitors with the same friendliness and respect as if they had been his equals, sending them away pleased with themselves and delighted with him. At other times, needy men who had known him in their youth would knock at his door, and they were never refused access. But if he had heard of any misconduct on their part, he would rate them soundly. One who knew him intimately in private life has seen him exhorting such backsliders, and denouncing their misconduct and imprudence, with the tears streaming down his cheeks. And he would generally conclude by opening his purse, and giving them the help which they needed "to make a fresh start in the world." His life at Tapton during his later years was occasionally diversified by a visit to London. His engineering business having become limited, he generally went there for the purpose of visiting friends, or "to see what there was fresh going on." He found a new race of engineers springing up on all sides men who knew him not; and his London journeys gradually ceased to yield Mm pleasure. A friend used to take him to the opera, but by the end of the first act he was generally observed in a profound slumber. Yet on one occasion he enjoyed a visit to the Haymarket, with a party of friends on his birthday, to see T. P. Cooke in "Black-eyed Susan" if that can be called enjoyment which kept him in a state of tears during half the performance. At other times he visited Newcastle, which always gave him great pleasure. He would, on such occasions, go out to Killingworth and seek up old friends, and if the people whom he knew were too retiring and shrunk into their cottages, he went and sought them there. Striking the floor with his stick, and holding his noble person upright, he would say, in his own kind way, " Well, and how's all here to-day ?" To the last he had always a warm heart for Newcastle and its neighbourhood.

Sir Robert Peel, on more than one occasion, invited George Stephenson to his mansion at Drayton, where he was accustomed to assemble round him men of the highest distinction in art, science, and legislation, during the intervals of his Parliamentary life. The first invitations were respectfully declined; but Sir Robert again pressing him to come down to Tamworth, where he would meet Buckland, Follett, and others well known to both, he at last consented.

Stephenson's strong powers of observation, together with his native humour and shrewdness, imparted to his conversation at all times much vigour and originality. Though mainly an engineer, he was also a profound thinker on many scientific questions, and there was scarcely a subject of speculation or a department of recondite science on which he had not employed his faculties in such a way as to have formed large and original views. Mr. Sopwith, F.R.S., has informed us that the conversation at Drayton, on one occasion, turned on the theory of the formation of coal, in the course of which Stephenson had an animated discussion with Dr. Buckland. But the result was, that Dr. Buckland, a much greater master of tongue-fence, completely silenced him.

Next morning, before breakfast, when he was walking in the grounds deeply pondering, Sir William Follett came up and asked what he was thinking about. "Why, Sir William, I am thinking over that argument I had with Buckland last night. I know I am right, and that, if I had only the command of words which he has, I'd have beaten him." "Let me know all about it," said Sir William, "and I'll see what I can do for you." The two sat down in an arbor, where the astute lawyer made himself thoroughly acquainted with the points of the case, entering into it with the zeal of an advocate about to plead the interests of his client. After he had mastered the subject, Sir William said, "Now I am ready for him." Sir Robert Peel was made acquainted with the plot, and adroitly introduced the subject of the controversy after dinner. The result was, that in the argument which followed, the man of science was overcome by the man of law. "And what do you say, Mr. Stephenson?" asked Sir Robert, laughing. "Why," said he, "I say this, that of all the powers above and under the earth, there seems to me to be no power so great as the gift of the gab."

One Sunday, when the party had just returned from church, they were standing together on the terrace near the Hall, and observed in the distance a railway flashing along, tossing behind its long white plume of steam. "Now, Buckland," said Stephen son, "I have a poser for you. Can you tell me what is the power that is driving that train?" "Well," said the other, "I suppose it is one of your big engines." "But what drives the engine?" "Oh, very likely a canny Newcastle driver." "What do you say to the light of the sun?" "How can that be?" asked the doctor. "It is nothing else," said the engineer: "it is light bottled up in the earth for tens of thousands of years light, absorbed by plants and vegetables, being necessary for the condensation of carbon during the process of their growth, if it be not carbon in another form and now, after being buried in the earth for long ages in fields of coal, that latent light is again brought forth and liberated, made to work as in that locomotive, for great human purposes."

During the same visit Mr. Stephenson one evening repeated his experiment with blood drawn from the finger, submitting it to the microscope in order to show the curious circulation of the globules. He set the example by pricking his own thumb; and the other guests, by turns, in like manner gave up a small portion of their blood for the purpose of ascertaining the comparative liveliness of their circulation. When Sir Robert Peel's turn came, Stephenson said he was curious to know "how the blood globules of a great politician would conduct themselves." Sir Robert held forth his finger for the purpose of being pricked; but once and again he sensitively shrunk back, and at length the experiment, so far as he was concerned, was abandoned. Sir Robert Peel's sensitiveness to pain was extreme, and yet he was destined, a few years after, to die a death of the most distressing agony.

In 1847, the year before his death, George Stephenson was again invited to join a distinguished party at Drayton Manor, and to assist in the ceremony of formally opening the Trent Valley Railway, which had been originally designed and laid out by himself many years before. The first sod of the railway had been cut by the prime minister in November, 1845, and the formal opening took place on the 26th of June, 1847, the line having thus been constructed in less than two years.

What a change had come over the spirit of the landed gentry since the time when George Stephenson had first projected a railway through that district! Then they were up in arms against him, characterizing him as the devastator and spoiler of their estates, whereas now he was hailed as one of the greatest benefactors of the age. Sir Robert Peel, the chief political personage in England, welcomed him as a guest and friend, and spoke of him as the chief among practical philosophers. A dozen members of Parliament, seven baronets, with all the landed magnates of the district, assembled to celebrate the opening of the railway. The clergy were there to bless the enterprise, and to bid all hail to railway progress, as "enabling them to carry on with greater facility those operations in connection with religion which were calculated to be so beneficial to the country." The army, speaking through the mouth of General A'Court, acknowledged the vast importance of railways, as tending to improve the military defences of the country. And representatives from eight corporations were there to acknowledge the great benefits which railways had conferred upon the merchants, tradesmen, and working classes of their respective towns and cities.

In the spring of 1848 George Stephenson was invited to Whittington House, near Chesterfield, the residence of his friend and former pupil, Mr. Swanwick, to meet the distinguished American, Emerson. On being introduced to each other they did not immediately engage in conversation; but presently Stephenson jumped up, took Emerson by the collar, and, giving him one of his friendly shakes, asked how it was that in England we could always tell an American. This led to an interesting conversation, in the course of which Emerson said how much he had everywhere been struck by the haleness and comeliness of the English men and women, from which they diverged into a discussion of the influences which air, climate, moisture, soil, and other conditions exercised on the physical and moral development of a people.

The conversation was next directed to the subject of electricity, on which Stephenson launched out enthusiastically, explaining his views by several simple and some striking illustrations. From thence it gradually turned to the events of his own life, which he related in so graphic a manner as completely to rivet the attention of the American. Afterward Emerson said "that it was worth crossing the Atlantic were it only to have seen Stephenson he had such force of character and vigour of intellect." The rest of George Stephenson's days were spent quietly at Tapton, among his dogs, his rabbits, and his birds. "When not engaged about the works connected with his collieries, he was occupied in horticulture and farming. He continued proud of his flowers, his fruits, and his crops, while the old spirit of competition was still strong within him. Although he had for some time been in delicate health, and his hand shook from nervous debility, he appeared to possess a sound constitution. Emerson had observed of him that he had the lives of many men in him.

But perhaps the American spoke figuratively, in reference to his vast stores of experience. It appeared that he had never completely recovered from the attack of pleurisy which seized him during his return from Spain. As late, however, as the 26th of July, 1848, he felt himself sufficiently well to be able to attend a meeting of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers at Birmingham, and to read to the members his paper "On the Fallacies of the Rotatory Engine." It was his last public appearance. Shortly after his return to Tapton he had an attack of intermittent fever, from which he seemed to be recovering, when a sudden effusion of blood from the lungs carried him off, on the 12th of August, 1848, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. When all was over, Robert wrote to Edmund Pease, "With deep pain I inform you, as one of his oldest friends, of the death of my dear father this morning at 12 o'clock, after about ten days' illness from severe fever."

Mr. Starbuck, who was also present, wrote: "The favourable symptoms of yesterday morning were toward evening followed by a serious change for the worse. This continued during the night, and early this morning it became evident that he was sinking. At a few minutes before 12 to-day he breathed his last. All that the most devoted and unremitting care of Mrs. Stephenson and the skill of medicine could accomplish has been done, but in vain." George Stephenson's remains were followed to the grave by a large body of his work-people, by whom he was greatly admired and beloved. They remembered him as a kind master, who was ever ready actively to promote all measures for their moral, physical, and mental improvement. The inhabitants of Chesterfield evinced their respect for the deceased by suspending business, closing their shops, and joining in the funeral procession, which was headed by the corporation of the town. Many of the surrounding gentry also attended. The body was interred in Trinity Church, Chesterfield, where a simple tablet marks the great engineer's last resting-place.

The statue of George Stephenson, which the Liverpool and Manchester and Grand Junction Companies had commissioned, was on its way to England when his death occurred; and it served for a monument, though his best monument will always be his works. The statue referred to was placed in St. George's Hall, Liverpool. A full-length statue of him, by Bailey, was also erected, a few years later, in the noble vestibule of the London and North Western Station, in Euston Square. A subscription for the purpose was set on foot by the Society of Mechanical Engineers, of which he had been the founder and president, A few advertisements were inserted in the newspapers, inviting subscriptions; and it is a notable fact that the voluntary offerings included an average of two shillings each from 3,150 working-men, who embraced this opportunity of doing honour to their distinguished fellow-workman.

But the finest and most appropriate statue to the memory of George Stephenson is that which was erected in 1862, after the design of John Lough, at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. It is in the immediate neighbourhood of the Literary and Philosophical Institute, to which both George and his son Robert were so much indebted in their early years; close to the great Stephenson locomotive foundry established by the shrewdness of the father; and in the vicinity of the High-Level Bridge, one of the grandest products of the genius of the son. The head of Stephenson, as expressed in this noble work, is massive, characteristic, and faithful; and the attitude of the figure is simple, yet manly and energetic. It stands on a pedestal, at the respective corners of which are sculptured the recumbent figures of a pitman, a mechanic, an engine driver, and a plate-layer. The statue appropriately stands in a very thoroughfare of working-men, thousands of whom see it daily as they pass to and from their work; and we can imagine them, as they look up to Stephenson's manly figure, applying to it the words addressed by Robert Nicoll to Robert Burns, with perhaps still greater appropriateness: "Before the proudest of the earth We stand, with an uplifted brow; Like us, thou wast a toiling man And we are noble, now!" The portrait prefixed to this volume gives a good indication of George Stephenson's shrewd, kind, honest, manly face. His fair, clear countenance was ruddy, and seemingly glowed with health.

The forehead was large and high, projecting over the eyes, and there was that massive breadth across the lower part which is usually observed in men of eminent constructive skill. The mouth was firmly marked, and shrewdness and humour lurked there as well as in the keen gray eye. His frame was compact, well knit, and rather spare. His hair became gray at an early age, and toward the close of his life it was of a pure silky whiteness. He dressed neatly in black, wearing a white neck cloth; and his face, his person, and his deportment at once arrested attention, and marked the Gentleman.

• Lives of George and Robert Stephenson by Samuel Smiles
• Lives of George and Robert Stephenson by Samuel Smiles: Part 2: Chapter 18
• Lives of George and Robert Stephenson by Samuel Smiles: Part 2: Chapter 20

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