The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1859-11-01 00:00:00

ROBERT STEPHENSON'S EARLY LIFE.

(From Once A Week.)

Robert Stephenson first saw the light in the village of
Willington, at a cottage which his father occupied after
his marriage with Miss Fanny Henderson—a marriage
contracted on the strength of his fleet appointment as
" breaksinan" to the engine employed for lifting the bal.
last brought by the return collier ships to Newcastle.
Here Robert was born on the 17th of November, 1803.
As the cottage looked out upon a tramway, the eyes of
the child were naturally familiarized from infancy with
sights and scenes most nearly connected with his future
profession. At this time George Stephenson's means
were small, as, indeed, may be guessed from the fact that
nearly ten years later he thought himself a happy man
when he succeeded in obtaining a poet as engineer to • col-
liery with • salary of El*/ a year. Notwithstanding thee.
slender resources, the liberal-minded father found means
to give his sou such an education as could be obtained in
a provincial town, to which the energy and industry of
the son superailded such of the rudiments of mechanics
and engineering science as he could pick up in the long
winter evenings in the library of the Literary and Philo-
sophical Institute at Newcastle. Mr. Smiles tells us how
keenly the father felt as he grew up the want of a solid
education, and how perseveringly he laboured, after
reaching the years of manhood, to make up for lost
schooltime during his leisure momenta, and how he re-
solved that, poor as he was, his son should not suffer
in like manner by the want of early instruction in read-
ing, writing, and arithmetic, to which he added mecha-
nics as a fourth desideratum. The rudimentary and ex-
perimental knowledge which Robert picked up in his
father's workshop came in naturally to the aid of the
theoretic teaching of books, and supplemented his sci-
ence by practical capacity. As an early proof of the
latter we may mentiou that there still stands over the
door of the cottage at Killingworth, then occupied by
George Stephenson, a sundial the production of the
hands of the son, at the age of 13,—a work to which the
elder Stephenson looked back with an honed pride to his
dying day.
It is now just 40 years ago since Robert was taken
from school and taught to feel the truth of the old say-
ing of Persius, Magiofer artio renter. In 1818 or 1819
we find him apprenticed as an under-viewer to a coal
mine in the neighbourhood of the place in which he had
spent his childhood. Having devoted a year or two to
making himself practically acquainted with the
machinery and working of a colliery, he was sent to the
University of Edinburgh, where he spent a session in
attending the courses of lectures on chymistry, natural
philosophy, and geology. How far lie may have profited
by this opportunity of increasing his scientific know-
ledge we have the means of ascertaining, for he brought
home a prise for mathematics, much to the delight of his
father. He knew the value of opportunities, and he
had the great secret of socces—the art of availing
himself of them. His wind was too eminently practical
to forego any study or pursuit which was calculated, ,
even in its remoter bearings, to help on in the peat
struggle of life ; and happy, indeed, are they who can
look back with regret upon so few opportunities mimed,
so few court cards thrown away out of their hands as
Robert Stephenson.
Having spent a year or two as an apprentice in his
father's uianufactory of locomotives at Newcastle (even
at that time • school, if not of thought, yet of edition),
and two or three more years in South America, whither
he was sent to examine and report upon the gold and
silver mines of Columbia, be returned to England at the
close of 1827. He found the public mind greatly
excited upon the railway question. "Can locomotives
be successfully and profitably euiployeal for passenger
traffic" was still a moot point of which his father
sustained the affirmative, alone against • host. It was
almost a repetition of At/tam/sista rosins ethedion when
George Stephenson fought the battle of the Locomotive
—of the Rail and Wheel—or, as he himself termed them,
" Man and Wife?' Mr. Smiles tells us how he struggled
' for their conjunction in the committee-room of the
House of COIIIIIIOIII4 and when men deemed him all but
a maniac for persevering in his theory how bravely and
tenaciously he persisted till lie had succeeded. Joining
forces with Mr. Joseph Locke, the eminent engineer,
the eon not only wrote the ablest pamphlets uu the
subject in debate, but he greatly aided his father in the
conetruction of the Rocket, the celebrated prize loco-
motive, the powers of which as displayed at Liverpool
at once nettled the question at issue—just as the trial
trip of the Great Eastern has settled, we presume, the
much debated point as to whether so large • ship lAD
possibly be manageable in a heavy sea.
One of those best qualified to speak to his contribu-
tions to the development of the locomotive-engine
informs us that about five years from his return from
Anierica Robert Stephenson's attention was chiefly
directed to its improvement. " None but those who
accompanied hiui during the period in his incessant
experiments can form an idea of the amsaing metamor-
phosis which the machine underwent in it. The most
elementary principles of the application of beat; of the
mode of calculating the strength of cylindrical and other
boilers; of the strength of rivetting and of staying fiat
portions of the boilers, were then far from being under-
stood, and each step in the improvement of the engine
had to be confirmed by the most careful experiments
before the brilliant results of the Rocket and Planet
engines (the latter being the type of the existing modern
locomotive) could be arrived at."
Stephenson's time was not, however, so fully taken
up during the above interval as to preclude attention to
his other civil engineering business, and be executed
within it the Leicester and Swannington, Whitby and I
Pickering, Canterbury and Whitstable and Newton and ,
Warrington Railways, while he also erected an extensive 1
manufactory for locomotives at Newton, in Lancashire,
in partnership with the Mews. Tayleur. About the
middle of the above period, also, the first surveys and
estimates for the London and Birminghem Railway were
framed, leading eventually to the obtaining of the Act.
Then followed the execution of that line. and here
Robert Stephenson had an opportunity of showing his
great talent for management of works on a large scale.
This was the first railway of any magnitude executed
under the contract system • perfect sets of plans and
specifications (which have ;Moe served as • type for
nearly all the subsequent lines) were prepared—no small
matter for • aeries of works extending over 112 miles,
involving tunnels and other works of a then unprece-
dented magnitude.
Many other railways in England and abroad were exe-
cuted by him in rapid succession : the Midland, Black-
well, Northern and Eastern, Norfolk, Chester and
Holyhead, together with numerous branch lines, wee&
executed in this country by him • and aniong railways
abroad way be enumerated as works either executed by
him or recommended in his capacity of a consulting
engineer, the system of lines in Belgium, Italy, Norway,
and Egypt, and in France, Holland, Denmark, India,
Caneda, and New Zealand.

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The eminent Hoerimave asserted, that the only maladY hale'
remt In the human body I." the dew) of old age.- How Is it
then multitudes sink In childhood, many In youth, and of the
fee who reach and ram maturity, a small proportion 001) at-
tain old .me' Crowded cilia., luxuriouo Urine, lioentious In-
dulgence, accidents, waixt of proper precaution, are the re-
""e of the disastrous consequences of these
indiscretions may slimy' be averted by Holloway's Ointment
and Pill.. which operate externally and Internally; expelling
contaminated particles, and resinviguraling conetitutions
waisted by exam or imprudence.