The Sun.
London, England, 1859-10-13 00:00:00

THE LATE MR. R. STEPHENSOIV,

The death of Stephenson comes with startling
rapidity upon that of Brunel. Both men of rare
genius, and both occupying a sort of double throne
at the head of their profession, they have gone to
their rest together, and their rivalry has ceased.
Distinguished sons of distinguished fathers, the two
men who in these latter years have done most to
perfect the art of travel, and in this way to culti-
vate social intercourse, multiply wealth, and ad-
vance civilisation, have been struck down at one
feel swoop in all the maturity of their power. Mr.
Stephenson's health had been delicate for about
two years, and he complained of failing strength
before his last journey to Norway. In Norway he
became very unwell; his liver was so much affected
that he hurried home, and when he arrived at
Lowestoft he was so weak that he had to be carried
from his yacht to the railway station, and thence
to his residence in Glocester-square, where his
malady grew so rapidly as to leave from the first
but faint hopes of his recovery. He had not strength
enough to resist the disease, and he gradually sunk
until at length he expired yesterday morning. If
his loss will be felt severely in his profession, it will
be still more poignantly felt in his large circle of
friends and acquaintances, for he was as good as
he was great, and the man was even more to be ad-
mired than the engineer. His benevolence was un-
bounded, and every year he expended thousands in
doing good unseen. His chief care in this way was
for the children of old friends who had been kind
to him in early life, sending them to the best
schools and providing for them with characteristic
generosity. His own pupils regarded him with a
sort of worship, and the number of men belonging
to the Stephenson school who have taken very high
rank in their peculiar walk shows how successful he
was in his system of training, and how strong was
the force of his example. The feeling of his friends
and associates was not less warm. A man of
the soundest judgment and the strictest probity,
with a noble heart and most genial manner, he
won the confidence of all who knew him, and
perhaps in all London there were not more plea-
sant social gatherings than those which were to
be found in his house in Glocester-square, he him-
self being the life of the party. Without a spark
of professional jealousy in his own nature, he was
liked by all his fellow engineers, if they did not
know him sufficiently to bear him affection ; and
we do not believe that even those who had the most
reason to wish him ow, of the way, such as the
promoters of the Suez Canal, which he strenuously
opposed, ever bore him any ill will. He has passed
away, if not very full of years, yet very full of
honours—the creator of public works, a benefactor
of his race, the idol of his friends.

He was certainly born under very humble cir-
cumstances. George Stephenson, his father, deemed
himself a right happy man when, on earnings of £1
a-week, he could offer his hand and fortune to the
pretty farm servant, Fanny Henderson. He took
her to his home at Willington-quay, on the north
bank of the Tyne, about six miles below Newcastle,
towards the end of 1802, and his biographer tells
us that his signature, as it appears in the parish
books on the occasion of his marriage, was that of
a person who had just learnt to write. On the
16th of December in the following year George
Stephenson's only son, Robert, was born ; and there
on Willington-quay he was familiarised from his
earliest years with the steady industry of his
parents, for when his father was not busy in shoe-
making, or cutting out shoe lasts, or cleaning
clocks, or making clothes for the pitmen, he was
occupied with some drawing or model with which
he sought to improve himself. Robert's mother
very soon died, and his father, whose heart was
bound up in the boy, had to take the sole charge
of him. George Stephenson felt deeply his own
want of education, and in order that his son might
not suffer from the same cause, sent him first to a
school at Long Benton, and afterwards to the
school of a Mr. Bruce, in Newcastle, one of the best
seminaries of the district, although the latter was
rather expensive for Stephenson. There youngßobert
remained for three years, and his father not only
encouraged him to study for himself but also made
him in a measure the instrument of his own better
education, by getting the lad to read for him at the
library in Newcastle, and bring home the results at
his weekly acquirements, as well as frequently a
scientific book which father and son studied to-
gether. On leaving school, at the age of 15, Robert
Stephenson was apprenticed to Mr. Nicholas Wood,
at Chillingworth, to learn the business of the col-
liery, where he served for three years, and became
familiar with all the departments of underground.
work. His father was engaged at the same col-
liery, and the evenings of both were usually de-
voted to their mutual improvement. Mr. Smiles
describes the animated discussions which in this
way took place in their humble cottage, these dis•
cussions frequently turning on the then compara-
tively unknown powers of the locomotive engine
daily at work on the waggon-way. The son was
even more enthusiastic than the father on the sub-
ject. Robert would suggest alterations and im-
provements in all the details of the machine. The
father would make every possible objection, de-
fending the existing arrangements, but proud,
nevertheless, of his son's suggestions, often warmed
by his brilliant anticipations of the triumph of the
locomotive, and perhaps anxious to pump him as
much as he could. It was probably out of these
discussions that there arose in Goorge Stephenson's
mind the desire to give his son a still better educa-
tion. He sent him in the year 1820 to the Edin-
burgh Uriversity, where Hope was lecturing on
chymistry, Sir John Leslie on natural philosophy,
and Jameson-on hatural history. Though young
Stephenson remained in Edinburgh but six months
it is supposed that he did as much work in that
time as most students do in a three years' course.
It cost his father some £BO, but the money was not
grudged when the son returned to Chillingworth
in the summer of 1821, bringing with him the prize
for mathematics, which he had gained at the Uni-
versity.

In 1822 Robert Stephenson was apprenticed to
his father, who had by this time started his loco-
motive manufactory at Newcastle; but his health
giving way after a couple of years' exertion, he
accepted a commission to examine the gold and
silver mines of South America. The change of air
and scene contributed to the restoration of
his health, and, after having founded the River
Mining Compaiy of Columbia, he returned to Eng-
land in December, 1827, by way of the United
States and Canada, in time to assist his father in
the arrangements of the Liverpool and Manchester
Railway, by placing himself at the head of the fac-
tory at Newcastle. About this time, indeed, he
seems to have almost exclusively devoted his atten-
tion to the study of the locomotive engine, the
working of which he explained jointly with Mr.
Locke, in a report replying to that of Messrs.
Walker and Rastrick, who advocated stationary
engines. How well he succeeded in carrying out
the ideas of his father was afterwards seen when he
obtained the prize of £5OO offered by the directors
of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway for the
best locomotive. He himself gave the entire credit
of the invention to his father and Mr. Booth, al-
though we believe that the " Rocket," which was
the designation of his prize- winning engine, was
entered in the name of Robert Stephenson. Even
this locomotive, however, was far from perfect, and
was not destined to be the future model. The young
engineer s tw where the machine was defective, end
designed the" Planet," which, with its multitubular
boiler, with cylinders in the smoke-box, with its
cranked axeltree, and with its external framework,
forms, in spite of some modifications, the type of
our locomotive engines employed up to the present
day. About the same time he designed for the
United States an engine specially adapted to the
curves of American railways, and named it the
" Bogie," after a kind of low waggon used on the
quay at Newcastle. To Robert Stephenson we are
accordingly indebted for the type of the locomotive
engines used in both hemispheres.
Tho next great work upon which Mr. Stephenson
was engaged was the survey and construction of the
London and Birmingham Railway, which he under-
took in 1832. He had already been employed in
the execution of a branch from the Liverpool and
Manchester Railway, and in the construction of the
Leicester and Swanningten line, so that he brought
to his new undertaking considerable experience. On
being appointed engineer to the company he settled
in London, and had the satisfaction of seeing the
first sod cut on the Ist of June, 1835, at Chalk
Farm. The line was completed in four years, and on
the 15th of September, 1838, was opened. The
difficulties of this vast undertaking are now all
forgotten, but at the time they were so formidable
that one poor fellow, who had contracted for the
Kilsby tunnel, died of fright at the responsibility
which he had assumed. It was ascertained that
about 200 yards from the south end of the tunnel
there existed, overlaid by a bed of clay 40 feet
thick, a hidden quicksand. The danger was so im-
minent that it was seriously proposed to abandon
the tunnel altogether, but Robert Stephenson ac-
cepted the responsibility of proceeding, and in the
end conquered every difficulty. He worked with
amazing energy, walking the whole distance be-
tween London and Birmingham more than twenty
times in the course of his superintendence. All
this time, however, he had not ceased to devote his
attention to the manuflictory in Newcastle, con-
vinced that good locomotives are the first step to
rapid transit ; and his assistance was sought by
many companies anxious to secure his advice if not
more constant service. His evidence before Parlia-
mentary committees was grasped at, and it may be
said that in one way or another ho has been en-
gaged on all the railways in England, while in
conjunction with his father he has directed the