Robert Stephenson

Robert Stephenson  (16 October 1803 – 12 October 1859) was an English civil engineer and designer of locomotives. The only son of George Stephenson, the "Father of Railways", he built on the achievements of his father. Robert has been called the greatest engineer of the 19th century.

One of his first jobs was to survey the route of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. 

By 1850 he had been involved in building a third of the country's railway system. He designed the High Level Bridge and Royal Border Bridge on the East Coast Main Line. With Eaton Hodgkinson and William Fairbairn he developed wrought-iron tubular bridges, such as the Britannia Bridge in Wales, a design he would later use for the Victoria Bridge in Montreal, for many years the longest bridge in the world. He eventually worked on 160 commissions from 60 companies, building railways in other countries such as Belgium, Norway, Egypt and France. 

References

Category:1800 births
Category:1859 deaths
Category:British civil engineers
Category:British mechanical engineers
Category:People from Newcastle upon Tyne