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CHAPTER III.

ENGINE-MAN AT WILLINGTON QUAY AND KILLINGWORTH.

George Stephenson had now acquired the character of an expert workman. He was diligent and observant while at work, and sober and studious when the day's work was done. His friend Coe described him to the author as "a standing example of manly character." On pay-Saturday afternoons, when the pitmen held their fortnightly holiday, occupying themselves chiefly in cock-fighting and dog-fighting in the adjoining fields, followed by adjournments to the "yel-house," George was accustomed to take his engine to pieces, for the purpose of obtaining "insight," and he cleaned all the parts and put the machine in thorough working order before leaving her. His amusements continued to be principally of the athletic kind, and he found few that could beat him at lifting heavy weights, leaping, and throwing the hammer.

In the evenings he improved himself in the arts of reading and writing, and occasionally he took a turn at modeling. It was at Callerton, his son Robert informed us, that he began to try his hand at original invention, and for some time he applied his attention to a machine of the nature of an engine-brake, which reversed itself by its own action. But nothing came of the contrivance, and it was eventually thrown aside as useless. Yet not altogether so; for even the highest skill must undergo the inevitable discipline of experiment, and submit to the wholesome correction of occasional failure.

After working at Callerton for about two years, Stephenson received an offer to take charge of the engine on Willington Ballast Hill at an advanced wage. He determined to accept it, and at the same time to marry Fanny Henderson, and begin housekeeping on his own account. Though he was only twenty-one years old, he had contrived, by thrift, steadiness, and industry, to save as much money as enabled him, with the help of Fanny's small hoard, to take a cottage dwelling at Willington Quay, and furnish it in a humble but comfortable style for the reception of his bride.

Willington Quay lies on the north bank of the Tyne, about six miles below Newcastle. It consists of a line of houses straggling along the river side, and high behind it towers up the huge mound of ballast emptied out of the ships which resort to the quay for their cargoes of coal for the London market. The ballast is thrown out of the ships' holds into wagons laid alongside. When filled, a train of these is dragged to the summit of the Ballast Hill, where they are run out, and their contents emptied on to the monstrous accumulation of earth, chalk, and Thames mud already laid there, probably to form a puzzle for future antiquaries and geologists when the origin of these immense hills along the Tyne has been forgotten. At the foot of this great mound of shot rubbish was a fixed engine, which drew the trains of laden wagons up the incline by means of ropes working over pulleys, and of this engine George Stephenson acted as brakesman.

The cottage in which he took up his abode was a small two-storied dwelling, standing a little back from the quay, with a bit of garden ground in front;[22] but he only occupied the upper room in the west end of the cottage. Close behind rose the Ballast Hill.

When the cottage dwelling had been made snug and was ready for his wife's reception, the marriage took place. It was celebrated in Newburn Church on the 28th of November, 1802. George Stephenson's signature, as it stands in the register, is that of a person who seems to have just learned to write. With all the writer's care, however, he had not been able to avoid a blotch. The name of Frances Henderson has the appearance of being written by the same hand.

After the ceremony, George and his newly-wedded partner proceeded to the house of old Robert Stephenson and his wife Mabel at Jolly Close. The old man was now becoming infirm, though he still worked as an engine-fireman, and contrived with difficulty "to keep his head above water." When the visit had been paid, the bridal party prepared to set out for their new home at Willington Quay. They went in a style which was quite common before traveling by railway had been invented. Two farm-horses, borrowed from a neighboring farmer, were each provided with a saddle and a pillion, and George having mounted one, his wife seated herself behind him, holding on by her arms round his waist. The brideman and bridemaid in like manner mounted the other horse, and in this wise the wedding party rode across the country, passing through the old streets of Newcastle, and then by Wallsend to Willington Quay—a long ride of about fifteen miles.

George Stephenson's daily life at Willington was that of a steady workman. By the manner, however, in which he continued to improve his spare hours in the evening, he was silently and surely paving the way for being something more than a manual laborer. He diligently set himself to study the principles of mechanics, and to master the laws by which his engine worked. For a workman, he was even at that time more than ordinarily speculative, often taking up strange theories, and trying to sift out the truth that was in them. While sitting by the side of his young wife in his cottage dwelling in the winter evenings, he was usually occupied in studying mechanical subjects or in modeling experimental machines.

Among his various speculations while at Willington, he tried to discover a means of Perpetual Motion. Although he failed, as so many others had done before him, the very efforts he made tended to whet his inventive faculties and to call forth his dormant powers. He actually went so far as to construct the model of a machine for the purpose. It consisted of a wooden wheel, the periphery of which was furnished with glass tubes filled with quicksilver; as the wheel rotated, the quicksilver poured itself down into the lower tubes, and thus a sort of self-acting motion was kept up in the apparatus, which, however, did not prove to be perpetual. Where he had first obtained the idea of this machine—whether from conversation, or reading, or his own thoughts, is not known; but his son Robert was of opinion that he had heard of an apparatus of this kind as described in the "History of Inventions." As he had then no access to books, and, indeed, could scarcely yet read, it is probable that he had been told of the invention, and set about testing its value according to his own methods.

Much of his spare time continued to be occupied by labor more immediately profitable, regarded in a pecuniary point of view. In the evenings, after his day's labor at his engine, he would occasionally employ himself for a few hours in casting ballast out of the collier ships, by which means he was enabled to earn a few shillings weekly. Mr. William Fairbairn, of Manchester, has informed the author that, while Stephenson was employed at the Willington Ballast Hill, he himself was working in the neighborhood as an engine apprentice at the Percy Main Colliery. He was very fond of George, who was a fine, hearty fellow, besides being a capital workman. In the summer evenings young Fairbairn was accustomed to go down to Willington to see his friend, and on such occasions he would frequently take charge of George's engine for a few hours, to enable him to take a two or three hours' turn at heaving ballast out of the ships' holds. It is pleasant to think of the future President of the British Association thus helping the future Railway Engineer to earn a few extra shillings by overwork in the evenings, at a time when both occupied the rank but of humble working men in an obscure northern village.

Mr. Fairbairn was also a frequent visitor at George's cottage on the Quay, where, though there was no luxury, there was comfort, cleanness, and a pervading spirit of industry. Even at home George was never for a moment idle. When there was no ballast to heave, he took in shoes to mend; and from mending he proceeded to making them, as well as shoe-lasts, in which he was admitted to be very expert. William Coe, who continued to live at Willington in 1851, informed the author that he bought a pair of shoes from George Stephenson for 7s. 6d., and he remembered that they were a capital fit, and wore very well.

But an accident occurred in Stephenson's household about this time which had the effect of directing his industry into a new and still more profitable channel. The cottage chimney took fire one day in his absence, when the alarmed neighbors, rushing in, threw quantities of water upon the flames; and some, in their zeal, even mounted the ridge of the house, and poured buckets of water down the chimney. The fire was soon put out, but the house was thoroughly soaked. When George came home, he found the water running out of the door, every thing in disorder, and his new furniture covered with soot. The eight-day clock, which hung against the wall—one of the most highly-prized articles in the house—was seriously damaged by the steam with which the room had been filled. Its wheels were so clogged by the dust and soot that it was brought to a complete stand-still.

George was advised to send the article to the clock-maker, but that would cost money; and he declared that he would repair it himself—at least he would try. The clock was accordingly taken to pieces and cleaned; the tools which he had been accumulating for the purpose of constructing his Perpetual Motion machine readily enabled him to do this, and he succeeded so well that, shortly after, the neighbors sent him their clocks to clean, and he soon became one of the most expert clock-cleaners in the neighborhood.

It was while living at Willington Quay that George Stephenson's only son was born on the 16th of October, 1803.[23] The child was from the first, as may well be imagined, a great favorite with his father, and added much to the happiness of his evening hours. George Stephenson's strong "philoprogenitiveness," as phrenologists call it, had in his boyhood expended itself on birds, and dogs, and rabbits, and even on the poor old gin-horses which he had driven at the Callerton Pit, and now he found in his child a more genial object for the exercise of his affection.

The christening of the boy took place in the school-house at Wallsend, the old parish church being at the time in so dilapidated a condition from the "creeping" or subsidence of the ground, consequent upon the excavation of the coal, that it was considered dangerous to enter it.[24] On this occasion, Robert Gray and Anne Henderson, who had officiated as brideman and bridemaid at the wedding, came over again to Willington, and stood godfather and godmother to little Robert, as the child was named, after his grandfather.

After working for about three years as a brakesman at the Willington machine, George Stephenson was induced to leave his situation there for a similar one at the West Moor Colliery, Killingworth. It was not without considerable persuasion that he was induced to leave the Quay, as he knew that he should thereby give up the chance of earning extra money by casting ballast from the keels. At last, however, he consented, in the hope of making up the loss in some other way.

The village of Killingworth lies about seven miles north of Newcastle, and is one of the best-known collieries in that neighborhood. The workings of the coal are of vast extent, and give employment to a large number of work-people. To this place Stephenson first came as a brakesman about the end of 1804. He had not been long in his new home ere his wife died of consumption, leaving him with his only child Robert. George deeply felt the loss, for his wife and he had been very happy together. Their lot had been sweetened by daily successful toil. George had been hard-working, and his wife had made his hearth so bright and his home so snug, that no attraction could draw him from her side in the evening hours. But this domestic happiness was all to pass away, and the bereaved husband felt for a time as one that had thenceforth to tread the journey of life alone.

Shortly after this event, while his grief was still fresh, he received an invitation from some gentlemen concerned in large spinning-works near Montrose, in Scotland, to proceed thither and superintend the working of one of Boulton and Watt's engines. He accepted the offer, and made arrangements to leave Killingworth for a time.

Having left his boy in charge of a respectable woman who acted as his housekeeper, he set out on the journey to Scotland on foot, with his kit upon his back. While working at Montrose, he gave a striking proof of that practical ability in contrivance for which he was afterward so distinguished. It appears that the water required for the purposes of his engine, as well as for the use of the works, was pumped from a considerable depth, being supplied from the adjacent extensive sand strata. The pumps frequently got choked by the sand drawn in at the bottom of the well through the snore-holes, or apertures through which the water to be raised is admitted. The barrels soon became worn, and the bucket and clack leathers destroyed, so that it became necessary to devise a remedy; and with this object, the engine-man proceeded to adopt the following simple but original expedient. He had a wooden box or boot made, twelve feet high, which he placed in the sump or well, and into this he inserted the lower end of the pump. The result was, that the water flowed clear from the outer part of the well over into the boot, and was drawn up without any admixture of sand, and the difficulty was thus conquered.[25]

During his stay in Scotland, Stephenson, being paid good wages, contrived to save a sum of £28, which he took back with him to Killingworth, after an absence of about a year. Longing to get back to his kindred, and his heart yearning for the boy whom he had left behind, our engine-man bade adieu to his Montrose employers, and trudged back to Killingworth on foot as he had gone. He related to his friend Coe, on his return, that when on the borders of Northumberland, late one evening, footsore and wearied with his long day's journey, he knocked at a small farmer's cottage door, and requested shelter for the night. It was refused; and then he entreated that, being sore tired and unable to proceed any farther, they would permit him to lie down in the out-house, for that a little clean straw would serve him. The farmer's wife appeared at the door, looked at the traveler, then retiring with her husband, the two confabulated a little apart, and finally they invited Stephenson into the cottage. Always full of conversation and anecdote, he soon made himself at home in the farmer's family, and spent with them some pleasant hours. He was hospitably entertained for the night, and when he left the cottage in the morning, he pressed them to make some charge for his lodging, but they refused to accept any recompense. They only asked him to remember them kindly, and if he ever came that way, to be sure and call again. Many years after, when Stephenson had become a thriving man, he did not forget the humble pair who had thus succored and entertained him on his way; he sought their cottage again when age had silvered their hair; and when he left the aged couple on that occasion, they may have been reminded of the old saying that we may sometimes "entertain angels unawares."

Reaching home, Stephenson found that his father had met with a serious accident at the Blucher Pit, which had reduced him to great distress and poverty. While engaged in the inside of an engine, making some repairs, a fellow-workman inadvertently let in the steam upon him. The blast struck him full in the face; he was terribly scorched, and his eyesight was irretrievably lost. The helpless and infirm man had struggled for a time with poverty; his sons who were at home, poor as himself, were little able to help him, while George was at a distance in Scotland. On his return, however, with his savings in his pocket, his first step was to pay off his father's debts, amounting to about £15; and, shortly after, he removed the aged pair from Jolly's Close to a comfortable cottage adjoining the tram-road near the West Moor at Killingworth, where the old man lived for many years, supported by his son.

Stephenson was again taken on as a brakesman at the West Moor Pit. He does not seem to have been very hopeful as to his prospects in life at the time. Indeed, the condition of the working classes was then very discouraging. England was engaged in a great war, which pressed upon the industry, and severely tried the resources of the country. Heavy taxes were imposed upon all the articles of consumption that would bear them. There was a constant demand for men to fill the army, navy, and militia. Never before had England witnessed such drumming and fifing for recruits. In 1805, the gross forces of the United Kingdom amounted to nearly 700,000 men, and early in 1808 Lord Castlereagh carried a measure for the establishment of a local militia of 200,000 men. These measures were accompanied by general distress among the laboring classes. There were riots in Manchester, Newcastle, and elsewhere, through scarcity of work and lowness of wages. The working people were also liable to be pressed for the navy, or drawn for the militia; and though people could not fail to be discontented under such circumstances, they scarcely dared even to mutter their discontent to their neighbors.

George Stephenson was one of those drawn for the militia. He must therefore either quit his work and go a-soldiering, or find a substitute. He adopted the latter course, and borrowed £6, which, with the remainder of his savings, enabled him to provide a militia-man to serve in his stead. Thus the whole of his hard-won earnings were swept away at a stroke. He was almost in despair, and contemplated the idea of leaving the country, and emigrating to the United States. Although a voyage thither was then a much more formidable thing for a working man to accomplish than a voyage to Australia is now, he seriously entertained the project, and had all but made up his mind to go. His sister Ann, with her husband, emigrated about that time, but George could not raise the requisite money, and they departed without him. After all, it went sore against his heart to leave his home and his kindred, the scenes of his youth and the friends of his boyhood, and he struggled long with the idea, brooding over it in sorrow. Speaking afterward to a friend of his thoughts at the time, he said: "You know the road from my house at the West Moor to Killingworth. I remember once when I went along that road I wept bitterly, for I knew not where my lot in life would be cast." But his poverty prevented him from prosecuting the idea of emigration, and rooted him to the place where he afterward worked out his career so manfully and victoriously.

In 1808, Stephenson, with two other brakesmen, took a small contract under the colliery lessees, brakeing the engines at the West Moor Pit. The brakesmen found the oil and tallow; they divided the work among them, and were paid so much per score for their labor. There being two engines working night and day, two of the three men were always on duty, the average earnings of each amounting to from 18s. to 20s. a week. It was the interest of the brakesmen to economize the working as much as possible, and George no sooner entered upon the contract than he proceeded to devise ways and means of making the contract "pay." He observed that the ropes with which the coal was drawn out of the pit by the winding-engine were badly arranged; they "glued" and wore each other to tatters by the perpetual friction. There was thus great wear and tear, and a serious increase in the expenses of the pit. George found that the ropes which, at other pits in the neighborhood, lasted about three months, at the West Moor Pit became worn out in about a month. He accordingly set himself to ascertain the cause of the defect; and, finding that it was occasioned by excessive friction, he proceeded, with the sanction of the head engine-wright and of the colliery owners, to shift the pulley-wheels so that they worked immediately over the centre of the pit. By this expedient, accompanied by an entire rearrangement of the gearing of the machine, he shortly succeeded in greatly lessening the wear and tear of the ropes, to the advantage of the owners as well as of the workmen, who were thus enabled to labor more continuously and profitably.

About the same time he attempted an improvement in the winding-engine which he worked, by placing a valve between the air-pump and condenser. This expedient, although it led to no practical result, showed that his mind was actively engaged in studying new mechanical adaptations. It continued to be his regular habit, on Saturdays, to take his engine to pieces, for the purpose at the same time of familiarizing himself with its action, and of placing it in a state of thorough working order; and by mastering the details of the engine, he was enabled, as opportunity occurred, to turn to practical account the knowledge thus diligently and patiently acquired.

Such an opportunity was not long in presenting itself. In the year 1810, a pit was sunk by the "Grand Allies" (the lessees of the mines) at the village of Killingworth, now known as the Killingworth High Pit. An atmospheric or Newcomen engine, originally made by Smeaton, was fixed there for the purpose of pumping out the water from the shaft; but, somehow or other, the engine failed to clear the pit. As one of the workmen has since described the circumstance—"She couldn't keep her jack-head in water: all the engine-men in the neighborhood were tried, as well as Crowther of the Ouseburn, but they were clean bet." The engine had been fruitlessly pumping for nearly twelve months, and came to be regarded as a total failure. Stephenson had gone to look at it when in course of erection, and then observed to the over-man that he thought it was defective; he also gave it as his opinion that if there were much water in the mine, the engine could never keep it under. Of course, as he was only a brakesman, his opinion was considered to be worth very little on such a point. He continued, however, to make frequent visits to the engine to see "how she was getting on." From the bank-head where he worked his brake he could see the chimney smoking at the High Pit; and as the workmen were passing to and from their work, he would call out and inquire "if they had gotten to the bottom yet." And the reply was always to the same effect—the pumping made no progress, and the workmen were still "drowned out."

One Saturday afternoon he went over to the High Pit to examine the engine more carefully than he had yet done. He had been turning the subject over in his mind, and, after a long examination, he seemed to have satisfied himself as to the cause of the failure. Kit Heppel, one of the sinkers, asked him, "Weel, George, what do you mak' o' her? Do you think you could do any thing to improve her?" "Man," said George, in reply, "I could alter her and make her draw: in a week's time from this I could send you to the bottom."

Heppel at once reported this conversation to Ralph Dodds, the head viewer, who, being now quite in despair, and hopeless of succeeding with the engine, determined to give George's skill a trial. George had already acquired the character of a very clever and ingenious workman, and, at the worst, he could only fail, as the rest had done. In the evening Dodds went in search of Stephenson, and met him on the road, dressed in his Sunday's suit, on his way to "the preaching" in the Methodist Chapel, which he at that time attended. "Well, George," said Dodds, "they tell me that you think you can put the engine at the High Pit to rights." "Yes, sir," said George, "I think I could." "If that's the case, I'll give you a fair trial, and you must set to work immediately. We are clean drowned out, and can not get a step farther. The engineers hereabouts are all bet; and if you really succeed in accomplishing what they can not do, you may depend upon it I will make you a man for life."

Stephenson began his operations early next morning. The only condition that he made, before setting to work, was that he should select his own workmen. There was, as he knew, a good deal of jealousy among the "regular" men that a colliery brakesman should pretend to know more about their engine than they themselves did, and attempt to remedy defects which the most skilled men of their craft, including the engineer of the colliery, had failed to do. But George made the condition a sine quâ non. "The workmen," said he, "must either be all Whigs or all Tories." There was no help for it, so Dodds ordered the old hands to stand aside. The men grumbled, but gave way; and then George and his party went in.

The engine was taken entirely to pieces. The cistern containing the injection water was raised ten feet; the injection cock, being too small, was enlarged to nearly double its former size, and it was so arranged that it should be shut off quickly at the beginning of the stroke. These and other alterations were necessarily performed in a rough way, but, as the result proved, on true principles. Stephenson also, finding that the boiler would bear a greater pressure than five pounds to the inch, determined to work it at a pressure of ten pounds, though this was contrary to the directions of both Newcomen and Smeaton.

The necessary alterations were made in about three days, and many persons came to see the engine start, including the men who had put her up. The pit being nearly full of water, she had little to do on starting, and, to use George's words, "came bounce into the house." Dodds exclaimed, "Why, she was better as she was; now, she will knock the house down." After a short time, however, the engine got fairly to work, and by ten o'clock that night the water was lower in the pit than it had ever been before. The engine was kept pumping all Thursday, and by the Friday afternoon the pit was cleared of water, and the workmen were "sent to the bottom," as Stephenson had promised. Thus the alterations effected in the pumping apparatus proved completely successful.[26]

Mr. Dodds was particularly gratified with the manner in which the job had been done, and he made Stephenson a present of ten pounds, which, though very inadequate when compared with the value of the work performed, was accepted with gratitude. George was proud of the gift as the first marked recognition of his skill as a workman; and he used afterward to say that it was the biggest sum of money he had up to that time earned in one lump. Ralph Dodds, however, did more than this; he released the brakesman from the handles of his engine at West Moor, and appointed him engine-man at the High Pit, at good wages, during the time the pit was sinking—the job lasting for about a year; and he also kept him in mind for farther advancement.

Stephenson's skill as an engine-doctor soon became noised abroad, and he was called upon to prescribe remedies for all the old, wheezy, and ineffective pumping-machines in the neighborhood. In this capacity he soon left the "regular" men far behind, though they, in their turn, were very much disposed to treat the Killingworth brakesman as no better than a quack. Nevertheless, his practice was really founded upon a close study of the principles of mechanics, and on an intimate practical acquaintance with the details of the pumping-engine.

Another of his smaller achievements in the same line is still told by the people of the district. At the corner of the road leading to Long Benton there was a quarry from which a peculiar and scarce kind of ochre was taken. In the course of working it out, the water had collected in considerable quantities; and there being no means of draining it off, it accumulated to such an extent that the farther working of the ochre was almost entirely stopped. Ordinary pumps were tried, and failed; and then a windmill was tried, and failed too. On this, George was asked what ought to be done to clear the quarry of the water. He said "he would set up for them an engine, little bigger than a kailpot, that would clear them out in a week." And he did so. A little engine was speedily erected, by means of which the quarry was pumped dry in the course of a few days. Thus his skill as a pump-doctor soon became the marvel of the district.

In elastic muscular vigor Stephenson was now in his prime, and he still continued zealous in measuring his strength and agility with his fellow-workmen. The competitive element in his nature was always strong, and his success in these feats of rivalry was certainly remarkable. Few, if any, could lift such weights, throw the hammer and put the stone so far, or cover so great a space at a standing or running leap. One day, between the engine hour and the rope-rolling hour, Kit Heppel challenged him to leap from one high wall to another, with a deep gap between. To Heppel's surprise and dismay, George took the standing leap, and cleared the eleven feet at a bound. Had his eye been less accurate, or his limbs less agile and sure, the feat must have cost him his life.

But so full of redundant muscular vigor was he, that leaping, putting, or throwing the hammer, were not enough for him. He was also ambitious of riding on horseback; and, as he had not yet been promoted to an office enabling him to keep a horse of his own, he sometimes borrowed one of the gin-horses for a ride. On one of these occasions he brought the animal back reeking, when Tommy Mitcheson, the bank horse-keeper, a rough-spoken fellow, exclaimed to him, "Set such fellows as you on horseback, and you'll soon ride to the De'il." But Tommy Mitcheson lived to tell the story, and to confess that, after all, there had been a better issue of George's horsemanship than what he had predicted.

Old Cree, the engine-wright at Killingworth High Pit, having been killed by an accident, George Stephenson was, in 1812, appointed engine-wright of the colliery at the salary of £100 a year. He was also allowed the use of a galloway to ride upon in his visits of inspection to the collieries leased by the "Grand Allies" in that neighborhood.

The "Grand Allies" were a company of gentlemen, consisting of Sir Thomas Liddell (afterward Lord Ravensworth), the Earl of Strathmore, and Mr. Stuart Wortley (afterward Lord Wharncliffe), the lessees of the Killingworth collieries. Having been informed of the merits of Stephenson, of his indefatigable industry, and the skill which he had displayed in the repairs of the pumping-engines, they readily acceded to Mr. Dodds's recommendation that he should be appointed the colliery engine-wright; and, as we shall afterward find, they continued to honor him by distinguished marks of their approval.

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CHAPTER IV.

THE STEPHENSONS AT KILLINGWORTH—EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION OF FATHER AND SON.

George Stephenson had now been diligently employed for several years in the work of self-improvement, and he experienced the usual results in increasing mental strength, capability, and skill. Perhaps the secret of every man's best success in life is to be found in the alacrity and industry with which he takes advantage of the opportunities which present themselves for well-doing. Our engine-man was an eminent illustration of the importance of cultivating this habit of life. Every spare moment was laid under contribution by him, either for the purpose of adding to his earnings or to his knowledge. He missed no opportunity of extending his observations, especially in his own department of work, aiming at improvement, and trying to turn all that he did know to useful practical account.

He continued his attempts to solve the mystery of Perpetual Motion, and contrived several model machines with the object of embodying his ideas in a practical working shape. He afterward used to lament the time he had lost in these futile efforts, and said that if he had enjoyed the opportunities which most young men now have, of learning from books what previous experimenters had accomplished, he would have been spared much labor and mortification. Not being acquainted with what other mechanics had done, he groped his way in pursuit of some idea originated by his own independent thinking and observation, and, when he had brought it into some definite form, lo! he found that his supposed invention had long been known and recorded in scientific books. Often he thought he had hit upon discoveries which he subsequently found were but old and exploded fallacies. Yet his very struggle to overcome the difficulties which lay in his way was of itself an education of the best sort. By wrestling with them, he strengthened his judgment and sharpened his skill, stimulating and cultivating his inventiveness and mechanical ingenuity. Being very much in earnest, he was compelled to consider the subject of his special inquiry in all its relations, and thus he gradually acquired practical ability through his very efforts after the impracticable.

Many of his evenings were spent in the society of John Wigham, whose father occupied the Glebe farm at Benton close at hand. John was a fair penman and good arithmetician, and Stephenson frequented his society chiefly for the purpose of improving himself in writing and "figuring." Under Andrew Robertson he had never quite mastered the Rule of Three, and it was only when Wigham took him in hand that he made progress in the higher branches of arithmetic. He generally took his slate with him to the Wighams' cottage, when he had his sums set, that he might work them out while tending his engine on the following day. When too busy with other work to be able to call upon Wigham in person, he sent the slate by a fellow-workman to have the former sums corrected and new ones set. Sometimes also, at leisure moments, he was enabled to do a little "figuring" with chalk upon the sides of the coal-wagons. So much patient perseverance could not but eventually succeed; and by dint of practice and study, Stephenson was enabled to master the successive rules of arithmetic.

John Wigham was of great use to his pupil in many ways. He was a good talker, fond of argument, an extensive reader as country reading went in those days, and a very suggestive thinker. Though his store of information might be comparatively small when measured with that of more highly cultivated minds, much of it was entirely new to Stephenson, who regarded him as a very clever and extraordinary person. Wigham also taught him to draw plans and sections, though in this branch Stephenson proved so apt that he soon surpassed his master. A volume of "Ferguson's Lectures on Mechanics" which fell into their hands was a great treasure to both the students. One who remembers their evening occupations says he "used to wonder what they meant by weighing the air and water in so odd a way." They were trying the specific gravities of objects; and the devices which they employed, the mechanical shifts to which they were put, were often of the rudest kind. In these evening entertainments the mechanical contrivances were supplied by Stephenson, while Wigham found the scientific rationale. The opportunity thus afforded to the former of cultivating his mind by contact with one wiser than himself proved of great value, and in after life Stephenson gratefully remembered the assistance which, when a humble workman, he had received from John Wigham, the farmer's son.

His leisure moments thus carefully improved, it will be inferred that Stephenson continued a sober man. Though his notions were never extreme on this point, he was systematically temperate. It appears that on the invitation of his master, Ralph Dodds—and an invitation from a master to a workman is not easy to resist—he had, on one or two occasions, been induced to join him in a forenoon glass of ale in the public house of the village. But one day, about noon, when Mr. Dodds had got him as far as the public-house door, on his invitation to "come in and take a glass o' yel," Stephenson made a dead stop, and said, firmly, "No, sir, you must excuse me; I have made a resolution to drink no more at this time of day." And he went back. He desired to retain the character of a steady workman; and the instances of men about him who had made shipwreck of their character through intemperance were then, as now, unhappily too frequent.

But another consideration besides his own self-improvement had already begun to exercise an important influence upon his life. This was the training and education of his son Robert, now growing up an active, intelligent boy, as full of fun and tricks as his father had been. When a little fellow, scarce big enough to reach so high as to put a clock-head on when placed upon the table, his father would make him mount a chair for the purpose; and to "help father" was the proudest work which the boy then, and ever after, could take part in. When the little engine was set up at the Ochre Quarry to pump it dry, Robert was scarcely absent for an hour. He watched the machine very eagerly when it was set to work, and he was very much annoyed at the fire burning away the grates. The man who fired the engine was a sort of wag, and thinking to get a laugh at the boy, he said, "Those bars are getting varra bad, Robert; I think we maun cut up some of that hard wood, and put it in instead." "What would be the use of that, you fool?" said the boy, quickly. "You would no sooner have put them in than they would be burnt out again!"

So soon as Robert was of a proper age, his father sent him over to the road-side school at Long Benton, kept by Rutter, the parish clerk. But the education which he gave was of a very limited kind, scarcely extending beyond the primer and pothooks. While working as a brakesman on the pit-head at Killingworth, the father had often bethought him of the obstructions he had himself encountered in life through his want of schooling, and he formed the determination that no labor, nor pains, nor self-denial on his part should be spared to furnish his son with the best education that it was in his power to bestow.

It is true, his earnings were comparatively small at that time. He was still maintaining his infirm parents, and the cost of living continued excessive. But he fell back, as before, upon his old expedient of working up his spare time in the evenings at home, or during the night shifts when it was his turn to tend the engine, in mending and making shoes, cleaning clocks and watches, making shoe-lasts for the shoemakers of the neighborhood, and cutting out the pitmen's clothes for their wives; and we have been told that to this day there are clothes worn at Killingworth made after "Geordy Steevie's cut." To give his own words: "In the earlier period of my career," said he, "when Robert was a little boy, I saw how deficient I was in education, and I made up my mind that he should not labor under the same defect, but that I would put him to a good school, and give him a liberal training. I was, however, a poor man; and how do you think I managed? I betook myself to mending my neighbors' clocks and watches at nights, after my daily labor was done, and thus I procured the means of educating my son."[27]

By dint of such extra labor in his by-hours, with this object, Stephenson contrived to save a sum of £100, which he accumulated in guineas, each of which he afterward sold to Jews, who went about buying up gold coins (then dearer than silver), at twenty-six shillings apiece; and he lent out the proceeds at interest. He was now, therefore, a comparatively thriving man.

When he was appointed engine-wright of the colliery, he was, of course, still easier in his circumstances; and, carrying out the resolution which he had formed as to his boy's education, Robert was sent to Mr. Bruce's school in Percy Street, Newcastle, at mid-summer, 1815, when he was about twelve years old. His father bought for him a donkey, on which he rode into Newcastle and back daily; and there are many still living who remember the little boy, dressed in his suit of homely gray stuff cut out by his father, cantering along to school upon the "cuddy," with his wallet of provisions for the day and his bag of books slung over his shoulder.

When Robert went to Mr. Bruce's school he was a shy, unpolished country lad, speaking the broad dialect of the pitmen; and the other boys would occasionally tease him, for the purpose of provoking an outburst of his Killingworth Doric. As the shyness got rubbed off by familiarity, his love of fun began to show itself, and he was found able enough to hold his own among the other boys. As a scholar he was steady and diligent, and his master was accustomed to hold him up to the laggards of the school as an example of good conduct and industry. But his progress, though satisfactory, was by no means extraordinary. He used in after life to pride himself on his achievements in mensuration, though another boy, John Taylor, beat him at arithmetic. He also made considerable progress in mathematics; and in a letter written to the son of his teacher, many years after, he said, "It was to Mr. Bruce's tuition and methods of modeling the mind that I attribute much of my success as an engineer, for it was from him that I derived my taste for mathematical pursuits, and the facility I possess of applying this kind of knowledge to practical purposes, and modifying it according to circumstances."

During the time Robert attended school at Newcastle, his father made the boy's education instrumental to his own. Robert was accustomed to spend some of his spare time at the rooms of the Literary and Philosophical Institute, and when he went home in the evening he would recount to his father the results of his reading. Sometimes he was allowed to take with him to Killingworth a volume of the "Repertory of Arts and Sciences," which father and son studied together. But many of the most valuable works belonging to the Newcastle Library were not permitted to be removed from the rooms; these Robert was instructed to read and study, and bring away with him descriptions and sketches for his father's information. His father also practiced him in the reading of plans and drawings without at all referring to the written descriptions. He used to observe to his son, "A good drawing or plan should always explain itself;" and, placing a drawing of an engine or machine before the youth, he would say, "There, now, describe that to me—the arrangement and the action." Thus he taught him to read a drawing as easily as he would read a page of a book. Both father and son profited by this excellent practice, which shortly enabled them to apprehend with the greatest facility the details of even the most difficult and complicated mechanical drawing.

While Robert went on with his lessons in the evenings, his father was usually occupied with his watch and clock cleaning, or contriving models of pumping-engines, or endeavoring to embody in a tangible shape the mechanical inventions which he found described in the odd volumes on Mechanics which fell in his way. This daily and unceasing example of industry and application, working on before the boy's eyes in the person of a loving and beloved father, imprinted itself deeply upon his mind in characters never to be effaced. A spirit of self-improvement was thus early and carefully planted and fostered in him, which continued to influence his character through life; and toward the close of his career he was proud to confess that if his professional success had been great, it was mainly to the example and training of his father that he owed it.

Robert was not, however, exclusively devoted to study, but, like most boys full of animal spirits, he was very fond of fun and play, and sometimes of mischief. Dr. Bruce relates that an old Killingworth laborer, when asked by Robert, on one of his last visits to Newcastle, if he remembered him, replied with emotion, "Ay, indeed! Haven't I paid your head many a time when you came with your father's bait, for you were always a sad hempy?"

The author had the pleasure, in the year 1854, of accompanying Robert Stephenson on a visit to his old home and haunts at Killingworth. He had so often traveled the road upon his donkey to and from school that every foot of it was familiar to him, and each turn in it served to recall to mind some incident of his boyish days.[28] His eyes glistened when he came in sight of Killingworth pit head. Pointing to a humble red-tiled house by the roadside at Benton, he said, "You see that house—that was Rutter's, where I learned my A B C, and made a beginning of my school learning; and there," pointing to a colliery chimney on the left, "there is Long Benton, where my father put up his first pumping-engine; and a great success it was. And this humble clay-floored cottage you see here is where my grandfather lived till the close of his life. Many a time have I ridden straight into the house, mounted on my cuddy, and called upon grandfather to admire his points. I remember the old man feeling the animal all over—he was then quite blind—after which he would dilate upon the shape of his ears, fetlocks, and quarters, and usually end by pronouncing him to be a 'real blood.' I was a great favorite with the old man, who continued very fond of animals, and cheerful to the last; and I believe nothing gave him greater pleasure than a visit from me and my cuddy."

On the way from Benton to High Killingworth, Mr. Stephenson pointed to a corner of the road where he had once played a boyish trick upon a Killingworth collier. "Straker," said he, "was a great bully, a coarse, swearing fellow, and a perfect tyrant among the women and children. He would go tearing into old Nanny the huxter's shop in the village, and demand in a savage voice, 'What's ye'r best ham the pund?' 'What's floor the hunder?' 'What d'ye ax for prime bacon?'—his categories usually ending with the miserable order, accompanied with a tremendous oath, of 'Gie's a penny rrow (roll) an' a baubee herrin'!' The poor woman was usually set 'all of a shake' by a visit from this fellow. He was also a great boaster, and used to crow over the robbers whom he had put to flight; mere men in buckram, as every body knew. We boys," he continued, "believed him to be a great coward, and determined to play him a trick. Two other boys joined me in waylaying Straker one night at that corner," pointing to it. "We sprang out and called upon him, in as gruff voices as we could assume, to 'stand and deliver!' He dropped down upon his knees in the dirt, declaring he was a poor man, with a sma' family, asking for 'mercy,' and imploring us, as 'gentlemen, for God's sake, t' let him a-be!' We couldn't stand this any longer, and set up a shout of laughter. Recognizing our boys' voices, he sprang to his feet again and rattled out a volley of oaths, on which we cut through the hedge, and heard him shortly after swearing his way along the road to the yel-house."

On another occasion Robert played a series of tricks of a somewhat different character. Like his father, he was very fond of reducing his scientific reading to practice; and after studying Franklin's description of the lightning experiment, he proceeded to expend his store of Saturday pennies in purchasing about half a mile of copper wire at a brazier's shop in Newcastle. Having prepared his kite, he set it up in the field opposite his father's door, and bringing the wire, insulated by means of a few feet of silk cord, over the backs of some of Farmer Wigham's cows, he soon had them skipping about the field in all directions with their tails up. One day he had his kite flying at the cottage-door as his father's galloway was hanging by the bridle to the paling, waiting for the master to mount. Bringing the end of the wire just over the pony's crupper, so smart an electric shock was given it that the brute was almost knocked down. At this juncture his father issued from the house, riding-whip in hand, and was witness to the scientific trick just played off upon his galloway. "Ah! you mischievous scoondrel!" cried he to the boy, who ran off, himself inwardly chuckling with pride, nevertheless, at Robert's successful experiment.[29]

At this time, and for many years after, Stephenson dwelt in a cottage standing by the side of the road leading from the West Moor Pit to Killingworth. The railway from West Moor crosses this road close by the easternmost end of the cottage. The dwelling originally consisted of but one apartment on the ground floor, with a garret overhead, to which access was obtained by means of a step-ladder. With his own hands Stephenson built an oven, and in the course of time he added rooms to the cottage, until it became expanded into a comfortable four-roomed dwelling, in which he remained as long as he lived at Killingworth.

He continued as fond of birds and animals as ever, and seemed to have the power of attaching them to him in a remarkable degree. He had a blackbird at Killingworth so fond of him that it would fly about the cottage, and on holding out his finger the bird would come and perch upon it directly. A cage was built for "blackie" in the partition between the passage and the room, a square of glass forming its outer wall; and Robert used afterward to take pleasure in describing the oddity of the bird, imitating the manner in which it would cock its head on his father's entering the house, and follow him with its eye into the inner apartment.

Neighbors were accustomed to call at the cottage and have their clocks and watches set to rights when they went wrong. One day, after looking at the works of a watch left by a pitman's wife, George handed it to his son: "Put her in the oven, Robert," said he, "for a quarter of an hour or so." It seemed an odd way of repairing a watch; nevertheless, the watch was put into the oven, and at the end of the appointed time it was taken out, going all right. The wheels had merely got clogged by the oil congealed by the cold, which at once explains the rationale of the remedy adopted.

There was a little garden attached to the cottage, in which, while a workman, Stephenson took a pride in growing gigantic leeks and astonishing cabbages. There was great competition in the growing of vegetables among the villagers, all of whom he excelled excepting one, whose cabbages sometimes outshone his. To protect his garden-crops from the ravages of the birds, he invented a strange sort of "fley-craw," which moved its arms with the wind; and he fastened his garden-door by means of a piece of ingenious mechanism, so that no one but himself could enter it. His cottage was quite a curiosity-shop of models of engines, self-acting planes, and perpetual-motion machines. The last named contrivances, however, were only unsuccessful attempts to solve a problem which had already baffled hundreds of preceding inventors.

His odd and eccentric contrivances often excited great wonder among the Killingworth villagers. He won the women's admiration by connecting their cradles with the smoke-jack, and making them self-acting. Then he astonished the pitmen by attaching an alarm to the clock of the watchman whose duty it was to call them betimes in the morning. He also contrived a wonderful lamp which burned under water, with which he was afterward wont to amuse the Brandling family at Gosforth—going into the fish-pond at night, lamp in hand, attracting and catching the fish, which rushed wildly toward the flame.

Dr. Bruce tells of a competition which Stephenson had with the joiner at Killingworth as to which of them could make the best shoe-last; and when the former had done his work, either for the humor of the thing or to secure fair play from the appointed judge, he took it to the Morrisons in Newcastle, and got them to put their stamp upon it; so that it is possible the Killingworth brakesman, afterward the inventor of a safety-lamp and originator of the locomotive railway system, and John Morrison, the last-maker, afterward the translator of the Scriptures into the Chinese language, may have confronted each other in solemn contemplation of the successful last, which won the verdict coveted by its maker.

Sometimes George would endeavor to impart to his fellow-workmen the results of his scientific reading. Every thing that he learned from books was so new and so wonderful to him, that he regarded the facts he drew from them in the light of discoveries, as if they had been made but yesterday. Once he tried to explain to some of the pitmen how the earth was round, and kept turning round. But his auditors flatly declared the thing to be impossible, as it was clear that "at the bottom side they must fall off!" "Ah!" said George, "you don't quite understand it yet." His son Robert also early endeavored to communicate to others the information which he had gathered at school; and Dr. Bruce relates that, when visiting Killingworth on one occasion, he found him engaged in teaching algebra to such of the pitmen's boys as would become his pupils.

While Robert was still at school, his father proposed to him during the holidays that he should construct a sun-dial, to be placed over their cottage-door at West Moor. "I expostulated with him at first," said Robert, "that I had not learned sufficient astronomy and mathematics to enable me to make the necessary calculations. But he would have no denial. 'The thing is to be done,' said he, 'so just set about it at once.' Well, we got a 'Ferguson's Astronomy,' and studied the subject together. Many a sore head I had while making the necessary calculations to adapt the dial to the latitude of Killingworth. But at length it was fairly drawn out on paper, and then my father got a stone, and we hewed, and carved, and polished it, until we made a very respectable dial of it; and there it is, you see," pointing to it over the cottage door, "still quietly numbering the hours when the sun shines. I assure you, not a little was thought of that piece of work by the pitmen when it was put up, and began to tell its tale of time." The date carved upon the dial is "August 11th, MDCCCXVI." Both father and son were in after life very proud of their joint production. Many years after, George took a party of savans, when attending the meeting of the British Association at Newcastle, over to Killingworth to see the pits, and he did not fail to direct their attention to the sun-dial; and Robert, on the last visit which he made to the place, a short time before his death, took a friend into the cottage, and pointed out to him the very desk, still there, at which he had sat when making his calculations of the latitude of Killingworth.

From the time of his appointment as engineer at the Killingworth Pit, George Stephenson was in a measure relieved from the daily routine of manual labor, having, as we have seen, advanced himself to the grade of a higher-class workman. He had not ceased to be a worker, though he employed his industry in a different way. It might, indeed, be inferred that he had now the command of greater leisure; but his spare hours were as much as ever given to work, either necessary or self-imposed. So far as regarded his social position, he had already reached the summit of his ambition; and when he had got his hundred a year, and his dun galloway to ride on, he said he never wanted to be any higher. When Robert Wetherly offered to give him an old gig, his traveling having so much increased of late, he accepted it with great reluctance, observing that he should be ashamed to get into it, "people would think him so proud."

When the High Pit had been sunk and the coal was ready for working, Stephenson erected his first winding-engine to draw the coals out of the pit, and also a pumping-engine for Long Benton colliery, both of which proved quite successful. Among other works of this time, he projected and laid down a self-acting incline along the declivity which fell toward the coal-loading place near Willington, where he had formerly officiated as brakesman; and he so arranged it that the full wagons, descending, drew the empty wagons up the railroad. This was one of the first self-acting inclines laid down in the district.

The following is Stephenson's own account of his various duties and labors at this period of his life, as given before a Committee of the House of Commons in 1835:[30]

It will thus be observed that Stephenson had now much better opportunities for improving himself in mechanics than he had heretofore possessed. His practical knowledge of the steam-engine could not fail to prove of the greatest value to him. His shrewd insight, together with his intimate acquaintance with its mechanism, enabled him to apprehend, as if by intuition, its most abstruse and difficult combinations. The study which he had given to it when a workman, and the patient manner in which he had groped his way through all the details of the machine, gave him the power of a master in dealing with it as applied to colliery purposes.

Sir Thomas Liddell was frequently about the works, and took pleasure in giving every encouragement to the engine-wright in his efforts after improvement. The subject of the locomotive engine was already occupying Stephenson's careful attention, although it was still regarded in the light of a curious and costly toy, of comparatively little real use. But he had at an early period recognized its practical value, and formed an adequate conception of the might which as yet slumbered within it, and he now proceeded to bend the whole faculties of his mind to the development of its powers.