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Blackett was thus experimenting and building locomotives at Wylam, George Stephenson was anxiously studying the same subject at Killingworth. He was no sooner appointed engine-wright of the collieries than his attention was directed to the means of more economically hauling the coal from the pits to the river-side.
Robert Stephenson’s experience in the collieries of the North rendered him well fitted to grapple with such difficulties; yet even he, with all his practical knowledge, could scarcely have foreseen the serious obstacles which he was called upon to encounter in executing the formidable cuttings, embankments, and tunnels of the London and Birmingham Railway.
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 neighbourhood. 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 beginning of 1805.
The number of collieries in 1828 had increased to 41 on the Tyne, and 18 on the Wear, in all 59, producing 5,887,552 tons of coal. The out-put of coal in Northumberland and Durham in 1854 was no less than 15,420,615 tons, and now in these two counties there are 283 collieries. Mining began on the Tyne and continued on the Wear, where the industry has been largely developed.
Soon after his arrival he bought a lease of the bishop of Durham of the manors of Gateshead and Wickham, and worked the collieries on these properties to such good purpose that, on coming up to London in 1580 he brought with him two horse-loads of money, and was reputed to be worth fifty thousand pounds a great sum in those days.
The stream of life that is to flow into the future will be Celtic rather than American: it will come from the collieries, and not from the peerage. Fortunately, the reverse of this picture is equally possible. The race holds its destinies in its own hands. The highest wisdom will secure the survival and propagation of the fittest.
The scene of Jansenism had been a great capital, a brilliant society, the precincts of a court, the cells of a convent, the studies and libraries of the doctors of the Sorbonne, the council chambers of the Vatican. The scene of Methodism had been English villages and country towns, the moors of Cornwall, and the collieries of Bristol, at length London fashionable chapels.
There is in the Midlands a single-line tramway system which boldly leaves the county town and plunges off into the black, industrial countryside, up hill and down dale, through the long ugly villages of workmen's houses, over canals and railways, past churches perched high and nobly over the smoke and shadows, through stark, grimy cold little market-places, tilting away in a rush past cinemas and shops down to the hollow where the collieries are, then up again, past a little rural church, under the ash trees, on in a rush to the terminus, the last little ugly place of industry, the cold little town that shivers on the edge of the wild, gloomy country beyond.
This testing with the open flame has almost entirely ceased since the introduction of the perfected Davy lamp. The use of candles for illumination soon gave place in most of the large collieries to the introduction of small oil-lamps.
I happen to know, because some friends of mine met me only a few yards from your picture and began to talk about him. I had not known before that he was so rich. I had not heard about his collieries in Lancashire. Oh!" opening her big eyes in heart-felt yearning, "how I wish I owned a colliery! It must be so nice to be rich!" "I never was rich," answered Lady Agatha, with a bitter little sigh.
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