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Updated: June 14, 2025


This plan was adopted by him, as we have already seen, as early as 1815; and it was so successful that he himself attributed to it the greater economy of the locomotive as compared with horse power. Hence the continuance of its use upon the Killingworth Railway.

Stephenson took the opportunity of paying a visit to Killingworth, accompanied by some of the distinguished savans whom he numbered amongst his friends.

He was encouraged to persevere in the completion of his safety-lamp by the occurrence of several fatal accidents about this time in the Killingworth pit.

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 humour 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.

Who has taught them the songs and the secret of building their nests. You will be sorry when they are gone and will wish them back." But still the farmers shook their heads and said: "The birds must go." So the birds of Killingworth were driven away, until not a single note was heard, and only empty nests were left.

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, his love of fun began to show itself, and he was found able enough to hold his own amongst the other boys.

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.

He then produced several bladders full of carburetted hydrogen, which he had collected from the blowers in the Killingworth mine, and proved the safety of his lamp by numerous experiments with the gas, repeated in various ways; his earnest and impressive manner exciting in the minds of his auditors the liveliest interest both in the inventor and his invention.

We must remember, as we watch the ever-extending railway ramifying the country in every direction, that the first railway and the first locomotive ever built, were those which were brought into being in 1814 by George Stephenson, for the purpose of the carriage of coals from the Killingworth Colliery.

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 neighbourhood. In this capacity he soon left theregularmen far behind, though they in their turn were very mach disposed to treat the Killingworth brakesman as no better than a quack.

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