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Stephenson’s door betimes in the morning; and mounting him, he would ride the fifteen miles to Sankey, putting up at a little public house which then stood upon the banks of the canal. There he had his breakfast of “crowdie,” which he made with his own hands. It consisted of oatmeal stirred into a basin of hot water,—a sort of porridge,—which was supped with cold sweet milk.
On that day five of Stephenson’s locomotives were at work upon the railway, under the direction of his brother Robert; and the first shipment of coal was then made by the Hetton Company, at their new staiths on the Wear. The speed at which the locomotives travelled was about 4 miles an hour, and each engine dragged after it a train of 17 waggons, weighing about 64 tons.
The statue appropriately stands in a very thoroughfare of working-men, thousands of whom see it daily as they pass to and from their work; and we can imagine them, as they look up to Stephenson’s manly figure, applying to it the words addressed by Robert Nicoll to Robert Burns, with perhaps still greater appropriateness:—
Such was George Stephenson’s idea in contriving his floating road—something like an elongated raft across the Moss; and we shall see that he steadily kept it in view in carrying the work into execution. The first thing done was to form a footpath of ling or heather along the proposed road, on which a man might walk without risk of sinking.
These views, thus early entertained, originated in Stephenson’s mind the peculiar character of railroad works as distinguished from other roads; for, in railways, he early contended that large sums would be wisely expended in perforating barriers of hills with long tunnels, and in raising the lower levels with the excess cut down from the adjacent high ground.
Stephenson’s friends, fully satisfied of his claims to priority as the inventor of the safety-lamp used in the Killingworth and other collieries, held a public meeting for the purpose of presenting him with a reward “for the valuable service he had thus rendered to mankind.” A subscription was immediately commenced with this object, and a committee was formed, consisting of the Earl of Strathmore, C. J. Brandling, and others.
The resident engineer was sorely puzzled in the outset by the problem of constructing a road for heavy locomotives, with trains of passengers and goods, upon a bog which he had found incapable of supporting his own weight! Mr. Stephenson’s idea was, that such a road might be made to float upon the bog, simply by means of a sufficient extension of the bearing surface.
His grand text was—PERSEVERE; and there was manhood in the very word. On more than one occasion, the author had the pleasure of listening to George Stephenson’s homely but forcible addresses at the annual soirées of the Leeds Mechanics’ Institute. He was always an immense favourite with his audiences there. His personal appearance was greatly in his favour.
Professor Hodgkinson was accordingly called in, and he proceeded to verify and confirm the experiments which Mr. Fairbairn had made, and afterwards reduced them to the required formula. Mr. Stephenson’s time was so much engrossed with his extensive engineering business that he was in a great measure precluded from devoting himself to the consideration of the practical details.
Afterwards Emerson said, “that it was worth crossing the Atlantic to have seen Stephenson alone; he had such native force of character and vigour of intellect.” The rest of Mr. Stephenson’s days were spent quietly at Tapton, amongst his dogs, his rabbits, and his birds. When not engaged about the works connected with his collieries, he was occupied in horticulture and farming.
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