George Stephenson (11 page)

This in many ways brings us back to the Smiles version – of Stephenson arriving out of the blue. Smiles had the cooperation of Robert Stephenson in writing his book and no doubt he had heard his father's account of the first meeting.

The true background to the meeting – how much of it was chance, accident or design – will probably never now be known, but it was as a result of this meeting that Edward Pease, the socially conscious Quaker, found a way of doing some permanent good to Darlington, and to the world.

5

B
UILDING THE
D
ARLINGTON
L
INE

T
he meeting between Edward Pease and George Stephenson only became momentous in retrospect. At the time George was much busier elsewhere with other projects, as his letters show, and whether or not he harangued Pease with the brilliance of his locomotives, the official intention of the Stockton and Darlington Railway promoters was still plainly to use horsedrawn wagons. The line was perhaps going to be longer than any previous one, all of twenty-five miles, if it was ever built. It was planned to be public and open to all, thanks to the altruism of its Quaker backers, but to all intents and purposes it was just another horsedrawn colliery wagon way.

There was no sign that Pease had been instantly converted to locomotives but there is every sign that he'd been instantly converted to George Stephenson. The very next day, 20 April, he wrote to George at Killingworth telling him the good news that the bill had been passed and asking if he would be free to consider doing a survey. He was writing in his private capacity and this letter has not survived, but George's reply has been preserved and is still in Darlington, in the town's library. Its highly efficient and business-like tone suggests that perhaps George had hired himself a secretary by this stage instead of using assorted friends to cover up for his lack of writing skill.

Killingworth Colliery

April 28th, 1821

Edward Pease Esq.,

Sir,

I have been favoured with your letter of the 20 Inst & am glad to learn that the Bill has passed for the Darlington Rail Way.

I am much obliged by the favourable sentiments you express towards me: & shall be happy if I can be of service in carrying into execution your plans.

From the nature of my engagement here and in the neighbourhood, I could not devote the whole of my time to your Rail Way, but I am willing to undertake the survey & mark out the best line of Way within the limits prescribed by the Act of Parliament and also, to assist the Committee with plans & estimates, and in letting to the different Contractors such work as they might judge it advisable to do by Contract and also to superintend the execution of the Work. And I am induced to recommend the whole being done by Contract under the superintendence of competent persons appointed by the Committee.

Were I to contract for the whole line of Road it would be necessary for me to do so at an advanced price upon the Sub Contractors, and it would also be necessary for the Committee to have some persons to superintend my undertaking. This would be attended by an extra expense, and the Committee would derive no advantage to compensate for it.

If you wish it, I will wait upon you at Darlington at an early opportunity when I can enter into more particulars as to remuneration &c &c

I remain yours

respectfully

GEO. STEPHENSON

George went to Darlington and in turn Pease, accompanied by Thomas Richardson (the London Quaker banker) went to see George's engines and rails at Killingworth. One of the first results of George's arrival on the Darlington scene was that he persuaded Pease to consider the sort of smooth metal rails which were being laid down on the Netton line. All George's locomotives had the flanges on their wheels and it was obvious that if he hoped eventually to persuade the company to use locomotives, not horses, he had to have the right sort of rails. But the main reasoning at this stage was that good metal rails rather than the old style wooden ones – a subject which provoked endless discussion and letters – would be longer lasting, for horsedrawn wagons or for anything else.

Most of the company were still thinking of horses and had always agreed with Overton, their previous surveyor, that locomotives would never be any good. Overton had witnessed the failure of Trevithick's locomotive at Penydaren and as late as 1825 he was writing: ‘An engine on a public railroad would be a

perpetual nuisance.'

On 25 May 1821, the company formally adopted a corporate seal, a drawing of a horse pulling four wagons along a railway line, and a company motto ‘
Periculum privatam utilitas publica
', meaning private risk for public service. The choice of motto reflected the Quaker influence and the company trademark showed publicly that they were well and truly wedded to horses.

Pease had become privately interested in the possibility of locomotives, ever since meeting George, but at this stage there was no apparent advantage in them as far as speed went. George's colliery engines did little more than four miles an hour, which was about half the speed the new steam boats were doing down the coast from London to Newcastle. (George's sister had taken one when she was rushing home to Newcastle, thinking she was about to be married.) One of the main objects of the Darlington railway had always been to get the coal to the coast as quickly as possible and into the steam boats. The sea, not road or canal or rail, was still the quickest way to get goods from the north east to London. George did put up his speeds during his many demonstrations at Killingworth for William James or for the Darlington promoters, but his biggest concern was to prove to visitors, by plying them with facts and figures compiled by Wood and himself, that his locomotives, however ungainly and strange they might look, were four times cheaper than horses.

In July 1821 George was officially appointed by the company to survey their line. Edward Pease sent him a copy of the company's decision along with his letter telling George the news. As usual, it was in the Quaker style, using thee and thou, and with the number not the name of the month at the top of the page:

Darlington, 7th mo. 28th, 1821.

ESTEEMED FRIEND, GEORGE STEPHENSON, – Annexed are some resolutions passed at our last general meeting. We beg thee to take them into consideration, and so soon as thou can'st name thy charge for effecting all they contain which attaches to thee as engineer, drop me a line. The resolutions are so definite and comprehensive, it does not seem needful to add more, than to request that as soon as the crops are off the ground, no time may be lost, provided nothing can be done in the meantime. In making the survey, it must be borne in mind that this is for a great public way, and to remain as long as any coal in the district remains. Its construction must be solid, and as little machinery introduced as possible – in fact, we wish thee to proceed in all thy levels, estimates, and calculations, with that care and economy which would influence thee if the work was thy own; and it would be well to let comparative estimates be formed, as to the expense of a double and single railway, and whether it be needful to have it only double in some parts, and what parts; also comparative estimates as to the expense of malleable or cast iron. We shall be glad to hear from thee soon, and I am, on behalf of the committee, thy assured friend

(Signed)                    edward pease

To this characteristic letter George sent the following reply:

EDWARD PEASE, ESQ.

Sir, – After carefully examining your favour, I find it impossible to form an accurate idea of what such a survey would cost, as not only the old line must be gone over, but all the other deviating parts, which will be equal to a double survey, and, indeed, it must be done in a very different manner from your former one, so as to enable me to make a correct measurement of all the cuts and batteries on the whole line. It would, I think, occupy me at least five weeks. My charge shall include all necessary assistance for the accomplishment of the survey, estimates of the expense of cuts and batteries on the different projected line, together with all remarks, reports, &c, of the same. Also the comparative cost of malleable iron and cast-iron rails, winning and preparing the blocks of stone, and all materials wanted to complete the line. I could not do this for less than £140, allowing me to be moderately paid. I assure you, in completing the undertaking, I will act with that economy which would influence me if the whole of the work was my own.

GEORGE STEPHENSON

KILLINGWORTH COLLIERY, August 2d, 1821.

PS. If it meet your approbation, I should like as well to be paid by the day, which would be 2 guineas together with travelling expenses. The other Surveyor that will accompany me, I could not offer him much less. I shall also want 2 men to attend to the levelling staves and two to the measuring Chain.

I think we could not well go on with the Survey till after the Corn harvest.

G.S.

Meynell, the chairman who later resigned, wasn't all that keen on appointing Stephenson to survey the route all over again, not when they already had a perfectly good survey which had been passed by parliament. Pease explained that more precise information was needed, such as an estimate of what local contractors would charge, and that the Overton survey still wasn't liked by certain landowners. It seems fairly obvious that Pease had already formed a very high opinion of his esteemed friend Stephenson and was determined to have him as the surveyor, perhaps already thinking of making him engineer.

On 15 October, when the corn had been fully gathered in, George started his survey. His chief assistant was John Dixon, who was twenty-six, a young man with good local connections. Dixon's grandfather had been one of those who had worked on a survey for a Stockton–Darlington canal some fifty years earlier and his great uncle had been Jeremiah Dixon, a noted surveyor and mathematician. Jeremiah Dixon was sent out to Pennsylvania in 1763 with another Englishman called Mason to measure the limits of the province of Pennsylvania. It was this line, separating The slave states from the free, which became known as the Mason and Dixon line.

John Dixon was the son of a local coal owner who'd sold out to Backhouse. He had started work as a clerk in the Backhouse bank, moving as a clerk to the railway company when it opened its first office in Darlington. He appears to have been a Quaker himself, as he was related to the Backhouse family, but whether he was or not, the Quakers considered him a good man to help, or perhaps keep an eye on, the still rather unknown Stephenson. They became the best of friends and colleagues. John Dixon was later to become one of the best known of the early railway engineers, one of

George's many pupils who made good.

Robert, George's son, was appointed as the other main assistant. He was just eighteen but was withdrawn from his apprenticeship to Nicholas Wood, George's old friend and the manager at Killingworth, to join the survey. He had done two of his three years and was apparently very glad to give up having to go underground and escape from colliery life generally. George had wanted him to get the sort of professional engineering training he himself had never had – which meant colliery engineering. Although by this time George's main concern was locomotives, there was still no such person as a railway engineer to whom Robert could have been apprenticed. However, now was a chance for him to widen his experience, to help his father and to get out into the fresh air. George was always worried that Robert, like his mother, was suffering from poor health.

The weather was good and they finished the initial field work in just over two weeks, and by January 1822 George had his survey ready. He had managed to shorten Overton's route by just under four miles and had worked out ways of creating easier gradients. He was privately confident of being allowed to run locomotives on the line, though the company had still not considered such a suggestion. In a letter to William James in December 1821 he says, We fully expect to get the engines introduced on the Darlington Railway.'

James had become a national figure on railway matters, rushing round the country inspecting rails, surveying lines, holding meetings, encouraging people to set up railway committees. The motive power was to be horses plus stationary engines, but he was soon talking about locomotives. After his public encouragement of George's engines they had become family friends, exchanging many letters and affectionate greetings. In 1822 Robert, to his delight, was allowed to join William James in an initial survey for a line being proposed between Liverpool and Manchester. George obviously missed his son and wrote to James in October 1822 saying he'd like him back soon as he had so much work to do.

The work to be done was tremendous. Only four days after his survey had been presented George was appointed Engineer of the Stockton and Darlington Railway. He was still employed by the Grand Allies at Killingworth, doing the finishing off on the Hetton colliery line and he made it clear that he could spend little more than one week a month on the Darlington job. All the same, the company were willing to pay him £600 a year, including expenses, to be their engineer.

One of the most important problems still being discussed was the nature of the rails. It will be remembered that some time previously George had taken out a patent with William Losh for the manufacture of cast iron rails and had had them laid at Killingworth. Other collieries had ordered similar rails and the two of them must have been making a regular income in royalties. But in 1821 John Birkinshaw, an engineer at Bedlington iron works near Morpeth, had patented a new method of rolling wrought iron rails in fifteen feet lengths. George went to see these malleable rails and came to the conclusion that they were superior to his own invention. ‘I think they will do away with the cast iron railways,' so he wrote to Robert Stevenson in Edinburgh, still an advisor to the company, though like Overton before him, George was becoming a bit disgruntled at having such a consultant in the background.