George Stephenson (16 page)

As in many father–son sagas, George naturally wanted Robert to have all the advantages he'd never had, especially the education. He wanted his son to be a skilled, trained, professional engineer, a profession for which Robert had definite talents, but was against him studying anything on the arts side. He wasn't concerned with him getting the Latin, which George also had missed, or being a cultured gentleman.

George probably made Robert even more aware of his poor health than was necessary, using it as one of the arguments why he shouldn't be out playing in the street or helping the men, but inside studying his books. The nature of Robert's ill health isn't clear, though it was assumed he had inherited his mother's consumptive tendencies. Having lost his wife so early – and having had her an invalid for two years earlier – it's not surprising George should be so worried about his only son's health. According to Jeaffreson, Robert as a boy was ‘afflicted with profuse nightly perspirations to obviate which the doctors made him sleep on a hay mattress. He was liable to catch cold and the tendency it had to strike at his lungs made his father apprehensive that tubercular consumption might attack him.' Could the nightly perspirations have been psychological?

Robert always had a strong liking for the outdoor life, perhaps to counter this closeted childhood, perhaps to prove he was as strong and healthy as his father. Bearing this in mind, it could be that Robert's insistence in one of his letters that South America would be good for his health was a half-joke, turning George's old argument back at him. Having been forced to live with decisions supposedly good for his health, he was now turning his health to his own advantage.

As for examples of teenage revolt, there is admittedly no evidence, but some of George's actions would indicate that George was deliberately keeping him happy, perhaps to counter signs of unrest if not open revolt. In a contemporary situation the father lavishes fast cars and other material presents on the son to keep him at home. The attractions which George put Robert's way were much worthier, as befitted a worthy father who wanted the best training for his worthy son, and would certainly please a son who was genuinely studious at heart, but they nonetheless smack of paternal peace offerings.

It is noticeable how many interesting jobs and visits George regularly contrived for Robert. There are omissions and confusions in both Smiles and Jeaffreson, which have obscured for many years the sequence of events in Robert's early life, but it is now clear from his letters that he was receiving treats since his early teenage days. For example, during his apprenticeship years with Nicholas Wood, George paid for him to have a holiday in London on his own. He went to see the usual sights, like St Paul's, plus some others which show his scientific bent, such as the London Water Works and one which was the talk of the town at the time – a model of an Egyptian tomb which had been sent to London by Belzoni – which with hindsight would indicate Robert's early interest in foreign places.

As we have already seen, he was taken away prematurely from his apprenticeship in October 1821 to help his father with the Stockton–Darlington survey. George even put Robert's name on the plans as engineer, though it was only on a later branch line that he was in charge. From a tender age he took a leading part in the London parliamentary lobbying for the Darlington railway. Exactly a year later, in October 1822, he's off on another survey, this time with James on the Liverpool line. He then went directly, if briefly, to Edinburgh university which, according to his letters, he was attending from November 1822. (Smiles wrongly says that Robert went to Edinburgh in 1820, straight from his apprenticeship.) Next of course came the founding of the loco works in his name and then the numerous exciting trips round the country, to Ireland with his father in September 1823 and with his uncle Robert to Cornwall and Devon in February and March, 1824.

Unlike his father, Robert was educated and literate and wrote amusing and informative letters, all in his own hand, describing the places he was visiting, These letters provide some of the best insights into the character of Robert and of the relationship with his father. Naturally, they tend mainly to be technical, as that was the reason for the trips, reporting back on locomotive possibilities, and in the past it has been mainly the technical side which has been deemed of interest. Even Rolt, for all his good work on the James affair, wrote as a trained engineer and his interests were

obviously on the mechanical side.

From letters written during his six months or so at Edinburgh, Robert emerges as a self-assured young man, rather critical of his lecturers. He appears much older and more worldly than his years – at the time he had just turned nineteen – but perhaps his practical experience in the coal mines and on railway surveys made him feel superior to those students who'd come straight from school. Should it be true that George had pushed him up to Edinburgh to free him from James, then this could explain some of

the cynicism.

This early letter from Edinburgh was written to Michael Longridge back in Newcastle, his father's business partner and a lifelong friend of both Robert and George.

Edinbro' 4, 1822

SIR, – I would have sent my Lectures ere now had they contained anything new. Mr. Jameson's Lectures have hitherto been confined chiefly to Zoology, a part of Natural History which I cannot say I am enraptured with; nor can I infer from many of his Lectures any ultimate benefit, unless to satisfy the curiosity of man. Natural historians spend a great deal of time in enquiring whether Adam was a black or white man. Now I really cannot see what better we should be, if we could even determine this with satisfaction; but our limited knowledge will always place this question in the shade of darkness. The Professor puzzles me sadly with his Latin appellations of the various divisions, species, genera, &c., of the animal kingdom. He lectures two days a week on Meteorology and three on Zoology. This makes the course very unconnected.

I have taken notes on Natural Philosophy, but have not written them out, as there has been nothing but the simplest parts, and which I was perfectly acquainted with. Therefore I thought I might spend my time better in reading. I shall send you them when he comes to the most difficult parts. Leslie intends giving a Lecture on Saturdays to those who wish to pursue the most abstruse parts of Natural Philosophy. I have put my name down for one of those: he gives questions out every Friday to answer on the Saturday. I have been highly delighted with Dr. Hope's Lectures. He is so plain and familiar in all his elucidations. I have received the books all safe.

There's a rather curt letter several months later, on 11 April 1823, again to Longridge, asking for some money which his father hasn't yet sent.

Edinburgh: April 11, 1823

SIR, – I wrote home. on the 5th, but from yours it appears my father would be set off for London before the arrival of my letter, in which I desired him to send me a bill for £26. I should feel obliged if you will send me it at your first convenience, as I am rather in want of it at present.

The Natural History finishes next Tuesday. The Natural Philosophy on Friday the 18th. Chemistry finishes on the 27th or 28th.

I have been fortunate in winning a prize in the Natural Philosophy class, for some mathematical questions given by Professor Leslie relative to various branches of Natural Philosophy.

I remain, Sir,

Yours very sincerely,

ROB. STEPHENSON

Mich. Longridge, Esq.

At the end of his term at Edinburgh, Robert went on a geological expedition led by Professor Jamieson round the north of Scotland. He enjoyed this enormously and in later life often talked about it. The students went with knapsacks on their backs and as Jeaffreson observes, ‘led the same sort of vagrant life which Robert had more than a year before enjoyed during the railway survey'.

George was no doubt delighted to have a son at university – though that prize Robert mentions was apparently not a competitive prize open to all students but a book award given by his professor to the student who had done the best work. It was an award, nonetheless, and George must have been pleased with

Robert's progress.

In one of George's rare personal letters he can be clearly seen to be boasting about his son. This letter is quoted by Jeaffreson in his 1864 book, though I have been unable to trace its whereabouts today, nor is it in Skeat's 1973 collected letters of George Stephenson. From the poor spelling it would seem that George wrote it himself. (Some punctuation has been added to make it easier to read.) He is writing to an old friend, William Locke, who has left Killingworth colliery to work in the south:

March 31, 1823

DEAR SIR, – From the great elapse of time since I seed you, you will hardely know that such a man is in the land of the living. I fully expected to have seen you about two years ago, as I passed throw Barnsley on my way to south Wales but being informed you was not at home I did not call. I expect to be in London in the course of a fortnight or three weeks, when I shall do my self the pleasure of calling, either in going or coming. This will be handed to you by Mr. Wilson a friend of mine who is by profeshion an Atorney at law and intends to settle in your neighbourhood, you will greatley oblidge me by throughing any Businness in his way you can conveniently can. I think you will find him an active man in his profeshion. There has been many upes and downs in this neighbourhood since you left. you would no doubt have heard that Charles Nixon was throughing out at Walbottle Collery by his partners some years ago. he has little to depend on now but the profets of the ballast machine at Willington Quey wich I darsay is verey small. many of his Familey has turned out verey badley. he has been verey unfortunate in Famaley affairs. If, I have the pleasure of seeing you I shall give you a long list of occurences since you and I worked together at Newburn. Hawthorn is still at Walbattle. I darsay you will well remember he was a great enamy to me but much more so after you left. I left Walbattle Collery soon also after you and has been verey prosperous in my concerns ever since. I am now far above Hawthorn's reach. I am now concerned as Civil Engineer in different parts of the Kingdom. I have onley one son who I have brought up in my own profeshion he is now near 20 years of age. I have had him educated in the first Schools and is now at Colledge in Edinbro' I have found a great want of education myself but fortune has made a mends for that want.

I am dear sir yours truly

GEO. STEPHENSON.

The reference to Hawthorn, George's ‘great enamy', is interesting because Robert Hawthorn was the successful colliery engineer who had personally recommended George for the job as brakesman at Willington Quay. George owed a lot to him, but they'd obviously fallen out, as George was wont to do with people who'd helped him. Once he was beyond their reach he forgot their past help. He does admit that ‘fortune' has made amends for his lack of education but there is no mention of anyone but

himself making his good fortune happen.

After Edinburgh, Robert's letters from his numerous other trips and treats are full of local colour and excitement. In this one, during an Irish business tour with his father, he is once again writing to Longridge:

Dublin: Sept. 10, 1823

DEAR SIR, – We have just arrived at Paddy's Lane ‘in far Dublin city.' We left London on Monday, at half-past one o'clock, travelled all night, and reached Bristol the next morning, and expected to have got the steam packet to Cork, but we were disappointed on being informed that the Cork packet had broken her machinery a few days before, and was laid up for repair. We were therefore obliged to come on to Dublin, upwards of two hundred miles out of our way. We leave here this evening in the mail, and shall arrive at Cork tomorrow evening, where we shall probably remain a few days, and then make the best of our way into Shropshire. The concern we are going to at Cork was set fire to by the mob, where the disturbance has been for some time.…

We have some hopes of some orders for steam engines for South America, in the Colombian States.
This, however, depends on the success of Perkins's new engine
. My father and he have had a severe scold. Indeed the most of the birkies were embittered at my father's opinion of the engine. He one day stopped the engine by his hand, and when we called the next day Perkins had previously got the steam to such a pitch (equal 15 atmosphere) that it was impossible for one man to stop it, but by a little of my assistance, we succeeded in stopping it by laying hold of the fly-wheel. This engine he formerly called an 8 or 10 horse-power, but now only a 4. I am convinced, as well as my father, that Perkins knows nothing about the principle of steam engines.

I remain, dear Sir,

Yours sincerely,

ROBERT STEPHENSON.

The Perkins incident, in which George triumphs, shows that Robert was impressed by his father and the way he put the ‘birkies' in their place. (Birkies was a northern expression used contemptuously of any smart young fellow. Robert Burns used it to imply conceit. The present day slang word ‘birk', meaning simpleton, might have the same derivation.) The new high pressure engine devised by Perkins was looked upon as a serious threat and George had gone especially to see it in London. Jacob Perkins was an American who had impressed many experts in Europe. Our friend Mr Richardson, the banker, was one of those interested in its possibilities, having heard glowing reports. With his dramatic action George demonstrated its flaws.

Later the same month Robert writes from Cork about their further experiences, though this time he has a feeling that his father hadn't been as brave as he'd appeared.

Cork, Sept. 16, 1823

DEAR SIR, – We left Dublin on the evening of the day we wrote out last, for Cork, in the mail, and we were not a little alarmed, when it stopped at the post office, to see four large cavalry pistols and two blunderbusses handed up to the guard, who had also a sword hung by his side. I can assure you, my father's courage was daunted, though I don't suppose he will confess with it. We proceeded on, however, without being in the least disturbed, except, now and then having our feelings excited by the driver, or some of our fellow passengers, relating, and at the same time pointing towards the situation, where some most barbarous murder had recently been committed. In one instance, a father, mother, and son had been murdered one evening or two before. As we passed along, everywhere distress seemed to be the prevailing feature of the country, and this to an incredible degree among the poor. Indeed, numbers of them appeared literally starving. We frequently have read accounts in the English newspapers of the distressed state of Ireland, but how far they fall short of conveying a just idea of it. With regard to the appearance of the cities Dublin and Cork, I must say the former falls far short of the description given of it by some Irishman in the steam packet, as we came over from England. I asked some of them if it was equal to Edinburgh, and they seemed insulted at the comparison, but I can now say they ought to have felt highly honoured. Dublin excels certainly in size and business, but as to scenery and beauty of building, it shrinks into insignificance.