George Stephenson (20 page)

This enabled Alderson from then on to cleverly and continually refer to the proposed locomotives as going at twelve mph, thus confirming everyone's worst suspicions and fears. It has to be remembered that the bulk of even intelligent opinion in 1825 could not believe that any machine could travel at over ten miles an hour without disintegrating and killing everyone in sight. Even supporters of locomotives were worried about speeds. A writer in the
Quarterly Review
of March 1825 (which came out during the hearings) admitted that he was in favour of the Liverpool–Manchester Railway but only if the speeds were kept within reason.

What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives travelling
twice
as fast as stage-coaches! We trust that Parliament will, in all railways it may sanction, limit the speed to eight or nine miles an hour.

In May 1825, again during the hearings, Nicholas Wood's great
Treatise on Rail-Roads
appeared, and he too warned against excessive claims.

It is far from my wish to promulgate to the world that the ridiculous expectations, or rather professions, of the enthusiastic speculists be realised, and that we shall see them travelling at the rate of 12, 16, 18 or 20 miles an hour; nothing could do more harm towards their adoption, or general improvement, than the promulgation of such nonsense.

Alderson, by encouraging George in the committee to predict speeds much higher than eight mph, had therefore done great psychological damage on a national scale to the railway case. He went on next to ask George about the rate of accidents and if at twelve mph and other high speeds a locomotive could cope with smooth rails, (An old chestnut which had worried even locomotive engineers for years until Killingworth had proved them wrong.) George was able at least to answer such a technical question with care and confidence. He even provoked a smile when one member of the committee broke in to ask what would happen if a cow strayed on the line in the way of an engine doing ten mph. ‘Would not that, think you, be a very awkward circumstance?' ‘Very awkward,' replied George. ‘For the coo.'

Alderson at length moved on to the survey itself, for which George as engineer was responsible. Almost at once George's credibility and confidence collapsed. In managing to complete the survey on time he had allowed subordinates to take vital measurements, many of which were soon proved in the committee to be completely wrong.

Worse than that, George didn't even have any figures at all for many vital parts of his proposed railways.

Q: What is the width of the Irwell there?

A: I cannot say exactly at present.

Q: How many arches is your bridge to have?

A: It is not determined upon.

Q: How could you make an estimate for it then?

A: I have given a sufficient sum for it.

As a sample of his answers, that was fairly typical. Alderson went on and George was reduced more and more to answers like ‘I do not recollect', ‘I did, but I do not recollect', ‘It may, I cannot speak of it', or ‘It was a mistake'.

To call Alderson's questions a cross-examination is putting it politely. Poor George was annihilated. Alderson, who'd at one time been a law reporter, later to become a judge and a baron, won his fame by his handling of George Stephenson.

It need hardly be said that George was out of his depth, untrained and ungifted in presenting himself verbally, unable to master his thoughts or arguments and for most of the time unable to make himself understood through the thickness and incoherence of his Geordie accent. His remark about the coo became a society dinner table joke for months. Notwithstanding, and trying hard to avoid too much sob stuff or easy sympathy, it has to be said that George had rather left himself wide open to attack.

George was forced to admit error after error. It was stipulated, for example, that the railway should cross the Irwell at a height which would provide a minimum headroom of 16 ft 6 ins for navigation, yet the plans showed a rail level only ten feet above the water and three feet below maximum flood level. Having established this damning fact, Alderson's relentless cross-examination continued by proving that Stephenson had estimated the cost of this Irwell bridge at £5,000 without any idea as to its dimensions or form. ‘So,' he concluded scathingly, ‘you make a bridge, perhaps 14 ft high, perhaps 20 ft high, perhaps with 3 arches and perhaps with one, and then you boldly say that £5,000 is a proper estimate for it?” I think so,' answered Stephenson lamely, and, turning to the committee, ‘I merely set out the line for other surveyors to follow.' ‘Did you not survey the line of the road?' asked Alderson. ‘My Assistant did,' replied Stephenson.

As Alderson had by now established that there were numerous errors in the levels of anything up to ten feet, he next put the obvious question. ‘What,' he asked, ‘was the original base line on which all your levels are calculated as marked on the section?' ‘Near the Vauxhall Road in Liverpool,' came the reply. ‘Whereabout?' pressed Alderson. ‘I think,' answered the unhappy Stephenson, ‘about 150 yards from it, but I am not quite sure.' Pursued further, it became obvious that George had no idea how the base line had been determined.

The final confrontation went like this:

Q: Then it is possible you may be out at other parts?

A: It may be, but I do not think so.

Q: You do not believe you are out on your levels?

A: I have made my estimate from the levels which I believe are correct.

Q: Do you believe, aye or no, that your levels are correct?

A: I have heard it reported that they are not.

Q: Did you take the levels yourself?

A: They were taken for me.

Q: Other people have taken them for you and upon their estimate you have made your estimate?

A: Yes.

An eminent engineer, William Cubitt, who had been employed by the railway company to check certain levels, was forced to admit Stephenson's mistakes. You have not found Mr Stephenson's level correct at any one point?' ‘I have not found them correct in any point that I have taken.'

Stephenson's counsel, Mr Spankie, tried to defend him, explaining how the landowners had refused many levels to be taken, but he too was forced to admit mistakes. ‘It will be said on the other side that Mr Stephenson, having been guilty of one error, the whole credit of his estimate is shaken. But the truth is that Mr Stephenson, on a datum given by others, calculated it would cost so much to make the Railway.'

The opposition, having revealed countless flaws in the survey methods, went on to take the estimate itself to pieces. One of their experts, the engineer Francis Giles, said that Stephenson's proposal to take his railway across Chat Moss, a large marshland wilderness, was ridiculous. He personally would never attempt it, but if it were tried, the railway should estimate not £400,000 but a figure closer to £1,500,000.

Harrison, one of the opposition's other leading counsel, didn't score direct hits like Alderson, but he poked endless fun at Stephenson's idea of ‘floating' his railway line across Chat Moss.

It is ignorance almost inconceivable. It is perfect madness in a person called upon to speak on a scientific subject to propose such a plan.… Every part of this scheme shows that this man has applied himself to a subject of which he has no knowledge, and to which he has no science to apply.

Turning to the proposal to work the intended line by means of locomotives, Harrison proceeded:

When we set out with the original prospectus, we were to gallop, I know not at what rate; I believe it was at the rate of 12 miles an hour. My learned friend, Mr Adam … says that they would go at the rate of 12 miles an hour with the aid of the devil in the form of a locomotive, sitting as postilion on the fore horse, and an honourable member sitting behind him to stir up the fire, and keep it at full speed. But the speed at which the locomotive engines are to go has slackened: Mr. Adam does not go faster now than 5 miles an hour. The learned serjeant (Spankie) says he should like to have 7, but he would be content to go 6. I will show he cannot go 6; and probably, for any practical purposes, I may be able to show that I can keep up with him
by the canal
.… Locomotive engines are liable to be operated upon by the weather. You are told they are affected by rain, and an attempt has been made to cover them; but the wind will affect them; and any gale of wind which would affect the traffic on the Mersey would render it
impossible
to set off a locomotive engine, either by poking of the fire, or keeping up the pressure of the steam till the boiler was ready to burst.

It was Alderson's final summing up which completed Stephenson's humiliation.

This is the most absurd scheme that ever entered into the head of man to conceive. I think I may put it to them fairly whether they ever before saw such an estimate. My learned friends almost endeavoured to stop my examination. They wished me to put in the plan, but I had rather have the exhibition of Mr. Stephenson in that box. I say he never had a plan – I believe he never had one – I do not believe he is capable of making one.… He is either ignorant or something else which I will not mention.… His is a mind perpetually fluctuating between opposite difficulties: he neither knows whether he is to make bridges over roads or rivers, or of one size or another; or to make embankments, or cuttings, or inclined planes, or in what way the thing is to be carried into effect. When you put a question to him upon a difficult point, he resorts to two or three hypotheses, and never comes to a decided conclusion.

Moving to the subject of the Irwell bridge, and all George's mistakes about it, Alderson kept up his stream of invective.

It was the most ridiculous thing I ever heard stated by any man. I am astonished that any man standing in that box would make such a statement without shrinking to nothing.… Did any ignorance ever arrive at such a pitch as this? Was there ever any ignorance exhibited like this? Is Mr. Stephenson to be the person upon whose faith this Committee is to pass this Bill involving property to the extent of £400/500,000 when he is so ignorant of his profession as to propose to build a bridge not sufficient to carry off the flood water of the river or to permit any of the vessels to pass which of necessity must pass under it, and leave his own Railroad liable to be several feet under water?

He makes schemes without seeing the difficulties, and when the difficulties are pointed out, then he starts other schemes. He has produced five schemes all resulting in one estimate…

And when did Mr. Cubitt make his survey to detect his mistakes? Long before; and Mr. Stephenson has the face to say that he only
heard
that his levels were not correct. Why, at that time he knew they were incorrect and that Mr. Cubitt had been sent down to ascertain to what extent they were so.

I never knew a person draw so much upon human credulity as Mr. Stephenson has proposed to do in the evidence he has given.

I am told they are going to throw Mr. Stephenson and his estimate overboard and to call upon Hon. Members to decide without his evidence. Now if they attempt that it will be the strangest thing that was ever attempted in the House of Commons.… Upon Chat Moss, I care not whether Mr. Giles is right or wrong in his estimate, for whether it be effected by means of piers raised up all the way for four miles through Chat Moss, whether they are to support it on beams of wood or by erecting masonry, or whether Mr. Giles shall put a solid bank of earth through it, – in all these schemes there is not one found like that of Mr. Stephenson's, namely, to cut impossible drains on the side of this road; and it is sufficient for me to suggest and to show, that this scheme of Mr. Stephenson's is impossible or impracticable, and that no other scheme, if they proceed upon this line, can be suggested which will not produce enormous expense. I think that has been irrefragably made out. Everyone knows Chat Moss – everyone knows that the iron sinks immediately on its being put upon the surface. I have heard of culverts, which have been put upon the Moss, which, after having been surveyed the day before, have the next morning disappeared; and that a house (a poet's house, who may be supposed in the habit of building castles even in the air), story after story, as fast as one is added, the lower one sinks! There is nothing, it appears, except long sedgy grass, and a little soil to prevent its sinking into the shades of eternal night. I have now done, sir, with Chat Moss, and there I leave this railroad.

The bill had little chance after all that. The turning point had been George Stephenson's evidence. He'd been completely flattened and his defenders could offer no real reply. The first clause of the bill was beaten by 19–13 and the second clause by 23–14, and the bill was withdrawn.

George afterwards confessed that from the first day of Alderson's attack he had wilted. ‘I began to wish for a hole to creep into. Some members of the committee asked if I was a foreigner, and another hinted I was mad.'

The Times
slightly softened the immense blow felt by the railway lobby by accusing four members of the committee of having voted against the bill without having been present during the thirty-seven days of evidence. This was denied, naturally, and
The Times
was unable to furnish any proof.

The opposition was ecstatic. Thomas Creevey, an MP who'd been at the forefront of their case, famous afterwards for his
Creevey Papers
, gives a fine picture of their rejoicing.

Well – this devil of a railway is strangled at last. I was sure that yesterday's division had put him on his last legs, and today we had a clear majority in the Committee in our favour, and the promoters of the Bill withdrew it, and took their leave of us.… We had to fight this long battle against an almost universal prejudice to start with – interested shareholders and perfidious Whigs, several of whom affected to oppose us upon conscientious scruples. Sefton's ecstasies are beyond, and he is pleased to say it has been all my doing; so it's all mighty well.