STEPHENSON, George, Eng lish inventor: b. Wylam, near Newcastle, 9 June 1781; d. near Chesterfield, 12 Aug. 1848. He was successively assistant fireman, fireman and brakeman in a colliery, in 1802 was made engineman at Willington Ballast Hill, in 1808 took with two others the contract to operate the engines at Killingworth pit, and in 1812 was appointed engine-wright there. The appli cation of steam power to locomotive engines had for some time engaged the attention of scientific men. Stephenson eagerly devoted himself to the working out of the idea, and hav ing established an extended reputation for soundness of judgment and engineering skill he was supplied by Lord Ravensworth with the means of constructing a locomotive engine, which was placed, 25 July 1814, on the colliery tramway, and drew eight loaded wagons at the rate of four miles an hour. Though thus partially successful, Stephenson saw that more was needed to make this mode of conveyance advantageous, and he accordingly invented the ''steam blast;' which enabled him to double his rate of speed, and in 1815 he took out a patent for, and constructed, an engine which up to the present day (under certain modifications and improvements) has, like Watt's steam engine, continued as a model in the construction of locomotives. In this same year he devised a safety-lamp, the Geordie, for miners, which was produced prior to and altogether independent of the better-known invention of Sir Humphry Davy, and is still employed in preference to the latter in some parts of Northumberland. The following year he took out a patent for an im proved form of rail and chair. In 1819 he was employed to construct a railway for the pro prietors of the Hetton Colliery, and in 1822 the Stockton and Darlington line for Pease, its leading promoter, who appointed him resident engineer, with an annual salary of i.300. The line was opened 27 Sept. 1825, the engine being driven by Stephenson himself, and drawing 38 carriages, with a total weight of about 90 tons, at a rate of from 12 to 16 miles an hour. This was the first steam railway in Great Britain on which passengers were conveyed as well as goods. At this period a copartnership was
formed between Pease and Stephenson for the establishment of a locomotive manufactory at Newcastle, which was long the only work of the kind in the kingdom, and rapidly increased in extent and importance. The scheme of con strutting a railway between Liverpool and Manchester had been set on foot in 1824, but the opposition to it, both in and out of Parlia ment, was so strong that it had to be tem. porarily abandoned. The bill was passed, how ever, on a second application, and the work commenced in 1826. After overcoming many difficulties, one of the greatest being the.carry ing of the line over Chatmoss, the railway was opened on 15 Sept. 1830. The results of the undertaking were most triumphant for Stephen son, and it proved the commencement of the British system of railroad transit. For 10 years subsequent to this there was scarcely a line of railway opened in Great Britain with the construction of which Stephenson was not concerned. In 1840 he resigned most of his ap pointments, and settled at Tapton, in Derby shire, where he took in hand the working of the Clay Cross Collieries, leaving the exten sion of the railway system to be carried out by his son Robert (q.v.). He still, however, re mained connected either as engineer br other wise with several lines, made professional jour neys to Spain and Belgium, and was created a knight of the latter country by King Leopold. He also took a considerable interest in me chanics' institutes, and was the founder and president of the Institution of Mechanical Engi neers at Birmingham. George Stephenson may be regarded as an embodiment of the sturdy and energetic spirit which has raised the British nation to its high position industrially among the other countries of the world, and enabled it to effect such triumphs in enterprise. The stand ard authority is the 'Life' by Smiles as re vised by that author for Vol. III of his 'Lives of the Engineers' (1862). See LOCOMOTIVE.