STEPHENSON, ROBERT (1S03-59). A Brit ish civil engineer. He was the son of George Stephenson (q.v.) and was born at Wallington Quay, near Newcastle. He was educated at New castle and received practical engineering experi ence at the Killingworth Colliery and with his father in railway surveying and the construction of locomotives, being, in the meanwhile, a student for six months at Edinburgh Uni versity. After managing his father's loco motive factory in Newcastle for a few months he went to South America on account of ill health (1824) and engaged in mining. Com ing back to England in 1S27, he returned to the locomotive works and supervised the con struction of the Rocket (see LOCOMOTIVE), incorporating in its mechanism many original and serviceable ideas, and assisted his father in other work. In 1S33 he became the engineer of the London and Birmingham Railway, one of the first in which great engineering difficulties were encountered in the construction, but which was completed in 1838. The firm of Robert Stephen
son & Co. by this time had become the leading engine builders of the world and a standard type of locomotive was evolved which was subsequently enlarged and improved. Robert Stephenson was interested in every department of railway con struction, and particularly in the design of bridges, where he achieved the highest reputa tion. Among the bridges he designed were the high-level bridge over the Tyne at Newcastle, the Victoria Bridge at Berwick, the famous Britan nia Tubular Bridge across Menai Strait, the Con way Bridge, and the Victoria Bridge over the Saint Lawrence. (See BRIDGE.) In 1847 Stephenson was elected to Parliament from Whit by as a Conservative, and in 1856 became presi dent of the Institution of Civil Engineers. See Smiles, Lives of the Engineers (London, rev. ed., 1S74) Jeafferson and Pole. Thc Life of Robert Stephenson (ib., 1864). See LOCOMOTIVE; RAIL WAyS; STEAM ENGINE; BRIDGE.