Stephenson understood that for maximum efficiency of the engines, gradients had to be kept to a minimum. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway — the first intercity railway in the world — opened for traffic on 15 September with great ceremony, during which George drove Rocket in the procession.
By the s George Stephenson stepped back from railway engineering, concentrating instead on his interests in mining. Younger engineers such as his son Robert Stephenson, Joseph Locke and Isambard Kingdom Brunel were driving the construction and development of the railway forward.
During this time he was a founder of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and was appointed its first President in , shortly before his death in Chesterfield on 12 August Carts were traditionally made with 5ft between the wheels, in proportion with the size of an average work horse.
Skip to content. In he became associated with the Port Lincoln special survey. He was twice elected to the Municipal Corporation of Adelaide, serving as alderman in Although Stevenson withdrew from the South Australian Register in he returned to journalism three years later and revived the South Australian Gazette and Colonial Register , changing Colonial to Mining in October In his inveterate exposures brought him public blows from Sir Robert Torrens , but he later won a Pyrrhic victory in court.
In March his newspaper ceased publication, and after a brief visit to the Victorian goldfields he was appointed coroner in Adelaide.
He was survived by one daughter who married E. De Mole, and two sons, one of whom, George John William, became member for East Torrens in the House of Assembly in and attorney-general in the Ayers ministry in Stevenson was an enthusiastic horticulturist and often lectured on the subject. He helped to form the local Natural History Society and his own garden and orchard were among the best in early Adelaide, his experiments proving of great value.
Aged just three weeks old, she dies and within months her mother joins her. Desperate for work, Stephenson is forced to leave his son and go to Scotland. He takes to pieces and reassembles machines and engines whenever possible and develops an intricate understanding of steam-driven machinery. His son, Robert, shares his passions and one of their first projects is making a sun-dial. The top speed of the Blucher is 4 mph. This may be slower than a horse can travel but its eight wagons carry 30 tonnes.
But the Blucher is prone to repeatedly breaking down, and its power and weight chew up the tracks. However each breakdown spurs Stephenson onto another solution. So, in , he develops a lamp which uses tiny air holes to stop a reaction between the flammable gases produced in mines and the naked flame used in lamps. He demonstrates its safety by taking it down a mine, and using it next to the potentially explosive gas.
Stephenson, already suspicious of the establishment, will never embrace his growing adulation. And neither man will ever forgive the other. When Stephenson finds another man has invented better rails, he ditches his own invention and despite the cost uses the improved version. The railway opens in The company, set up with his son Robert, is the first in the world to build locomotives. This seemingly small, simple decision will at first irritate, then exasperate and finally defeat one of the greatest Britons ever, Isambard Brunel.
Stephenson and Brunel would clash many times over their different visions for rail as their Northern and Western Lines come perilously close to each other.
The next year, Stephenson becomes engineer for the Liverpool to Manchester Railway. So as not to destroy the rails, only machines under six tonnes can compete.
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