Stephenson family
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George Stephenson
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British family of inventors and railroad engineers. George Stephenson
(1781–1848) first worked on stationary steam
engines, reconstructing one by Thomas Newcomen
(c.1812). His first locomotive, the Blucher,
took to the rails in 1814: it traveled at 4 mph (about 6.5km/h) hauling
coal for the Killingworth colliery, and incorporated an important development,
flanged wheels. About this time, independently of Humphry Davy,
he invented a safety lamp: this earned him £1,000 (the about $5,000), which
helped finance further locomotive experiments. In 1821 he was appointed
to survey and engineer a line from Darlington to Stockton: in 1825 his Locomotion
carried 450 people along the line at a rate of 15 mph (about 25 km/h), and
the modern railroad was born. This was followed in 1829 by the success of
the Rocket, which ran the 40 miles (65 km) of his new Manchester-Liverpool
line at speeds of up to 30 mph (about 48 km/h), the first main-line passenger
rail journey. See also early
history of railways in Britain.
George's only son Robert Stephenson (1803–1859) helped
his father on both of these lines, and with the Rocket, but is
best known as a bridge builder, notably for
the tubular bridges over the Menai Straits, North Wales (1850), and the
St. Lawrence at Montreal (1859).
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