6

THE OPENING

Railways, as the public know them, began with the Stockton and Darlington Railway, but railway historians get very cross unless you define your terms exactly. All ‘firsts’ in connection with railways have to be very carefully worded.

There were railway acts before the Stockton and Darlington Railway got its railway act, but they referred to railways in their strict, literal sense, meaning a way laid out with rails. No mention was ever made of locomotives because, as Lord Shaftesbury’s secretary well knew, it was horses who provided the pulling power.

Strictly speaking, you can’t call the Stockton and Darlington the first public railway because the Surrey Iron Railway, opened in 1803, has that honour. It was a railway and was open to the public, but it was with horses pulling the wagons. You can’t even say that the Stockton and Darlington was the first steam railway. George had been using steam on rails at Killingworth and at Hetton long before the Darlington opening. It takes quite a mouthful to give the Stockton and Darlington its true and correct niche in history. You must include the three vital elements. It was a railway. It was public. It was going to use steam locomotives.

After the act had been passed allowing locomotives, they had to decide who was going to make them. The company kept everything above board by looking around at the market, even though their engineer appeared to be the only person building locomotives. The Leeds manufacturers of the Blenkinsop locomotive, the ones with cogged wheels, were approached but were unable to help, replying that they hadn’t made any locomotive engines for eight years.

In June 1823 the two Stephensons, Edward Pease and Michael Longridge (whose works were making the malleable rails) decided to open their own locomotive works. Once again, Stephenson and Pease between them had shown their faith in the future of steam locomotion. They were later accused of having carved up the locomotive business, establishing their own monopoly, but the truth was that they had no alternative. The history of the first hundred years of this firm was published in 1923 by J.G.H. Warren and it shows clearly that most of the money was put up by Pease. The initial capital was £4,000 with Pease putting up £1,600 and the other three £800 each. It later came out that Pease had loaned young Robert £500 towards his share.

George knew that his engines were good, even though he had only been making them on a small scale at his colliery workshops, but it shows great faith on the part of Edward Pease to have put up so much money. He had no technical understanding of the machines, his railway had yet to open and there was still a majority of engineers convinced that locomotives would never work. Perhaps the most surprising thing about their brave new locomotive works was that they were to be called Robert Stephenson and Company. Robert, George’s nineteen-year-old son, was appointed managing partner. We might suspect such an arrangement today, looking for some tax device, believing that an inexperienced lad of nineteen must be a front. His father, as engineer of the railway company, perhaps didn’t want to be seen ordering engines from himself. The very fact that Pease was a Quaker is enough to put a stop to any cynicism. And yet, were they all absolutely convinced that a slip of a boy could run such a firm? Or was perhaps old George pushing them a bit?

Robert had certainly had a lot more experience than his age might suggest. He’d assisted in two railway surveys, at Darlington and at Liverpool, and after his father had called him back from helping William James he’d been sent for six months to Edinburgh university where he’d been studying natural philosophy, chemistry and natural history. He was coming almost straight from the academic world of Edinburgh to the practical job of setting up a factory and turning out locomotives, but there is not the slightest suggestion of any of the partners thinking he was perhaps a bit young for such a job. We know their confidence was not misplaced from Robert’s subsequent career but it was a brave gesture all the same.

A site was bought at Forth Street in Newcastle, men were hired and the Stockton and Darlington Company ordered two locomotives at a cost of £500 each, Locomotion and Hope. George and his wife moved from their cottage home at Killingworth into Newcastle to Eldon Street to be near the works and keep an eye on progress. Though Robert was in charge of the works George was providing the plans for the new engines as well as pushing on with the completion of the railway itself.

During 1824 progress was slowed down by bad weather, by several cuttings and gradients being more difficult than expected and by a few little local legal problems. Two gentlemen who were trustees of the road between Stockton and Darlington objected to the way in which the railway was going to cross their road. They issued a summons against some of the company’s workmen for trespassing. The workmen were fined forty shillings each by the magistrates – who turned out to be the same two gentlemen who’d objected.

The legal case which kept County Durham agog for quite some time was the one brought by a Mr Rowntree, a shareholder of the company, who refused to accept the price offered for his land. It was only just over an acre, and eight independent land surveyors put its value at between £200 and £320. He wanted £700. The case went to the sessions in Durham and lasted seven hours during which his counsel argued that the ‘locomotives, or as they had been called, infernal machines, would go so near to Mr Rowntree’s house as to render the premises useless’. The judge awarded him £500.

The anti-locomotive lobby were filling the newspapers, and the courts, with scare stories about the highly dangerous speeds of the locomotives, alleging they would go at ten or even twelve miles an hour, which the Company denied. Even Nicholas Wood, that great railway advocate, scolded the speculators who were talking of twelve miles an hour calling it ‘ridiculous expectation’. Mr Lambton (later the Earl of Durham) admitted that the railway would not be seen even from the highest point of his house ‘but that the noise would be heard in every room of it’. Lord George Cavendish wrote that he would ‘not have the country harassed and torn up by these infernal machines’. Lord Eldon wrote, ‘As to railways, and all the other schemes which speculation, running wild, is introducing, I think Englishmen who were wont to be sober, are grown mad.’

The protest was being raised in many counties, not just in County Durham, because for the first time there was a genuine wave of national interest in locomotives. Now that the Stockton–Darlington line was nearing completion deputations – such as Lord Dudley’s – were catching the coach up to the north east to find out what all the fuss was about. Promoters who’d been planning a horsedrawn line were being forced at least to consider locomotion. The Liverpool–Manchester promoters sent across a party to look at Stephenson’s infernal machines and so did groups from Birmingham, Sheffield and Gloucester. One of the reasons why progress was relatively slow in 1824 was that the company’s engineer was suddenly being besieged by offers from elsewhere. George brought in Timothy Hackworth from Wylam, who had also been doing pioneer work on locomotives, to help at Forth Street and then to be locomotive superintendent for the Darlington company. Many of the railway projects being discussed never came to anything, or at least they decided to wait and see what happened at Darlington, but it meant a great deal of travelling and discussions for George, who could never resist any railway venture.

George made constant trips to Birmingham, Liverpool and elsewhere, looking at proposed lines, and also went further afield on behalf of Robert Stephenson and Company seeking possible buyers for their locomotives. In late 1823 he went with Robert to London and Bristol to sell their boilers and stationary locomotives. They then crossed to Dublin, going by road to Cork. Robert was pleased to see new parts of the country but for George, with so many projects on his plate, it was extremely time consuming. He managed to write a few letters back to Michael Longridge at the Forth Street works, all very hurried, dashed off to catch the coach, all of which show his hectic life:

Swann Inn, Birmingham, 8 August 1824

I shall leave this place tomorrow for Newport, where I may be a couple of days. From thence I will go to Stourbridge where I will remain also two days: from the latter place to Newcastle under Lyne where I may spend the remainder of the week. I will endeavour to be at Liverpool on the Sunday where letters will find me, I have an invitation from Boulton and Watt to dine with them today.

As a piece of name dropping his last remark couldn’t have been smarter. By this date both James Watt and Matthew Boulton had died, but their Birmingham engineering works were still the most famous in the land.

In a letter from Liverpool on 11 July 1824, George gives an example of the problems of contemporary travelling.

I expected to have set off with the mail this night but was detained by my horse breaking down on the road in passing from the Birmingham line to this quarter. This disaster put me too late for the Mail. The poor horse’s knees were broken in such a desperate manner that I did not know how to venture home with him. I had a fine kick up with the inn-keeper when I did get home. The only apology I could make was by proposing to buy the horse at its value.

Stephenson had by this time been commissioned to do some work for the Liverpool line and was spending more and more of his time travelling, but he was desperate to get the Darlington line finished and opened and let the whole world see what he could do.

Given the nature of the times, it is surprising to realise how much of the world had already been to see Stephenson at work. A notable American visitor, William Strickland, was in England in early 1825 on a fact-finding mission on canals and railways sent by the ‘Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of Internal Improvement’, a very fine sounding body indeed. He watched Stephenson’s locomotives at Hetton and noted how Stephenson recommended the use of six wheels not four to distribute the weight better. He watched very carefully, notebook in hand, as the Darlington rails were being fixed, jotting down details of the workmen’s tools, all of which he later published in his report.

This was the first American visitor to look at English railways as far as can be gathered, but French, German and Russian visitors have already been mentioned. Newspapers at the time were writing very little about locomotives so it must point to the wide circulation of the technical magazines and pamphlets which were now being brought out.

Despite all the attention, Pease was finding it necessary once again to call up more money to complete the line on time. The books show that they were running up considerable debts, such as £9,342 to the treasurer (Jonathan Backhouse) who had personally paid off some troublesome landowner. Several promoters were worried that they might not now get their 5 per cent which Pease had promised. Pease was continually issuing announcements to keep everyone happy. ‘No circumstances have arisen to induce the board to alter their opinion of the great public benefit to be derived by all classes of the community from this undertaking and that a fair and reasonable return will be made to the proprietors for the capital invested.’

It was the Quakers, once again, who ensured that the line opened on time, though they kept their help quiet at the time. Gurney’s in Norwich advanced another £40,000 and Richardson’s London banking firm (Richardson, Overend and Company) loaned £20,000. The chief extras had been £25,000 for buying up more land (when they had estimated to spend £7,000) and a completely unexpected expenditure of £32,241 in opposing a rival railway, the Tees and Weardale, which had arisen when the success of the Darlington line began to look assured. (The Darlington company were not against obstructing others, just as they’d been obstructed in the past.)

These extra expenses were admitted in a shareholders’ report of 9 September 1825, but the board were obviously full of hope. They announced that the grand opening ceremony would be on 27 September 1825, and assured shareholders that ‘Your committee beg to repeat their conviction that your concern will soon obtain that rank and credit in the kingdom to which it is entitled.’

The following week the public were made aware of the arrangements for the opening with broadsheets and announcements in the local papers. The ordinary public were told where they could watch the procedures while the nobs were informed that an ‘elegant dinner will be provided at the Town Hall, Stockton to which the proprietors have resolved to invite the neighbouring nobility and gentry who have taken an interest in this very important undertaking. A Superior locomotive, of the most improved construction, will be employed, with a train of convenient carriages for the conveyance of the proprietors and strangers.’

One of the handbills carried a stern warning in true Quaker fashion to any friends of inn keepers who might contemplate enjoying themselves. ‘The company takes this opportunity of enjoining on all their work people that attention to Sobriety and Decorum which they have hitherto had the pleasure of observing.’

The day before the opening, George Stephenson gave a test ride on Locomotion for the benefit of Edward Pease and three of his sons, Joseph, Edward and Henry, plus Thomas Richardson, the London Quaker banker. Locomotion had been brought down by road from Newcastle drawn by a team of horses. Its engine had been started for the first time earlier that morning by an engineman who got the fire going by the simple device of using an hour glass (which he normally used to start his pipe) on an old piece of waste material left in the engine by one of the Forth Street fitters. His workmate had gone for a lantern to light the fire, leaving him sitting in the sun, lighting his pipe, when he thought he would try to get the fire going on his own. It’s nice to know that nature had a hand in man’s first attempts at locomotion.

Along with Locomotion came the company’s first passenger coach, the Experiment. This too had been built by Robert Stephenson and Company. It had cost £80 and looked very much like a grander version of a stage coach of the times. It was cushioned and carpeted, though without springs, and sat eighteen passengers with a table down the middle. For the trial run it was linked to Locomotion and off they went with George’s brother James doing the driving while George pointed out the finer details to the Pease family.

They were lucky with the weather for the grand opening next day – propitious, so the local papers called it – and crowds were gathering from as early as 5.30 at Brussleton Bank near Shildon at the collieries end of the line. At 8 o’clock a stationary engine fixed beside the hill drew the VIPs in their coach up the incline then let it down the other side where they were met by the waiting, panting, giant Locomotion, driven by George Stephenson. The grand procession then headed east for Darlington, some nine miles away, and after that, a further nine miles on to Stockton for the elegant banquet which was waiting for the chosen gentry.

You only have to look at the smallness and simpleness of Locomotion, which stands to this day on Darlington station, to wonder all over again that such a fragile machine ever managed to get to Stockton. Behind it, when it started off, were thirty-three wagons and three hundred passengers. By the time it eventually got to Stockton the passengers were estimated at being nearer 650, as so many spectators had clambered on board, making the total load almost ninety tons. George Stephenson must have been highly apprehensive when they started off, wondering about the strength of his untried locomotive, which had just come from the works, wondering about the safety of the rails, the bridges and embankments, about the lives of the people on board and of those watching, and wondering whether the whole procession might result in tragedy and the end, not the beginning, of locomotion.

The total train, some four hundred feet long, consisted firstly of Locomotion with its tender. Next came six wagons, five containing coal and one with flour, followed by Experiment, the company’s passenger coach which contained the directors and leading proprietors. Then came six wagons full of ‘strangers’ (presumably the more important guests), fourteen wagons full of workmen and finally six more wagons laden with coals. Following Locomotion and its train came twenty-four horsedrawn wagons filled with workmen.

At the head of the procession went several men on horse-back. ‘These heralds held flags in their hands,’ says Jeans, ‘and gave notice to all whom it concerned that the locomotive was approaching.’ Scattered throughout the train were four other large flags, especially made by the company for the occasion. They were more like banners than flags, of the kind which used to be seen at the Durham Miners Gala, emblazoned with stirring words. One displayed the company’s Latin motto over a landscape of an engine drawing several coal wagons. One flag announced simply, ‘May the Stockton and Darlington Railway give public satisfaction and reward its liberal promoters’.

Thousands of spectators had come for miles around, in carts and donkeys and on foot, to see the procession depart. The Durham County Advertiser, in its long, glowing description of the opening, reported that when Locomotion got up steam some of the more simple country folk, the Johnny Raws, were terrified.

About this time the locomotive engine, or steam horse, as it was more generally termed, gave ‘note of preparation’ by some heavy aspirations which seemed to excite astonishment and alarm among the ‘Johnny Raws’ who had been led by curiosity to the spot and who, when a portion of the steam was let off, fled in fright, accompanied by the old women and young children who surrounded them, under the idea, we supposed, that some horrible explosion was about to take place; they afterwards, however, found courage sufficient to return to their posts but only to fly again when the safety valve was opened. Everything being now arranged, the welcome cry of ‘all ready’ was heard and the engine and its appendages moved forward in beautiful style.

Some spectators, according to Jeans, had expected Locomotion to literally be an iron horse. ‘Excitement in many minds took the form of disappointment when it was found that the locomotive was not built after the fashion of a veritable four footed quadruped, some of the older folks expecting to see the strange phenomenon of an automatical semblance of a horse stalking along on four legs.’

There were several moments of worry on the way to Darlington, once when a coach came off the line and again when the engine stopped because some waste had blocked a valve, but each time the faults were soon rectified and they managed to continue without anyone being hurt. As they went through the fields some hunting gentlemen on horseback tried to race the train, riding alongside the track, but failed. A stage coach pulled by four horses tried in vain to do the same, much to the amusement of a reporter from the Scotsman.

The passengers by the engine had the pleasure of accompanying and cheering their brother passengers by the stage coach which passed alongside and observing the striking contrast exhibited by the power of the engine and the horse – the engine with her 600 passengers and load and the coach with four horse and only 16 passengers.

There was a crowd of twelve thousand to greet the train’s arrival at Darlington ‘who gave vent to their feelings by loud and reiterated cheers’. Six of the coal wagons were uncoupled and the coal distributed to the poor of the town. Two wagons full of passengers, one containing the Yarm town band, were then joined on. They’d lost almost an hour in stoppages since leaving Shildon colliery but Locomotion, despite its ever increasing load, had averaged eight miles per hour. In their eagerness to join the train, spectators were now clambering on top of the coal wagons, hanging on to the sides, even hanging on to the original passengers.

Downhill, on the way into Stockton, a speed of fifteen miles per hour was reached. One workman who was clinging to the side of a coal wagon fell off and had his leg crushed. Apart from that there were, surprisingly, no other accidents. At Stockton the crowd was estimated at being nearly forty thousand. Guns were fired in salute. The band struck up ‘God Save the King’ and the vast crowd joined in giving ‘three times three stentorian cheers’.

The very elegant banquet in the evening was attended by 102 gentlemen, including representatives from the proposed Liverpool and Manchester, Leeds and Hull railways, and went on till midnight. Mr Meynell, the chairman, took the chair and once again doesn’t appear to have distinguished himself by either the brilliance or the length of his speech. (Not a word of it is recorded in any contemporary account.) No doubt they were too busy praising each other to have much time for speechifying. But every contemporary account records the fact that twenty-three toasts were drunk, the first to the King and finishing with great gusto, as was only fitting, to George Stephenson, their esteemed Engineer.

Edward Pease, alas, missed the opening day celebrations, though he might well have felt a trifle discomfited during those twenty-three toasts. The previous night his son Isaac had died and no member of the Pease family attended the opening. At least he’d had the pleasure of being given a private preview the day before and had experienced for himself the fruits of his long labours.

There was someone else of importance missing, someone else whom everyone would have liked to have been there. As managing partner of the Forth Street works Robert Stephenson would certainly have had a place of honour. As George’s dearly beloved only son, as his instrument of education in those early dark days, as his professional support during the building of the Darlington line, one would have expected young Robert to have been at his father’s right hand. Instead, Robert had gone off on his own to South America.