Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/421

 home he was promoted colonel on 15 Feb. 1861. In 1868 he was given the command of the Scots fuslliers, and was advanced to major-general. From 1876 to 1879 he commanded the brigade of guards, and meanwhile he attained the rank of lieut.-general on 23 Feb. 1878.

In May 1883 Stephenson succeeded Sir Archibald Alison [q. v. Suppl. II] as commander of the army of occupation in Egypt. After the defeat of Valentine Baker [q. v. Suppl. I] at El Teb on 4 Feb. 1884 he organised the expedition under Sir Gerald Graham [q. v. Suppl. I] for the relief of Tokar and the defence of Suakin. In the following May, when the British government was contemplating the despatch of an expedition to the relief of Charles George Gordon [q. v.], Stephenson made urgent representations to Lord Hartington [q. v. Suppl. II] in favour of an advance on Khartoum by the Suakin-Berber route. His scheme, however, was rejected by the cabinet, and the Nile expedition proposed by Lord Wolseley was carried out in opposition to Stephenson's advice. He was nominated K.C.B. in 1884, and after the evacuation of the Sudan he took command of the frontier field force. On 30 Dec. 1885 he inflicted a severe defeat on the main body of the Mahdists at Giniss. For his services he received the thanks of parliament, the G.C.B., and the grand cross of the order of Mejidie. He resigned his command in 1887 and returned to England. In 1889 he became colonel of the Lancashire and Yorkshire regiment, and in 1892 he succeeded to the colonelcy of the Coldstream guards. He was made constable of the Tower of London in 1898. He died unmarried in London on 10 March 1911, and was buried at Brompton cemetery. A cartoon portrait by 'Spy' appeared in 'Vanity Fair' in 1887.

 STEPHENSON, GEORGE ROBERT (1819–1905), civil engineer, born at Newcastle-on-Tyne on 20 Oct. 1819, was only son of Robert Stephenson, brother of George Stephenson of railway fame [q. v.]. He was thus a first cousin of Robert Stephenson [q. V.]. At the age of twelve he was sent to work with underground viewers and surveyors at the Pendleton collieries, near Manchester, where his father was chief engineer. He was then trained for two years in the colliery workshops and was given charge of one of the engines used for drawing wagons up an incline. Owing to his father's improved circumstances a better education was then designed for him, and he was sent to King William's College, Isle of Man. In 1837 his father died, and he was obliged to set to work again. Thereupon his uncle George employed him in the drawing-office of the Manchester and Leeds railway, where he remained until 1843, when he was appointed engineer to the Tapton collieries. Shortly afterwards his cousin Robert made him resident engineer on the new lines of the South Eastern railway, of which Robert was engineer-in-chief. He superintended the construction of the Maidstone and the Minster and Deal branches ; the surveys and construction of the North Kent line ; the conversion into a railway of the long canal tunnel between Strood and Higham, and the completion of the line to Gravesend ; the laying out and partial construction of the Ashford, Rye and Hastings line, and the design of the iron swing-bridge at Rye, one of the earliest of its kind for railway purposes : the laying out of the line from Red Hill to Dorking, and other work. He remained with the South Eastern Railway Company until his cousin Robert's resignation. His activities were not confined to the South Eastern system. In 1845 he laid out an abortive line between Manchester and Southampton, and he constructed the Waterloo and Southport railway near Liverpool. He was engineer-in-chief of the Ambergate, Matlock and Rowsley, the Grantham, Sleaford and Boston, and the Northampton and Market Harborough railways (the last opened in 1855). He was a persistent advocate of a line from the north to London for the. sole purpose of mineral traffic. With George Parker Bidder [q. v.] he constructed railways for the Danish government in Schleswig-Holstein and laid out lines in Jutland ; and in 1860, as consulting engineer to the provincial government of Canterbury, New Zealand, he built the line from Lyttelton to Christchurch, and designed breakwaters for Lyttleton harbour, which were executed in accordance with his plans. In 1864 he was joint engineer-in-chief with (Sir) John Hawkshaw [q. v. Suppl. I] for the East London railway. Stephenson was associated with Ms 