Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 54.djvu/192

 services to Edward Pease [q. v.], the chief promoter, and strongly urged the advantages of steam locomotives over horse traction. He was at length appointed engineer to the line at a salary of 300l. a year. He surveyed the whole line himself, and early in 1823 a fresh act of parliament was obtained for a new route (Ann. Reg. 1823, p. 241). On 23 May 1823 the first rail was laid. Stephenson strongly advocated the use of malleable-iron rails, instead of the cast-iron which had always been used up to that time, and the suggestion was in part adopted. But the character of the locomotives to be used on the line occupied his chief attention. He saw the necessity of getting together a trained staff of workmen if the mechanical construction of his locomotives was to be improved. He induced Pease and his cousin Thomas Richardson (1771–1853) [q. v.] to join him in establishing works at Newcastle. They were started in August 1823, and at these works the engines for the Stockton line were made. The line was opened for traffic, amid a scene of great enthusiasm, on 27 Sept. 1825. The first locomotive that passed over it weighed eight tons and attained a speed of twelve to sixteen miles an hour. It now occupies a pedestal at Darlington station.

Stephenson's next undertaking was the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. The enormous and rapidly increasing trade between these two towns had completely outgrown the canal accommodation, and as early as 1821 schemes were mooted for connecting them by a railroad. In 1824 a company was organised, and Stephenson, after several visits of the chief promoters to the Stockton and Darlington line, then in construction, was employed to make the necessary surveys for the preparation of the plans. The surveyors encountered the fiercest opposition from the farmers and proprietors of the great estates through which the proposed line was to run, and were often subjected to actual personal violence; hence, proper surveys could hardly be made. A bill was introduced into parliament in 1825, and, after a most stubborn fight, was eventually rejected, the rejection being greatly facilitated by the admitted inefficiency of the plans. Stephenson was subjected to the most searching cross-examination by the counsel for the opposers, mainly as to his method of crossing the Chat Moss, and as to the speed he proposed his engines should attain. In 1826, urged by Huskisson, the promoters again introduced a bill. The new plans were drawn on surveys made by the Rennies [see, (1791–1866), and , (1794–1874)]. Another long struggle ended in their victory. Stephenson was appointed engineer, and work was at once begun. The most important constructional works on the line were the crossing of Chat Moss and the execution of the great Olive Mount cutting. By distributing the load over a considerable surface of the Moss, Stephenson was enabled, as it were, to float his line over this treacherous bog, and thus overcome the chief difficulty. While the line was being constructed long and anxious consideration was given to the question of motive power; and for a time, influenced by a report given by outside engineering experts, the directors were in favour of haulage by the use of fixed engines distributed along the line. Stephenson fought strenuously for the locomotive, and eventually the directors decided to test the possibility of Stephenson's ideas by means of an open competition, the prize offered being 500l. The chief condition insisted on was that a mean speed of ten miles an hour was to be obtained with a steam pressure not exceeding fifty pounds per square inch. There were also certain restrictions as to weight of engine in comparison with the load it hauled, the price of engine, and other details. The trial was fixed for 1 Oct. 1829.

Stephenson saw that, if he was to be successful, he must find some means of increasing the heating surface of the boilers of his locomotives. On the advice of Henry Booth [q. v.], the secretary of the company, he adopted tubes passing through the cylindrical barrel and connecting the fire-box with the smoke-box. Several tubular boilers had been previously made by Trevithick, Sir Goldsworthy Gurney [q. v.], and others; and Seguin in France, in 1828, had applied the tube principle to a locomotive. Stephenson's engine for the great trial, called ‘The Rocket,’ was built at the Newcastle works under the direct supervision of Stephenson's son, and, after many failures, the problem of securing the tubes to the tube-plates was mastered. The boiler was a cylinder six feet long and forty inches in diameter, with twenty-five three-inch copper tubes, the fire-box being two feet by three feet, secured to the front and surrounded by water; the cylinders were two, and were placed obliquely to the axis; its weight was four and a quarter tons. Three other engines entered for the competition besides the Rocket—the Novelty (the only real competitor) by John Braithwaite (1797–1870) [q. v.] and Ericson, the Sanspareil by Hackworth, and the Perseverance by Burstall. The place of trial, Rainhill, near Liverpool, was a two-mile level piece of line, and each engine was to run at least seventy miles in a day, back-