The life of george stephenson

George Stephenson is often called the father of the modern railway. As a civil engineer of railway routes and a mechanical engineer of rails and locomotives during the industrial revolution, he transformed transport.

Stephenson was self-taught as an engineer. He was born at Wylam in the north-east of England to a poor and illiterate family with no opportunity for education. He began his working life as a child labourer and could not read or write until he was aged In his teens he was given more and more responsible jobs with colliery steam engines and he went to night-school for elementary education. To earn more money he learned to repair clocks and watches. In , after making improvements to a pumping engine that was not working properly, he was put in charge of all the engines belonging to an alliance of coal owners in north-east England.

In his thirties, his true career began. He built his first railway locomotive, Blücher, in for Killingworth collier

•

George Stephenson

English "Father of Railways" (–)

This article is about the English engineer. For other people called George Stephenson, see George Stephenson (disambiguation). For the similar name, see George Stevenson (disambiguation).

George Stephenson
Born	()9 June Wylam, Northumberland, England
Died	12 August () (aged&#;67) Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England
Resting place	Holy Trinity Church, Chesterfield
Spouse(s)	Frances Henderson (–) Elizabeth Hindmarsh (–) Ellen Gregory ()
Children	Robert Stephenson Frances Stephenson (died in infancy)

George Stephenson (9 June – 12 August ) was an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer during the Industrial Revolution.^[1] Renowned as the "Father of Railways",^[2] Stephenson was considered by the Victorians as a great example of diligent application and thirst for improvement. His chosen rail gauge, sometimes called "Stephenson gauge",^[i] was the basis for the

•

PREFACE.
&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;

THE present is a revised edition of the life of George Stephenson and of his son Robert Stephenson, to which is prefixed a history of the Railway and the Locomotive in its earlier stages, uniform with the early history of the Steam-engine given in vol. iv. of "Lives of the Engineers" containing the memoirs of Boulton and Watt.  A memoir of Richard Trevithick has also been included in this introductory portion of the book, which will probably be found more complete than any notice which has yet appeared of that distinguished mechanical engineer.

    Since the appearance of this Life in its original form ten years ago, the construction of railways has continued to make extraordinary progress.  The length of lines then open in Europe was estimated at about 18, miles: it is now more than 50, miles.  Although Great Britain, first in the field, had then, after abo