George Stephenson (21 page)

Having been completely humiliated in parliament and in the public reports, there was worse to come: the Liverpool–Manchester board decided to dispense with George Stephenson's services. They were determined to call for a fresh survey, but this time from another engineer, one more distinguished, properly educated and trained, who wouldn't let them down. If only young Robert, with his parliamentary experience, had been in England he could have been invaluable to George in his hour of need. George was left alone, dismissed, abandoned and rejected.

10

R
OBERT
R
ETURNS

R
obert Stephenson arrived in South America on 23 July 1824, thirty-five days after leaving Liverpool. He landed at the port of La Guaira in Venezuela, eight miles from Caracas. According to his diary, his initial impression of South America was poor. ‘Observed with silence the miserable appearance of the town.' His first job was to look into the possibility of building a railway between the two towns, one of the schemes which the London backers were very interested in, but he finally reported that it would cost £160,000 and would never pay its way.

In October he set off inland on mule-back for Bogota, the capital of Colombia, a journey of some twelve hundred miles, through equatorial forests into the foothills of the Andes. He managed to avoid the many ruffians and cutthroats, says Jeaffreson, and was truly amazed by the wonderful vegetation and manners of the natives he met on the way. They must have been quite intrigued by him. He wore a large hat made of plaited grass, a white cotton suit and a blue and crimson cloak. ‘My cloak is admirably adapted for the purpose, amply covering the rider and mule, and at night answered the purpose of a blanket in the net hammock which every traveller carries and suspends to the trees or in the house, as occasion may require.' Robert Stephenson sounds very much like one of nature's boy scouts, though it was eighty years before Baden-Powell got round to christening the species. (Lord Baden-Powell's christian names, by a coincidence, were Robert Stephenson.)

It was just as well that Robert had not been telling the truth when he said he was going for only a year. If he had, he would have reached the mines just in time to turn round and come back again. As it was, he didn't start mining till a year and a half after leaving Liverpool. His destination was Mariquita, up the valley of the river Magdalena beyond Bogota, which the London office had led him to believe was a thriving mining town. It had been, under the Spaniards, but revolution, earthquakes and assorted acts of god had reduced its population from 20,000 to 450 and had destroyed almost every building and left every mine deserted and overgrown. Robert decided not to mine in the ghost town and moved to a village called Santa Ana, higher in the mountains, and therefore not so hot, where he built himself a hut of bamboo and palm trees and waited for the miners to arrive. On his way from Bogota he'd kept coming across piles of abandoned mining equipment left by the river side. Mules were the only form of land transport and they had obviously been unable to carry the huge steam engines. He wrote back frantic letters to London, saying there were no roads and therefore no carts, only mule-back, and that in future all machinery should be sent in pieces. The letters either never arrived or arrived too late, for huge chunks of machinery kept appearing to be left to rust by the riverside where no doubt they lie to this day.

The miners finally arrived in October 1825, which was when his troubles really began. They were all Cornishmen and most of them were drunk when they arrived – and stayed that way. They have already commenced to drink in the most outrageous manner,' wrote Robert in a letter to his firm's agent in Bogota. ‘I dread the management of them. Their behaviour in Honda has, I am afraid, incurred for ever the displeasure of the Governor.' He needed the governor's help in opening up the mines and also for the chance of any social life, hence the white suit. It's strange to think of the social occasions which Robert did eventually attend, despite being stuck out in the jungle. There were many smart balls, dinners and parties in Bogota, given by rather eccentric but terribly upper class émigré Englishmen who'd gone off to the depths of South America to investigate the flora and fauna, to act as engineers or as the representatives of the many London mining expeditions. It was in South America, meeting so many well-bred Englishmen, that Robert finally lost his Geordie accent.

The biggest trouble with the Cornishmen turned out not to be their ‘detestable vice of drunkenness' but the fact that to a man they hated young Robert. He was a slip of a boy, just twenty-two, and they refused to believe that he could possibly know anything about mining. ‘They plainly tell me that I am obnoxious to them because I was not born in Cornwall, and although they are perfectly aware that I have visited some of the principal mines in that county and examined the various processes on the spot, yet they tell me that it is impossible for a North-Countryman to know anything about mining.'

One night, when almost all of them were drunk, they surrounded his hut, chanting and singing and jeering, saying they were going to come in and beat him up. In the best tradition of the brave lone Englishman surrounded by unruly natives (in this case, unruly Cornish natives) Robert rose from his bed and came out to face them, half dressed. According to Jeaffreson, Robert stood calmly in the midst of them, drawing himself to his full height and said: ‘It won't do for us to fight tonight. It wouldn't be fair, for you are drunk and I am sober. We had better wait till tomorrow, So you better break up this meeting and go away quietly.'

They turned their eyes to the ground, says Jeaffreson, cowed by his coolness, and started slinking slowly away while Robert, with great dignity, went back inside. ‘Robert lit a cigar, and, sitting down in the room, allowed the tipsy scoundrels to see him through the open door calmly smoking.' Bravo.

Robert did finally gain the confidence of some of them by organising sports, such as hammer throwing and lifting weights, taking part himself to show he might be a northerner but he wasn't a softie, but he never managed to discipline them completely. Their leaders continually addressed him as the company clerk, sent to pay their wages, refusing to acknowledge that he really was in charge. He later estimated that at any one time at least one third of the hundred and sixty miners in his control were dead drunk. Even the sober ones never managed more than half a day's work.

The full horror of his situation, which he was perfectly aware of, never seemed to make him want to pack up, though others encouraged him to break his contract. By this time his letters were arriving home in England and he told them about the deplorable conditions. ‘I have my health just now very well,' he wrote to Longridge in Newcastle. ‘Though I cannot say I am so strong as when I left England. The tropical climates are far from being so unhealthy as is generally supposed by those in northern latitudes. The rainy season is the only objectionable part. It occurs twice in one year.' In a postscript to this letter he added: ‘May I beg the favour of your attending to the payment of my yearly subscription to the Lit. and Phil. Society? I rather suspect it has been neglected.'

Longridge, in his turn, kept Robert up to date with the latest development in the Old Country, some of which rather perplexed Robert when he wrote back.

In the close of your last letter you mention that the calisthenic exercises have just come into fashion. This puzzled me not a little. I could not find for the life of me any significance for the new-coined word, and therefore I am as ignorant of the kind of exercise which has become fashionable amongst the ladies as I was before I left England and I suppose I must remain so until I return.

But there was soon more serious news from England. The locomotive works at Forth Street were doing badly in the absence of Robert. Longridge had got his own iron works to look after and couldn't manage to run two businesses. Edward Pease wrote to Robert telling him about the difficulties.

I can assure thee that thy business at Newcastle, as well as thy father's engineering, have suffered very much from thy absence and, unless thou soon return, the former will be given up, as Mr Longridge is not able to give it that attention it requires: and what is done is not done with credit to the house.

Longridge himself wrote in a similar vein.

I feel anxious for your return and I think you will find your Father and your Friend
considerable
older than when you left us. Pray take care of your own [health] and let us see you able as well mentally and physically to fill up our stations.

Robert did at last begin to think of coming home early, but he was laid low with a fever and reported that he was ‘completely wearied and worn down with vexations'. Mr Richardson, the Quaker, told him he must stay to see out his contract.

Robert had written to his father and to his step-mother at regular intervals since his arrival in South America, which shows there was no family split. One of his first letters was to his stepmother telling her he was having three-fifths of his South American salary sent direct to his father. Was he now feeling guilty at having gone off leaving the new firm in the lurch?

The worst news of all must have been that of his father's dismissal by the Liverpool railway company. On 15 December 1825, Robert wrote to Longridge.

The failure of the Liverpool and Manchester Act, I fear, will retard much this kind of speculation; but it is clear that they will eventually succeed, and I still anticipate with confidence the arrival of a time we shall see some of the celebrated canals filled up. It is to be regretted that my father placed the conducting of the levelling under the care of young men without experience. Simple as the process of levelling may appear, it is one of those things that requires care and dexterity in its performance.

In a letter to his stepmother, in June the following year, trying to comfort them in their difficult times, he shows the affection which rarely disappeared for any length of time.

My dear father's letter, which I received a few days ago, was an affectionate one, and when he spoke of his head getting grey and finding himself descending the hill of life, I could not refrain from giving way to feelings which overpowered me, and prevented me from reading on. Some, had they seen me, would perhaps call me childish: but I would tell them such feelings and reflections as crossed me at that moment are unknown to them. They are unacquainted with the love and affection due to attentive parents, which in me seems to have become more acute, as the distance and period of my absence have increased.

Meanwhile, the Liverpool board, after George's failure in parliament and subsequent dismissal, decided this time they must have a national figure and accordingly hired the Rennie brothers, George and John, two of the most respected engineers of the day, sons of John Rennie the Scottish engineer who built the old Waterloo and Southwark bridges in London. Under their direction a young and talented engineer called Charles Vignoles started a new survey. He slightly altered the line, avoiding the estates of the more vociferous opponents. At the same time, the board came to terms with the majority of the previous obstructionists, paying them huge amounts in compensation and in some cases giving them railway shares. The Rennies' estimate was £500,000, £100,000 more than George's, but they got their survey and plans carried successfully through parliament. Vignoles was very smooth, cultivated and confident under cross-examination and Alderson failed to find any flaws or inconsistencies in the survey. William Huskisson made a strong speech in favour of the bill but perhaps the most important thing in its favour this time, apart from the absence of George, was the fact that the use of locomotives was played down. Out of two hundred clauses in the new bill, only one contained a reference to locomotives. The railway board well knew that the bogey must be well hidden from the public. The bill was carried by forty-five votes on 5 May 1826.

The board was naturally delighted and approached the Rennies, grateful for their excellent survey and their parliamentary expertise, about becoming the engineers in charge of the construction of the line. They took their time giving an answer, saying they were very busy, they were going away. The board had to wait very patiently. In the end they suggested that perhaps the Rennies would agree if they were given the help of a couple of secondary engineers, someone like George Stephenson for example. When the Rennies finally replied their conditions were long and complicated. They wanted £600 per annum, for which one of them guaranteed to make six visits a year to the railway, which was very decent of them. They said they would like some assistant engineers, but it would have to be someone like Thomas Telford. On no account would they have George Stephenson.

The directors decided, after a lot of discussion, to refuse the Rennies' conditions. Another engineer was considered but after Sandars had investigated his work and his conditions for doing the job he too was deemed to be unsuitable. Almost by default they turned once more to George Stephenson, asking if he would be engineer for the Liverpool–Manchester Railway.

By this time the Stockton and Darlington had successfully opened, which put George in a better light, making up slightly for his parliamentary debacle. Sandars, and Booth, the treasurer, had both remained his supporters but they'd been in a minority ever since George's parliamentary failure. However, they were not sending begging letters or messengers to Stephenson, worrying if perhaps he'd got something better. They were doing him the favour this time and laid down conditions accordingly. He was to devote at least nine months in every year to full time work on the line and during its construction he was to take on no new work for any other railway company. His salary was to be £800 a year. Vignoles was to be his chief assistant, which didn't please Stephenson, nor did it please Vignoles, having done the parliamentary survey. However, Vignoles looked on himself as ‘co-engineer', not assistant to George, a situation which was bound to lead to trouble.