George Stephenson (37 page)

In 1833 Robert Stephenson and Company were exporting locomotives to Germany, plus enginemen to teach them how to run them; then two years later to Russia and by the end of the thirties to almost every European country, but George's relationship with Belgian railways was probably the most fruitful. King Leopold, who'd become the first king of the Belgians in 1831, was determined to introduce railways to his country on a national, rational scale. Being a small, increasingly industrialised country, with important minerals and strategic ports, Belgium lent itself to a master plan rather than haphazard growth, as in Britain.

Locomotives were ordered from Newcastle in 1834 and George and Robert received a royal request in 1835 to come and advise them how to lay out a comprehensive railway system. They were both fêted by the king and queen at receptions in Brussels, which George seems to have enjoyed hugely. ‘King Leopold stated he was very glad to have the honour of my acquaintance,' said George in a letter to Longridge. ‘He seemed quite delighted with what had taken place in Belgium about the Railways.'

George was made a Knight of the Order of Leopold and visited Belgium on several later occasions, for the grand openings of various lines, each time being handsomely received. In 1848, during one banquet, the director of the Belgian National Railways unveiled before the guests a marble bust of George, crowned with laurels, and under a triumphal arch a model of the
Rocket
.

In the same year, George embarked on the last of his many foreign railway expeditions, this time to Spain where he'd been asked to construct a railway from Madrid to the Bay of Biscay. He was by now sixty-four and the journey there was hazardous enough, quite apart from surveying such difficult terrain. He went with his friend, Sir Joshua Walmsley, and their adventures and near-escapes in crossing the Pyrenees were as hair-raising as Robert's had been in South America. When George eventually struggled back to Paris he was so ill with pleurisy that Walmsley feared for his life, but he recovered, just, to tell Longridge the tale.

Tapton House, 22nd Nov, 1845.

My Dear Sir,

I am now at home and quite well, my recovery has been most extraordinary, the attack I had was pleurisy: I think it was first occasioned by taking unwholesome food at Bordeaux from that place I travelled night and day to Paris: I took very ill there, but still persevered in getting to England; on arriving at Havre I was obliged to have a Doctor who took 20 oz blood from me on board the Steam boat; I was then very weak but still wished to get on to England; the boat sailed at 5 o'clock P.M. I got to London the next day about half past 2 o'clock & there got the best advise; they got two Physicians to me; they put me to bed and cupped me on the right side; how much blood they took by cupping I cannot tell, they then put a blister on my side and gave me Calomel every four hours from Saturday night to tuesday night: I then became so weak that they durst not give me any more. on the Wednesday morning I was considerably relieved from pain and could then eat a little – my rapid recovery since that time has been astonishing, I am now quite as well as I ever was in my life, but I am advised to keep quite for a while.

Yours truly,

GEO. STEPHENSON.

Mich. Longridge Esq.

P.S. I have had a most extraordinary journey in Spain. I crossed the Pyrenees 5 times; and rode on horse back 50 miles amongst the mountains seeking out the lowest pass – we had our carriage drawn up by bullocks on to the mountain passes where a carriage had never been before – we passed just under the snow range. I shall give you an account of my travels when I see you: we travelled 3000 miles in 33 days: stopped 4 days in Madrid. 2 days at the summits of the mountain passes – I was kindly received in every Town where I was known.

Back at Tapton House, George now gave his almost undivided attention to his gardens. At Killingworth in the old days he'd competed with the miners in growing the largest and best vegetables, such as giant leeks, still one of the north east's favourite sports. Now that he was a gentleman, he turned to more exotic vegetables and fruits, such as melons, pineapples and grapes. He built ten large greenhouses, heating them with his own system of hot water pipes. One of his ambitions was to grow pineapples as big as pumpkins which would ‘knock-under' those grown by the Duke of Devonshire at nearby Chatsworth. The Chatsworth head gardener, Paxton, and his son Joseph, became close friends of George's but it didn't stop George trying to outdo them at every horticultural show. (Joseph Paxton, later Sir Joseph, went from gardening at Chatsworth to designing the Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition of 1851. Building larger greenhouses to keep George in his place no doubt helped.) George was particularly pleased, so Smiles relates, when his grapes took first prize at Rotherham in a competition ‘open to all England'.

George's ultimate aim was to grow a straight cucumber, an exercise as pointless as three-foot leeks, but one that consumed him for several years. (And led to that barbed joke from William James' daughter – about George taking the credit for everything from cucumbers to petticoats.) He tried different permutations of light and heat and eventually ordered straight, glass cylinders to be made for him at Newcastle. This finally did the trick. Carrying his first straight cucumber into the house to be admired by a group of visitors, he told them gleefully: ‘I think I have bothered them noo.'

He also experimented with stock breeding, trying new types of manure and new feedstuff, touring agricultural meetings and telling farmers where they were going wrong. He took up bird-watching again and became highly knowledgeable. He developed a method of fattening chickens in half the usual time. He'd noticed how they could be convinced that each day was really two days by shutting them in dark boxes after a heavy feed. He explained it all to Edward Pease who came to visit him one day, adding that if he were to devote himself to chickens he could make a small fortune. It sounds very much like battery farming.

His wife Elizabeth, not to be outdone, tried to keep bees but she found they wouldn't thrive at Tapton and the hives perished for no apparent reason. George investigated, studying the habits and actions of the bees, and concluded they were too tired to get up the Tapton hill to the hives, having fed themselves on all the flowers at the bottom. The hives were moved downhill and thrived.

This incident is the only story in Smiles, or any other contemporary account, which refers to his wife Elizabeth, to whom he'd been married for twenty-five years. She died in 1845, just before his long trip to Spain, and was buried at Holy Trinity Church, Chesterfield. This was a new church and considered rather ‘low', almost Methodist, which she presumably attended, though George is not known to have worshipped there or in any other church. George was left alone in the big house with his housekeeper, a lady called Ellen Gregory. But he had frequent visitors. His relations from Tyneside often came to see him and were handsomely received, usually going home with generous gifts, as did any old mechanic or miner from his past who arrived at his house asking for help. He took great interest in all Mechanics' Institutes and travelled extensively to their dinners where he made his usual speech about his early hard struggles. Great people also came to see George, though they tended not to be the London greats. Ralph Waldo Emerson, on a visit from America, met him in Chesterfield – at the house of Swanwick, George's former secretary. They discussed Americans, electricity, climate, soil and other subjects on which George had strong opinions and theories, all based on his observations, not on books, for he never went in for reading books, and Emerson expressed himself highly delighted. ‘It was worth crossing the Atlantic to have seen Stephenson alone,' he said afterwards. ‘He had such native force of character and vigour of intellect. He seems to have the life of many men in him.'

Many distinguished people tried to persuade George to come to them, but he was happiest in his own home or with gatherings of mechanics. Sir Robert Peel, the prime minister, twice invited him to spend weekends at his home at Tamworth. George declined each time but in January 1845, on the third request, graciously agreed. ‘I feel your kindness very much and can no longer refuse. I will come down and join your party.' The company was very exalted, including titled lawyers and eminent scientists of the day, and George was worried that his lack of the gift of the gab would let him down. According to Smiles, George was assisted by one of the guests, Sir William Follett, a well-known lawyer, who showed him how to arrange his arguments in a coherent order after he'd been soundly beaten in a discussion with another guest, a Dr Buckland.

One of George's favourite party pieces, when he himself had guests at Tapton, was to bring out a large microscope, draw blood from the fingers of each guest and analyse their globules, discussing the different blood groups which he'd discovered. (His observations were his own, says Smiles, only later did medical science prove they were right.) He liked to go on from a person's blood group to reflecting on their characters, no doubt feeling the shapes of their heads, from which he got other clues.

He took his microscope with him to Tamworth and towards the end of the weekend, his confidence recovered, he invited all the guests to prick their fingers. Everyone except Sir Robert Peel agreed, even though George explained that all he wanted was to see ‘how the blood globules of a great politician would conduct themselves'. Peel, apparently, had great sensitivity to pain and when he, as the host, categorically refused to be pricked, George had to abandon his experiments.

George fancied himself on most medical matters and he was fond of giving advice. When Longridge in a letter at one time complained of being unwell, George knew at once what was wrong:

You have been living high by getting the gout into your hand. I dare say you have had some Turtle soup lately? you must have a poultice put on to every nail and you will find it will do you good, but it must be so arranged that it does not come in contact with the adjoining skin –if it does it will prevent the oil having its proper passage to the growth of the nail which I dare say is flat, looks red and inflamed underneath, and cuts brittle, for want of the liquid I have just mentioned.

There are endless traces in George of a know-all attitude on many subjects. It turned to fury when anyone, such as Brunel, dared to cross him on something where he was irrefutably the master, but his background and early struggles have always to be borne well in mind. He'd won through, despite the prejudices of almost the whole of the scientific world, and naturally thought he had laid down the rules, once and for all.

He never forgot or forgave those who'd opposed him or whom he considered had done him wrong. It wasn't a matter of changing as he got older. He'd always been like this, as his early letters show, convinced he was right. He never took on airs and graces with his new wealth and power, but neither did he assume any humility.

He retained many of his old colliery habits, such as treating his guests to a ‘crowdie night', pouring boiling water on to the raw oats for everyone to eat. And if they were from the north he would sing them the old songs he'd learned from his parents – his favourite was ‘John Anderson my Joe' – or wrestle with them for old times' sake. He even did his wrestling tricks, so Smiles relates, at Robert's smart Westminster office.

‘When my father came about the office,' said Robert, he sometimes did not well know what to do with himself. So he used to invite Bidder to have a wrestle with him, for old acquaintance sake. And the two wrestled together so often, and had so many “falls” (sometimes I thought they would bring the house down between them), that they broke half the chairs in my outer office. I remember once sending my father in a joiner's bill of about 21.10
s
. for mending broken chairs.'

George always preferred talking to reading and he made it his business when starting on a train journey to go up and down the corridors, searching for an interesting-looking person to talk to. He sat himself beside Lord Denman one day on leaving Euston Station and spent several hours telling him how to mend watches. While waiting in stations, he frequently went over to enginemen and told them how to do their jobs more efficiently, or demonstrated to labourers the correct way to use a shovel and fill a barrow.

Thomas Summerside, who worked under George for many years in Tyneside and in later life, published a memoir in 1878 which has several stories of George telling people how to conduct themselves. A young hopeful came to Tapton one day wanting George's help, wearing a gold chain and a fine ring. George, always a modest dresser, despised all finery. ‘Let me advise you never to put on such trinkets as these. I never did and had I done I should not have been the man I am.' He was equally suspicious of anyone's fine learning which had been gained from books or universities. ‘Never judge a goose by its stuffing,' was one of his favourite sayings.

George was once staying at a hotel when he was engaged in conversation by a gentleman and his wife. Neither of them recognised George and the wife even had the audacity to ask George, no doubt rather dismissively, who he was and what he did for a living.

Madam, I have in my time dined with a hedger in the hedge bottom off a red herring and also sat at the table of Royalty. I used to be called plain George Stephenson but now my title is George Stephenson, Esq, of Tapton House, Chesterfield, Derbyshire; but the result of my observation is that we are pretty much alike, but for our raiment.

The lady turned to her husband and said ‘My dear, this is the
great
George Stephenson, with whose son ours is employed.' Mr Stephenson replied ‘And a simpleton he is, just like his mother.'

George's attitude to the aristocracy was complex. He could boast of their acquaintance at one time, then despise them the next. ‘It is but a short time ago since I dined with the Earl of Carlisle,' he said to Summerside on one occasion, ‘and there were brought to meet me a Duke, Earls, Lords and other gentlemen. Fine difference, Summerside, to what there used to be.'