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Home , Catch Me Who Can, Francis Webb (engineer), Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Nigel Gresley, Richard Trevithick, Robert Stephenson

INVENTORS AND (1771-1833)

Richard Trevithick was an inventor and from . He was born on 13th April, 1771, the son of a mining “captain” and a miner’s daughter.

At this point, Cornwall was the mining centre of Britain and Trevithick, from a very early age, took an interest in mining and . The second youngest in a family of six he soon stood out from others because of his height (6ft 2 in), which was exceptional for the era. He did poorly at the local village school at , though showed a talent for arithmetic over all other academic subjects.

At the age of 19 he began working with his father at, firstly, East Stray Park Mine, then Wheal Treasury Mine, and in his job he developed an interest in the mechanics of steam power after becoming something of an authority on the repair of the existing mine steam engines. He began at Ding Dong Colliery in 17?? as its engineer and it was here that he first began to translate his interest in steam power into tangible results. His first experiments involved making a model , powered by a red-hot poker, which, when inserted into a tube under a , heated the water and produced steam which then moved the engine for a short period.

Trevithick’s first full-sized steam engine appeared on Christmas Eve 1801. It was named “Puffing Devil” and it was a road which was capable of carrying passengers. On its first outing it successfully carried 6 passengers some distance along the road in Camborne. Unfortunately, just three days later it broke down during further tests. When Trevithick and his colleagues adjourned to a nearby for refreshments they unwisely forgot to extinguish the engine’s fire. The boiler dried up and the locomotive burst into flames! Trevithick, however, did not consider this a huge loss as the locomotive would have only been able to sustain sufficient steam for a very short while and so would not have been of great practical value. His 1803 Steam Carriage was abandoned because it was too expensive to run and also very uncomfortable, but it did succeed in carrying passengers from to .

The difference between Trevithick’s approach to steam power and those that had gone before was his use of high pressure steam, which was dismissed as far too dangerous by those such as , who, along with , had become considerably rich by patenting their design of low pressure steam engine. Trevithick spent much of his career struggling against the restrictions of Watt’s patent and the limitations of the technology, producing designs which were ahead of their time. His , include the 1804 “Pen-y-darren”, which is believed to be the first worked on a track. This engine hauled 10 tons of iron and numerous passengers along rails at Merthyr in . A subsequent loco was built for Colliery, again in 1804 and using wooden rails. In 1808 “” carried fare-paying passengers around a circle of track in , London, but like all of Trevithick’s locomotives, suffered from an excess of weight, which caused the brittle rails to break. This was to be a major stumbling block in the development of successful steam traction until ’s use of much stronger wrought iron rails in the 1820s.

Trevithick experimented with further high pressure steam designs though none were for locomotives. He travelled to South America in 1816, where his engines were being used to help drain water from the Peruvian mines. Here he acted as a mining consultant and went through numerous hair-raising adventures before meeting up with fellow engineer , who had himself been working in . The penniless Trevithick was given by Stephenson the £50 passage back to Britain and returned with little more than the clothes he was wearing.

Trevithick died in , on 22nd April 1833. He left no money and his funeral expenses had to be paid by the workers at the works where he had been developing a reaction turbine for a ship.

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INVENTORS and ENGINEERS

Thomas Telford (1757-1834)

Thomas Telford was born in Dumfriesshire, Scotland on August 9th, 1757. The the son of a shepherd, Telford went on to become one of Scotland’s most celebrated civil engineers. Such was his reputation that he was nicknamed “The Colossus of Roads” and many of his most famous projects still exist to this day.

Beginning as an apprentice stonemason in the Scottish Borders, he then worked for a time in , before moving to London in 1782, where one of his first tasks was to build additions to House. Work at dockyard followed and by 1787, despite being largely self-taught, he had become Surveyor of Public works for with building and repairs being a particular responsibility.

Telford’s growing reputation was enhanced by several highly successful canal projects, including the construction of the Caledonian Canal in Scotland’s Great Glen from 1801 onwards. Part of this saw a series of 8 locks being built just north of Fort William, known as “Neptune’s Staircase”, allowing the canal to cross a rise in the land level of some 64 feet (24m). This was only one part of a master plan by Telford to improve communications in the Scottish Highlands, which was to last for over 20 years. It would include re-designing some parts of the Crinan Canal, building around 920 miles (1,480km) of new roads, as well as constructing over 1000 new . In addition to this, some 32 new churches, to a standard Telford design, were built as part of a project to build churches in communities which had no existing church buildings.

One of Telford’s most famous projects was the suspension bridge over the Menai Straits in , linking that island with the mainland. At the time it was the longest suspension bridge in the world, spanning some 580 feet (180m). Although not a railway engineer, many of the techniques which Telford employed would be adapted and developed by others to help facilitate the incredible expansion of the railways which occurred largely after Telford’s death on 2nd September1834. He was one of the first civil engineers to stringently test the materials which he used in his projects, and the result was projects which have stood the test of time.

The town of Telford in Shropshire is named after him, as is Telford College in Edinburgh (now part of Edinburgh College).

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INVENTORS and ENGINEERS

George Stephenson (1781-1848)

George Stephenson was born on June 9th, 1781 in a small village just 9 miles west of . Neither of his parents could read or write and neither could Stephenson himself until he was 18. Becoming an engineman at a coal mine at Newburn at the age of 17, he paid to study reading, writing and arithmetic at night school. Stephenson settled at Colliery as a brakesman, gaining promotion to enginewright after he was able to fix the pit pumping engine. With responsibility for maintaining all of the colliery engines he soon became an expert in steam driven machinery. He devised a form of safety lamp at more or less the same time as Humphrey Davy, with Davy’s design being preferred by the powers in London, who could not understand how an “uneducated” man from “The North” was capable of such brilliance. Stephenson’s lowly beginnings would affect his future relationships with the authorities. It was only a matter of time before Stephenson would turn his attention to the challenges of producing a successful steam driven locomotive. By 1814 he had designed his first engine, which would be used to haul coal at Killingworth Pit. Among his earliest designs was a six wheeled locomotive which was used on the Kilmarnock and Troon Railway in Scotland, but ultimately proved to be too heavy for the brittle cast iron rails. In 1821 construction began on the Stockton and Railway, with locomotives designed by Stephenson and his son Robert, a rising star whose company was tasked with building the required. The railway opened on 27th September 1825, with the engine “Locomotion” hauling an 80 ton load for 9 miles (15 km) at a maximum speed of 24 mph (39 km/h). After the success of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, Stephenson’s next challenge was to construct a railway between and . After much argument over whose land the line was to travel, a route was agreed, and construction begun, with Stephenson having had to overcome some formidable natural obstacles in a bid to keep the line as level as possible (steam engines lose a lot of their power on even gentle inclines). The foremost of these was Chat Moss, a seemingly bottomless peat bog, which was bridged by literally having the line floated over it on rafts constructed of heather and branches. Much of the credit for the design of the locomotives used on the Liverpool and Manchester, including the world-famous “Rocket” must go to his son Robert, but it is true that the design of the line itself and its civil engineering marvels were of George’s making. He remained busy for the rest of his life working on various projects, including the railway lines from Derby to and Manchester to Leeds, as well as becoming the first president of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers in 1847. He died just one year later, on 12th August, 1848, aged 67, after contracting pleurisy, an infection of the lungs.

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INVENTORS AND Engineers Robert Stephenson (1803-1859)

Robert Stephenson was born on 16th October, 1803 at Willington Quay in Northumberland, the son of famed engineer George Stephenson and his wife, Frances (died 1806). Robert moved with the family to Killingworth where his father, who became enginewright at the colliery, made sure that he had a firm education at the local village school and then at Percy Street Academy in Newcastle. Robert’s father had suffered from his lack of a formal education and was determined that his son would not suffer the same fate. Robert followed in his father’s footsteps and became an apprentice mining engineer at the age of 15. From 1820 onwards, after having attended classes at Edinburgh University for 6 months, he helped survey the much contested route of the Stockton & Darlington Railway along with his father and, once this was completed, spent the next 3 years, from 1825 onwards, as a mining engineer in Colombia. Upon his return he found that his father had begun building the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, and Robert contributed by designing and manufacturing the motive power for the line, including the locomotive, “Rocket”. This engine would go down in history as the winner of the 1829 Trials, held on a section of the Liverpool and Manchester and attended by around 15,000 spectators. The victory of “Rocket” effectively launched Stephenson’s career as a celebrated designer of locomotives and railways, and, following the successful opening of the Liverpool and Manchester in 1830, he became the chief engineer of the London and Railway in 1833. This railway opened to great fanfare in 1838. Further commissions involved railway construction in countries such as Belgium, Norway, Egypt and France and by 1850 Stephenson had had an involvement in around one third of Britain’s railway network. Among Stephenson’s most famed commissions was that for a bridge to take a railway across the Menai Straits between the island of Anglesey and the Welsh mainland. Thomas Telford had succeeded in building a suspension bridge in 1826 for road traffic but Stephenson faced new challenges in bringing a double track railway across the stretch of water, not the least of which was that Admiralty insisted that the bridge had to be a single span high enough to allow their ships to pass below. The result was the , completed in March 1850, with the railway line encased in four huge wrought iron tubes which sat some 100 feet (34m) above the water. Sadly the bridge was partly destroyed by a disastrous fire in 1970 and had to be rebuilt, losing the wrecked iron tubes. The reconstructed bridge now carries both road and rail traffic on two separate decks. Stephenson’s tubular design for the Britannia Bridge was to be used in a bridge which formed part of the to railway in Egypt, which opened in 1854. As well as being an engineer, Stephenson also became an MP in 1847 and was the elected member for . This was a position that he was to retain for the rest of his life. Unfortunately ill health dogged Stephenson’s final years and, weakened by bouts of nephritis and bronchitis, he died on 12th October 1859, just a few days after the death of his great friend and fellow railway engineer, Isambard Kingdom .

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INVENTORS AND Engineers (1806-1859)

Isambard Kingdom Brunel was born in Portsmouth on 9th April 1806, the son of noted French civil engineer Marc Brunel and his wife Sophia. His memorable name came from his parents - his mother’s surname had been “Kingdom” and his father’s middle name was “Isambard”. Brunel became one of the ’s most celebrated and innovative engineers, not afraid to take on projects which had defeated others, though not always with 100% success. Brunel was given a high quality education, with his father initially acting as his teacher. When he was 14 he was enrolled at college in Caen, Normandy, then at Lycée Henri-IV in Paris. Following this he became an apprentice clockmaker until late 1822, returning to to work with his father, as an assistant engineer, on the building of the Thames between and in London. During its problematic construction he narrowly escaped death in an underground cave-in in 1828 and spent 6 months recovering from his injuries. In 1830 Brunel submitted four designs for a proposed bridge over the in . This design, along with all others, was rejected by a committee chaired by none other than Thomas Telford, who decided instead to design the bridge himself! After numerous complaints from the public, a new competition was held which was won by Brunel. The resulting Clifton Suspension Bridge, whose 702 feet (214m) span was at the time the longest in the world, survives to this day and is possibly one of Brunel’s most celebrated accomplishments, though its completion was delayed until 1864, with Brunel not living to see it finished. A lack of funds was partly the cause of the delays, and the completed bridge was an amended version of Brunel’s original, with the chains supporting the road-bed taken from the dismantled Hungerford footbridge on the , also designed by Brunel. Other notable projects which Brunel designed include the , spanning the at in Cornwall, and the 1.83 mile(2.95 km) long , on part of the ’s line between London and Bristol, and, when it was opened in 1841, the longest tunnel in the world. The Great Western Railway itself (nicknamed “God’s Wonderful Railway”) was one of Brunel’s most enduring achievements, opening in 1835 and still remaining a potent in Britain’s railways even after becoming British Railways Western Region as part of the nationalised system in 1948. It first opened as a broad gauge network, with a gauge of 7ft ¼ inch, as opposed to the standard gauge of 4ft 8 ½ inches used on other lines. It was not until after Brunel’s death that the broad gauge system was finally abandoned by the GWR. Brunel’s achievements also stretched to the building of the transatlantic ships, Great Western (the first holder of the for fastest Atlantic crossing), S.S. Great Britain (the first iron hulled propeller driven ship to cross the Atlantic) and the Great Eastern (at 700 ft (210m) long, by far the world’s largest ship), but by the time the last of these was launched in 1859, Brunel, a heavy smoker, had suffered a severe and he died on 15th September of that year. He was 53 years old. In a BBC public poll conducted in 2002, Brunel came second in its roll of “” and his achievements are a lasting legacy of his genius for invention and engineering.

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INVENTORS AND Engineers Sir Nigel Gresley (1876-1941) Herbert Nigel Gresley was born in Edinburgh on 19th June 1876, while his parents were visiting the city. He was brought up in the village of Netherseal in Derbyshire, where his father, Rev. Nigel Gresley, was the Rector of St. Peter’s Church. Gresley was schooled in Sussex and then, between 1890 and 1893, attended Marlborough College in Wiltshire. Upon leaving Marlborough he was apprenticed to Francis Webb, at the London and North Western Railway at . In 1897, having completed his initial apprenticeship, he worked as a fitter for one further year to gain practical experience, something which he felt he had previously lacked. A stint at the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway began with Gresley working in the Drawing Office. He eventually rose to the position of Assistant Carriage and Wagon Superintendent with the company in 1904. Shortly afterwards, in 1905, he became Carriage and Wagon Superintendent for the Great Northern Railway, whose headquarters were based in Doncaster and, in 1907, designed his first articulated railway carriages. In 1911 Gresley became the company’s Chief Mechanical Engineer (CME), following the retirement of H.A. Ivatt. The next year his first locomotive design, a 2-6-0, appeared, followed by a 2-8-0 in 1913. The First World War meant that Gresley’s plans for a much larger locomotive of the 4-6-2 “Pacific” type had to be delayed until 1922, but when it did arrive, in the form of the Class A1, its style and elegance were unmatched. Today the most famous of this type of locomotive is known the world over as “”, the engine of that name emerging as just one member of the last Gresley design under the GNR. In 1923 the GNR became part of the newly formed London and North Eastern Railway and Gresley was made CME. The A1, later to be upgraded to A3, became the first really successful example of the Pacific design of express in Britain, and was to influence designers on the other railway companies. The A3 was followed by the streamlined A4, probably one of the most recognisable steam locomotive designs ever, with its wedge-shaped front inspired by Bugatti motor racing . The A4 was designed for the flagship route from London to Newcastle and Edinburgh and was used to haul the highly styled “Silver Jubilee” and “Coronation” expresses. In this period Gresley oversaw the design of almost every aspect of the service, from the locomotive and carriages down to the cutlery used in the dining . The A4 assured its place in history when one of the class, “Mallard”, became the fastest-ever steam locomotive, travelling briefly at 126mph, a record that still stands to this day. His Pacific locomotives were the most glamorous of his many LNER designs, which ranged from the largest P2 locomotives, used on the difficult Edinburgh to Aberdeen route, to the humblest of goods engines, as well as designing the elegant teak carriages used on passenger services. The preserved D49 4-4-0 locomotive, “Morayshire”, whose home is at Bo’ness, was a classic Gresley design from 1928. Gresley, who was knighted in 1936, had plans to introduce even more powerful locomotives, but these were interrupted by the onset of World War 2 in 1939. Gresley carried on as Chief Mechanical Engineer, steering the LNER through the difficulties of maintaining locomotives in wartime, until his untimely death from a heart attack at the age of 64 on April 5th 1941. THE MUSEUM OF SCOTTISH RAILWAYS Inventors & Engineers Activity & Information Sheets

INVENTORS AND Engineers Sir (1876-1965)

William Arthur Stanier was born in the railway town of , Wiltshire on 27th May, 1876. His father was the Chief Clerk to , the Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Great Western Railway. With such a heritage it was perhaps inevitable that the young Stanier would follow his father and work for the GWR. After an education at Swindon High School and then Wycliffe College, Stanier joined the GWR as an office boy, soon gaining an apprenticeship in the railway workshops. For three years, from 1897 onwards, he was a draughtsman in the Drawing Office, being promoted to the post of Inspector of Materials in 1900. He stayed in this job for 4 years until he was appointed by G.J. Churchward in 1904 as Assistant to the Divisional Locomotive Superintendent in London. A return to Swindon came in 1912 when he took up the position of Assistant Works Manager, eventually becoming Works Manager in 1920. He remained firmly a part of the Great Western family until 1931, when the Chairman of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, Josiah Stamp, invited him to become the LMS’ Chief Mechanical Engineer. Though he was very much a GWR man, Stanier ultimately could not resist the challenge that the opportunity afforded and he accepted the post, starting his new job on 1st January, 1932. Stanier came to a railway that - although it was the largest of the four companies which ran Britain’s railways - had a policy, inherited from the Midland Railway, of only using small locomotives, even for its most prestigious services. On heavy trains small locos were often used in multiple. The largest passenger locos which the LMS had used before Stanier’s appointment were the 4-6-0 “Royal Scots”. Using the expert knowledge which he had gained from his time at Swindon, Stanier began to design a series of highly successful, modern steam locomotives for the LMS which would improve upon the best of the Swindon designs. These included the 4-6-0 “Black Five”, of which 842 were built for both passenger and goods work, the 8F heavy freight locomotives - a class which eventually numbered 852 locomotives (one of these is currently on display as part of the Museum of Scottish Railways), his first Pacifics - the elegant “Princess Royals” - and his masterpiece, the “Princess Coronation” Pacifics of 1937 onwards, which were initially produced with full blue and silver streamlined casings and used on the famous “Coronation Scot” express service linking London and Glasgow. In 1937 on its inaugural run, the locomotive no. 6220, “Coronation”, reached a record 114mph and only just avoided crashing into the buffers at Crewe, as the LMS did not have the same stretches of lengthy straight lines suitable for record attempts as the LNER. The “Coronation” locos were a huge success, proving to be some of the most powerful steam locomotives ever built in Britain. Upon the outbreak of World War 2 in 1939, Stanier became a consultant for the Ministry of Supply and was knighted in 1943. He remained as the LMS CME until 1944, when he retired, becoming the only railway engineer to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. The last of the “Coronation” Class locomotives built by the LMS, no. 6256, was named “Sir William A. Stanier F.R.S.” in his honour in 1947. Sir William spent 21 years in retirement, passing away at the age of 89 on 27th September 1965.

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INVENTORS AND Engineers Richard Trevithick (1771-1833) See if you can find out some answers to questions about the Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick (left). Write them in the spaces below.

What was the name of the road locomotive which he created in 1801 and what happened to it? ______

What made Trevithick’s steam engines completely different from those developed by his rival James Watt? ______

What was the “Catch Me Who Can”? ______

Why did Trevithick travel to South America in 1816? ______THE MUSEUM OF SCOTTISH RAILWAYS Inventors & Engineers Activity & Information Sheets

INVENTORS and ENGINEERS

Thomas Telford (1757-1834) See if you can find out some answers to questions about the Scottish engineer, Thomas Telford (left). Write them in the spaces below.

Where was Thomas Telford born? ______What was the nickname given to Telford?

What job did he begin in 1787 in Shropshire? ______What is “Neptune’s Staircase” and where is it? ______

Although Telford was not a railway engineer, why were his works important to railways?

______

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INVENTORS and ENGINEERS

George Stephenson (1781-1848) See if you can find out some answers to questions about the engineer and designer George Stephenson (left). Write them in the spaces below.

Where was Stephenson born? ______Where and when was his first steam locomotive made and used? ______

Stephenson began in 1821 the construction of which railway? ______What was “Chat Moss” and why was it a problem? ______

He became President of which institute in 1847?

______

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INVENTORS AND Engineers Robert Stephenson (1803-1859) See if you can find out some answers to questions about the engineer and designer Robert Stephenson (left). Write them in the spaces below.

At what age did Stephenson begin working and what job did he do?

What was the name of the winner of the 1829 and on which railway did it run? ______

Why did his “Britannia Bridge” across the Menai Straits have to be so high? ______

What happened to the Britannia Bridge in 1970?

______

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INVENTORS AND Engineers Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859)

See if you can find out some answers to questions about the engineer and inventor Isambard Kingdom Brunel (left). Write them in the spaces below.

In 1830 he won a competition to design what?

______

What was the name of the railway which he began in 1835 and which two cities did it run between? ______

What made it completely different from all other main line railways in Britain? ______

What was Brunel’s last great project, completed just before his death in 1859? ______THE MUSEUM OF SCOTTISH RAILWAYS Inventors & Engineers Activity & Information Sheets

INVENTORS AND Engineers Sir Nigel Gresley (1876-1941) See if you can find out some answers to questions about the Edinburgh-born locomotive engineer and designer, Nigel Gresley (left). Write them in the spaces below.

What was the name of the first railway for which he worked? ______In what job was he employed by the Great Northern Railway? ______In 1923, this railway became part of which larger company? ______What was the name of his most famous A1 locomotive? ______

What design feature of the A4 engine was inspired by Bugatti cars?

______

What did “Mallard” achieve on July 3rd, 1938? ______

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INVENTORS AND Engineers Sir William A. Stanier (1876-1965) See if you can find out some answers to questions about the locomotive engineer and designer, William Stanier (left). Write them in the spaces below.

Why was the young Stanier likely to work for the Great Western Railway? ______Who invited Stanier to join the LMS as its Chief Mechanical Engineer? ______

For what types of work were Stanier’s “Black 5s” used? ______

Which locomotives did he design in 1937 for use on the “Coronation Scot” service? ______

What job did Stanier take on in 1939? ______

What name was given to LMS loco no. 6256 in 1947? ______THE MUSEUM OF SCOTTISH RAILWAYS Inventors & Engineers Activity & Information Sheets