Читать книгу Lives of the Engineers - Samuel Smiles - Страница 6

The christening took place in the school-house at Wallsend, the old parish church being at the time in so dilapidated a condition from the “creeping” or subsidence of the ground, consequent upon the excavation of the coal, that it was considered dangerous to enter it. On this occasion, Robert Gray and Anne Henderson, who had officiated as bridesman and bridesmaid at the wedding, came over again to Willington, and stood godfather and godmother to little Robert—so named after his grandfather.

After working for several years more as a brakesman at the Willington machine, George Stephenson was induced to leave his situation there for a similar one at the West Moor Colliery, Killingworth. It was not without considerable persuasion that he was induced to leave the Quay, as he knew that he should thereby give up the chance of earning extra money by casting ballast from the keels. At last, however, he consented, in the hope of making up the loss in some other way.

The village of Killingworth lies about seven miles north of Newcastle, and is one of the best-known collieries in that neighbourhood. The workings of the coal are of vast extent, and give employment to a large number of work-people. To this place Stephenson first came as a brakesman about the beginning of 1805. He had not been long in his new place, ere his wife died (in 1806), shortly after giving birth to a daughter, who survived the mother only a few months. George deeply felt the loss of his wife, for they had been very happy together. Their lot had been sweetened by daily successful toil. The husband was sober and hard-working, and his wife made his hearth so bright and his home so snug, that no attraction could draw him from her side in the evening hours. But this domestic happiness was all to pass away; and George felt as one that had thenceforth to tread the journey of life alone.

Shortly after this event, while his grief was still fresh, he received an invitation from some gentlemen concerned in large spinning works near Montrose in Scotland, to proceed thither and superintend the working of one of Boulton and Watt’s engines. He accepted the offer, and made arrangements to leave Killingworth for a time.

Having left his little boy in good keeping, he set out upon his long journey to Scotland on foot, with his kit upon his back. While working at Montrose he gave a striking proof of that practical ability in contrivance for which he was afterwards so distinguished. It appears that the water required for the purposes of his engine, as well as for the use of the works, was pumped from a considerable depth, being supplied from the adjacent extensive sand strata. The pumps frequently got choked by the sand drawn in at the bottom of the well through the snore-holes, or apertures through which the water to be raised is admitted. The barrels soon became worn, and the bucket and clack leathers destroyed, so that it became necessary to devise a remedy; and with this object the engineman proceeded to adopt the following simple but original expedient. He had a wooden box or boot made, twelve feet high, which he placed in the sump or well, and into this he inserted the lower end of the pump. The result was, that the water flowed clear from the outer part of the well over into the boot, and being drawn up without any admixture of sand, the difficulty was thus conquered. [38]

Being paid good wages, Stephenson contrived, during the year he worked at Montrose, to save a sum of £28, which he took back with him to Killingworth. Longing to get back to his kindred, his heart yearning for the son whom he had left behind, our engineman took leave of his employers, and trudged back to Northumberland on foot as he had gone. While on his journey southward he arrived late one evening, footsore and wearied, at the door of a small farmer’s cottage, at which he knocked, and requested shelter for the night. It was refused, and then he entreated that, being tired, and unable to proceed further, the farmer would permit him to lie down in the outhouse, for that a little clean straw would serve him. The farmer’s wife appeared at the door, looked at the traveller, then retiring with her husband, the two confabulated a little apart, and finally they invited Stephenson into the cottage. Always full of conversation and anecdote, he soon made himself at home in the farmer’s family, and spent with them a few pleasant hours. He was hospitably entertained for the night, and when he left the cottage in the morning, he pressed them to make some charge for his lodging, but they refused to accept any recompense. They only asked him to remember them kindly, and if he ever came that way, to be sure and call again. Many years after, when Stephenson had become a thriving man, he did not forget the humble pair who had succoured and entertained him on his way; he sought their cottage again, when age had silvered their hair; and when he left the aged couple, they may have been reminded of the old saying that we may sometimes “entertain angels unawares.”

Reaching home, Stephenson found that his father had met with a serious accident at the Blucher Pit, which had reduced him to great distress and poverty. While engaged in the inside of an engine, making some repairs, a fellow-workman accidentally let in the steam upon him. The blast struck him full in the face; he was terribly scorched, and his eyesight was irretrievably lost. The helpless and infirm man had struggled for a time with poverty; his sons who were at home, poor as himself, were little able to help him, while George was at a distance in Scotland. On his return, however, with his savings in his pocket, his first step was to pay off his father’s debts, amounting to about £15; and shortly after he removed the aged pair from Jolly’s Close to a comfortable cottage adjoining the tramroad near the West Moor at Killingworth, where the old man lived for many years, supported entirely by his son.

Stephenson was again taken on as a brakesman at the West Moor Pit. He does not seem to have been very hopeful as to his prospects in life about this time (1807–8). Indeed the condition of the working class generally was very discouraging. England was engaged in a great war, which pressed upon the industry, and severely tried the resources, of the country. There was a constant demand for men to fill the army. The working people were also liable to be pressed for the navy, or drawn for the militia; and though they could not fail to be discontented under such circumstances, they scarcely dared even to mutter their discontent to their neighbours.

Stephenson was drawn for the militia: he must therefore either quit his work and go a-soldiering, or find a substitute. He adopted the latter course, and borrowed £6, which, with the remainder of his savings, enabled him to provide a militiaman to serve in his stead. Thus the whole of his hard-won earnings were swept away at a stroke. He was almost in despair, and contemplated the idea of leaving the country, and emigrating to the United States. Although a voyage thither was then a much more formidable thing for a working man to accomplish than a voyage to Australia is now, he seriously entertained the project, and had all but made up his mind to go. His sister Ann, with her husband, emigrated about that time, but George could not raise the requisite money, and they departed without him. After all, it went sore against his heart to leave his home and his kindred, the scenes of his youth and the friends of his boyhood; and he struggled long with the idea, brooding over it in sorrow. Speaking afterwards to a friend of his thoughts at the time, he said: “You know the road from my house at the West Moor to Killingworth. I remember once when I went along that road I wept bitterly, for I knew not where my lot in life would be cast.”

In 1808, Stephenson, with two other brakesmen, took a small contract under the colliery lessees for brakeing the engines at the West Moor Pit. The brakesmen found the oil and tallow; they divided the work amongst them, and were paid so much per score for their labour. It was the interest of the brakesmen to economise the working as much as possible, and George no sooner entered upon the contract than he proceeded to devise ways and means of making it “pay.” He observed that the ropes which, at other pits in the neighbourhood, lasted about three months, at the West Moor Pit became worn out in about a month. He immediately set about ascertaining the cause of the defect; and finding it to be occasioned by excessive friction, he proceeded, with the sanction of the head engine-wright and the colliery owners, to shift the pulley-wheels and re-arrange the gearing, which had the effect of greatly diminishing the tear and wear, besides allowing the work of the colliery to proceed without interruption.

About the same time he attempted an improvement in the winding-engine which he worked, by placing a valve between the air-pump and condenser. This expedient, although it led to no practical result, showed that his mind was actively engaged in studying new mechanical adaptations. It continued to be his regular habit, on Saturdays, to take his engine to pieces, for the purpose, at the same time, of familiarising himself with its action, and of placing it in a state of thorough working order. By mastering its details, he was enabled, as opportunity occurred, to turn to practical account the knowledge he thus diligently and patiently acquired.

Such an opportunity was not long in presenting itself. In the year 1810, a new pit was sunk by the “Grand Allies” (the lessees of the mines) at the village of Killingworth, now known as the Killingworth High Pit. An atmospheric or Newcomen engine, made by Smeaton, was fixed there for the purpose of pumping out the water from the shaft; but somehow it failed to clear the pit. As one of the workmen has since described the circumstance—“She couldn’t keep her jack-head in water: all the enginemen in the neighbourhood were tried, as well as Crowther of the Ouseburn, but they were clean bet.” The engine had been fruitlessly pumping for nearly twelve months, and began to be spoken of as a total failure. Stephenson had gone to look at it when in course of erection, and then observed to the over-man that he thought it was defective; he also gave it as his opinion that, if there were much water in the mine, the engine would never keep it under. Of course, as he was only a brakesman, his opinion was considered to be worth very little on such a point. He continued, however, to make frequent visits to the engine, to see “how she was getting on.” From the bank-head where he worked his brake he could see the chimney smoking at the High Pit; and as the men were passing to and from their work, he would call out and inquire “if they had gotten to the bottom yet?” And the reply was always to the same effect—the pumping made no progress, and the workmen were still “drowned out.”

One Saturday afternoon he went over to the High Pit to examine the engine more carefully than he had yet done. He had been turning the subject over thoughtfully in his mind; and seemed to have satisfied himself as to the cause of the failure. Kit Heppel, one of the sinkers, asked him, “Weel, George, what do you mak’ o’ her? Do you think you could do anything to improve her?” Said George, “I could alter her, man, and make her draw: in a week’s time I could send you to the bottom.”

Forthwith Heppel reported this conversation to Ralph Dodds, the head viewer, who, being now quite in despair, and hopeless of succeeding with the engine, determined to give George’s skill a trial. At the worst he could only fail, as the rest had done. In the evening, Dodds went in search of Stephenson, and met him on the road, dressed in his Sunday’s suit, on the way to “the preaching” in the Methodist Chapel, which he attended. “Well, George,” said Dodds, “they tell me that you think you can put the engine at the High Pit to rights.” “Yes, sir,” said George. “I think I could.” “If that’s the case, I’ll give you a fair trial, and you must set to work immediately. We are clean drowned out, and cannot get a stop further. The engineers hereabouts are all bet; and if you really succeed in accomplishing what they cannot do, you may depend upon it I will make you a man for life.”

Stephenson began his operations early next morning. The only condition that he made, before setting to work, was that he should select his own workmen. There was, as he knew, a good deal of jealousy amongst the “regular” men that a colliery brakesman should pretend to know more about their engine than they themselves did, and attempt to remedy defects which the most skilled men of their craft, including the engineer of the colliery, had failed to do. But George made the condition a sine quâ non. “The workmen,” said he, “must either be all Whigs or all Tories.” There was no help for it, so Dodds ordered the old hands to stand aside. The men grumbled, but gave way; and then George and his party went in.

The engine was taken entirely to pieces. The cistern containing the injection water was raised ten feet; the injection cock, being too small, was enlarged to nearly double its former size, and it was so arranged that it should be shut off quickly at the beginning of the stroke. These and other alterations were necessarily performed in a rough way, but, as the result proved, on true principles. Stephenson also, finding that the boiler would bear a greater pressure than five pounds to the inch, determined to work it at a pressure of ten pounds, though this was contrary to the directions of both Newcomen and Smeaton. The necessary alterations were made in about three days, and many persons came to see the engine start, including the men who had put her up. The pit being nearly full of water, she had little to do on starting, and, to use George’s words, “came bounce into the house.” Dodds exclaimed, “Why, she was better as she was; now, she will knock the house down.” After a short time, however, the engine got fairly to work, and by ten o’clock that night the water was lower in the pit than it had ever been before. It was kept pumping all Thursday, and by the Friday afternoon the pit was cleared of water, and the workmen were “sent to the bottom,” as Stephenson had promised. Thus the alterations effected in the pumping apparatus proved completely successful.

Dodds was particularly gratified with the manner in which the job had been done, and he made Stephenson a present of ten pounds, which, though very inadequate when compared with the value of the work performed, was accepted with gratitude. George was proud of the gift as the first marked recognition of his skill as a workman; and he used afterwards to say that it was the biggest sum of money he had up to that time earned in one lump. Ralph Dodds, however, did more than this. He released the brakesman from the handles of his engine at West Moot, and appointed him engineman at the High Pit, at good wages, during the time the pit was sinking—the job lasting for about a year; and he also kept him in mind for further advancement.

Stephenson’s skill as an engine-doctor soon became noised abroad, and he was called upon to prescribe remedies for all the old, wheezy, and ineffective pumping-machines in the neighbourhood. In this capacity he soon left the “regular” men far behind, though they in their turn were very mach disposed to treat the Killingworth brakesman as no better than a quack. Nevertheless, his practice was really founded upon a close study of the principles of mechanics, and on an intimate practical acquaintance with the details of the pumping-engine.

Another of his smaller achievements in the same line is still told by the people of the district. At the corner of the road leading to Long Benton, there was a quarry from which a peculiar and scarce kind of ochre was taken. In the course of working it out, the water had collected in considerable quantities; and there being no means of draining it off, it accumulated to such an extent that the further working of the ochre was almost entirely stopped. Ordinary pumps were tried, and failed; and then a windmill was tried, and failed too. On this, George was asked what ought to be done to clear the quarry of the water. He said, “he would set up for them an engine little bigger than a kail-pot, that would clear them out in a week.” And he did so. A little engine was speedily erected, by means of which the quarry was pumped dry in the course of a few days. Thus his skill as a pump-doctor soon became the marvel of the district.

In elastic muscular vigour, Stephenson was now in his prime, and he still continued to be zealous in measuring his strength and agility with his fellow workmen. The competitive element in his nature was always strong; and his success in these feats of rivalry was certainly remarkable. Few, if any, could lift such weights, throw the hammer and putt the stone so far, or cover so great a space at a standing or running leap. One day, between the engine hour and the rope-rolling hour, Kit Heppel challenged him to leap from one high wall to another, with a deep gap between. To Heppel’s surprise and dismay, George took the standing leap, and cleared the eleven feet at a bound. Had his eye been less accurate, or his limbs less agile and sure, the feat must have cost him his life.

But so full of redundant muscular vigour was he, that leaping, putting, or throwing the hammer were not enough for him. He was also ambitious of riding on horseback, and, as he had not yet been promoted to an office enabling him to keep a horse of his own, he sometimes borrowed one of the gin-horses for a ride. On one of these occasions, he brought the animal back reeking; when Tommy Mitcheson, the bank horse-keeper, a rough-spoken fellow, exclaimed to him: “Set such fellows as you on horseback, and you’ll soon ride to the De’il.” But Tommy Mitcheson lived to tell the joke, and to confess that, after all, there had been a better issue to George’s horsemanship than that which he predicted.

Old Cree, the engine-wright at Killingworth High Pit, having been killed by an accident, George Stephenson was, in 1812, appointed engine-wright of the colliery at the salary of £100 a year. He was also allowed the use of a galloway to ride upon in his visits of inspection to the collieries leased by the “Grand Allies” in that neighbourhood. The “Grand Allies” were a company of gentlemen, consisting of Sir Thomas Liddell (afterwards Lord Ravensworth), the Earl of Strathmore, and Mr. Stuart Wortley (afterwards Lord Wharncliffe), the lessees of the Killingworth collieries. Having been informed of the merits of Stephenson, of his indefatigable industry, and the skill which he had displayed in the repairs of the pumping-engines, they readily acceded to Mr. Dodds’ recommendation that he should be appointed the colliery engine-wright; and, as we shall afterwards find, they continued to honour him by distinguished marks of their approval.