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Local Records
1848
The vend of coals in the last half-year of 1848 amounted to 323,783 chaldrons, and that of the whole year to 627,432, being an increase of 15,620½ chaldrons over the vend of 1847, and probably the most extensive vend that has occurred — certainly the largest within the last quarter of a century. [WARD1850]
August 12. — Died, at Tapton House, Staffordshire, aged 67, Mr. George Stephenson, civil engineer, K.L., F.G.S. — a rare example of the rise of humble virtue, talent, and industry, to the most envied station in society. The deceased was born in a cottage, situated between Wylam and Close House, near Newcastle, on the 9th June, 1781. His father was fireman of the pumping-engine at Wylam colliery, and the boy was sent to the pit at an early age, being employed as a "corf bitter," at the wages of sixpence a-day. When about fourteen years of age, his father removed to the neighbourhood of Walbottle, a little nearer to Newcastle, and the youth soon after became a "brakesman" at Black Callerton colliery. When about eighteen, he was taught by an old schoolmaster to read, write, and cast accounts, and he defrayed the expense of his education by mending the shoes of his fellow-workmen, an occupation in which he became very expert, and to which he afterwards added shoemaking and last making. When in his twenty-first year, he removed to Willington, becoming brakesman upon an incline attached to a ballast wharf; and he then married his first wife, Fanny Henderson, with whom he had become acquainted at Callerton, and by whom he had his only son, the present Mr. Robert Stephenson, M.P., born December 16, 1803. In 1804, he removed to Killingworth, having been engaged as brakesman for the colliery of the Grand Allies, at West Moor. Not long after, he succeeded in discovering and removing a defect in a new steam-engine, which had eluded the skill of all the engineers of the neighbourhood, and his success in bringing the engine into working order was so complete, that he was in a short time entrusted with the entire management of the machinery belonging to the colliery. He was afterwards sent down the mine to see whether be could effect any saving of the labour required to draw the coals from the deeper portion of the workings, and he speedily made such alterations as reduced the number of horses in the pit from one hundred to fifteen or sixteen. From the oft-recurring explosions of gas, of which he was a witness at the colliery, his attention was drawn to the subject during his leisure hours; and at the very time Sir Humphrey Davy was pursuing his investigations, and before that philosopher had come to any determination upon it, Mr. Stephenson discovered, by independent experiments, that explosive mixtures will not pass through small apertures or tubes. His first safety-lamp was made by Mr. Hogg, a tinsmith in Newcastle, and it was tried at Killingworth colliery on the 21st October, 1815 — some days antecedent to Sir Humphrey's earliest announcement of the lamp which bears his name. Both gentlemen, accordingly, had their partisans; Sir Humphrey was feasted in Newcastle and honoured with a magnificent testimonial, and Mr. Stephenson's friends rewarded their protege's exertions by a gift of £1,000, which, with a silver tankard, were presented to him in January, 1818, at a dinner in the Assembly Rooms, at which C. J. Brandling, Esq., presided. Previous to this date, however, he had constructed a LOCOMOTIVE ENGINE, which was tried for the first time on the 25th July, 1814, and although it is impossible to award him all the praise due to the invention of that wonderful machine, which has revolutionised all former ideas of commercial intercourse, has annihilated distance, and everywhere become the herald of enlightenment and civilization, it cannot be doubted that his improvements in its manufacture have placed his name in immortal connexion with it. His progress thenceforth was rapid : in 1821, he was engaged by the promoters of the Stockton and Darlington Railway to make the surveys for that undertaking; and in 1824 he established an engine manufactory in Newcastle, where, in the following year, the first locomotive was constructed according to the present principle of traction. In 1829, his connection commenced with the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, and his achievements upon that line over ignorance and prejudice, as well as over the greatest physical obstacles, may be said to belong to the history of the country. With the assistance of his son, he afterwards constructed the London and Birmingham, the Manchester and Leeds, and many other railways, not only in England, but in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, and his fame as an engineer is as wide in its extent as it probably will be unlimited in its duration. Mr. Stephenson was to the last a man of plain, unassuming manners, neither ashamed of his humble origin nor forgetful of his early associates; and a few months before his death, in answer to a gentleman who was desirous of knowing what honorary initials he was entitled to use, he replied that many honours had been offered him at home and abroad, which he had declined to accept, and almost the only title which he held, and certainly the one of which he was most proud, was that of "President of the Birmingham Mechanics' Institute." An interesting biography of Mr. Stephenson, by Mr. S. Smiles, was published in 1857, and it contains a very striking portrait of the deceased, engraved by W. Holl, from a full-length picture by Lucas. [In July and August, 1845, the Midland, the York and North Midland, the Newcastle and Darlington, and the Newcastle and Berwick Railway Companies, severally voted the sum of £2,000, to be expended in the purchase of a service of plate for Mr. Stephenson, and in the erection of his statue on the high-level bridge across the Tyne. It is little to the credit of these great companies that their resolutions were never carried out.] [LRL]
August 15. — An explosion took place in the West Pit, Murton Colliery, near South Hetton, the property of Messrs. Braddyll and Co., when sixteen men and boys were killed, and several others much hurt. Upwards of one hundred persons were in the mine at the time, and but for the presence of mind of one of the workmen, who was able to lead the others to a shaft, the whole would have been suffocated. [LRF]
December 20. — Died, at Bournemouth, Hants, aged 56, Thomas Wentworth Beaumont, esq., of Bywell Hall, Northumberland, and Bretton Park, Yorkshire. Mr. Beaumont, from the extent of his landed property, and the value of his mineral possessions, was one of the richest commoners in England. He represented the county of Northumberland for several years, and was engaged in more than one electioneering contest. Mr. Beaumont was a tory, and a member of the Pitt Club in early life, but from 1820 he was generally considered an "Advanced Liberal," and his munificent generosity of disposition, and frankness of manner, secured him the attachment of a very numerous body of friends. He was one of the chief originators of the "Westminster Review," to which it was understood he contributed a number of papers. Mr. Beaumont was succeeded by his eldest son Mr. Wentworth Blackett Beaumont, who was, at his father’s death, approaching his majority. [LRF]
December 30. — Died, at Brussels, aged 74, Robert William Brandling, esq., of Low Gosforth, Northumberland. In 1835 the deceased brought before the public the project of a railway to connect Newcastle with South Shields and Sunderland. The line, which was known as the Brandling Junction Railway until its amalgamation with the Newcastle and Darlington Company, proved one of the most important in the district. Mr. Brandling was for many years an active county magistrate, and was well known and respected by all classes with whom he came in contact. January 16th, 1849, his remains arrived at Newcastle, and were interred on the same day at Gosforth. [LRF]
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