The notices of railway projectors would have been incomplete without some sketch of Thomas Gray. He wrought and wrote for many years in favour of iron railways with great perseverance and vigour. He never gained pecuniary advantage from his labours. It is probable that to him they were the cause of heavy expenditure and losses. He was not a practical but a speculative man; yet it is clear that he foresaw the progress of railways. His friends considered him the inventor of the system; but it has no single inventor. It is the result of the thoughts of many men; and we do not know that Thomas Gray, of Nottingham, invented any part of the mechanism now forming, in a practical meaning of the phrase, our travelling system." As he certainly compelled public men to consider the new and strange scheme, and laboured incessantly in its behalf, and as his merits in that respect have had small justice rendered to them, we copy Mr. Smiles's account of the man, whom, according to William Howitt, the good people of Nottingham considered a railway

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bore:

Thomas Gray, of Nottingham, was a much more sanguine and speculative man. He was not a mechanic of an inventor, but an enthusiastic believer in the wonderful powers of the railroad system. Being a native of Leeds, he had, when a boy, seen Blenkinsop's locomotive at work on the Middleton cogged railroad, and from an early period he seems to have entertained almost as sanguine views on the subject as Sir Richard Phillips himself. It would appear that Gray was residing at Brussels in 1816, when the project of a canal from Charleroi, for the purpose of connecting Holland with the mining districts of Belgium, was the subject of discussion, and, in conversation with Mr. John Cockerill and others, he took the opportunity of advocating the superior advantages of a railway. For some years after, he pondered the subject more carefully, and at length became fully possessed by the grand idea on which other minds were now at work. He occupied himself for some time with the preparation of a pamphlet on the subject. He shut himself up in his room, secluded from his wife and relations, declining to give them any information on the subject of his mysterious studies, beyond the assurance that his scheme "would revolutionise the whole face of the material world and of society."

In 1820, Mr. Gray published the result of his studies in his "Observations on a General Iron Railway," in which, with great cogency, he urged the superiority of a locomotive railway over common roads and canals, pointing out, at the same time, the advantages of this mode of conveyance for merchandise and persons, to all classes of the community. That Mr. Grey had obtained his idea from Blenkinsop's engine and road is obvious from the accurate engraving which he gives in his book of the cog-wheeled engine then travelling upon the Middleton cogged railroad. Mr. Gray, in his introduction, refers to railroads already in existence, and others in the course of preparation; and, alluding to the recent great improvements in the locomotive engine, he adds, "The necessity of employing horses on the railway may be superseded, for the public benefit would soon be so evident to any common observer, as to admit of no comparison between horse and mechanical power; besides, the incitement given to all our artisans by the success of their ingenuity would still prompt the further progress in this useful art: the prejudice of many persons will, however, oppose the system, therefore time must be allowed, with gradual use of the machines, to convince the public of their superiority, in the same manner as of steam-packets."

The treatise seems to have met with a ready sale, for we nd that, two years after, it had already passed into a fourth

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edition. In 1822, Mr. Gray added to the book a diagram shewing a number of suggested lines of railway, connecting the principal towns of England, and another, in like manner, connecting the principal towns of Ireland. In his first edition, Mr. Gray suggested the propriety of making a railway between Manchester and Liverpool, "which," he observed, "would employ many thousands of the distressed population" of Lancashire.

The publication of this essay must have had the effect of bringing the subject of railway extension more prominently under the notice of the public than it had been brought before. Although little able to afford it, Gray also pressed his favourite project of a general iron road on the attention of public men-mayors, members of parliament, and prime and to the Lord Mayor and Corporation of London in 1821. ministers. He sent memorials to Lord Sidmouth in 1820, In 1822 he addressed the Earl of Liverpool, Sir Robert Peel, and others, urging the great national importance of his system. He was so pertinacious that public men pronounced him to be a "bore," and in the town of Nottingham, where he then lived, those who knew him declared him to be "cracked."

Mr. Stephenson remained at Killingworth, for several years, before he had an opportunity of working out his schemes farther than was consis

tent with the business of that establishment. Subsequently, however, he was employed as principal engineer of the railway from Hetton colliery to the Wear, near Sunderland. The length of this line was eight miles. The country was roughthe gradients were steep, and, in some places, Mr. Stephenson employed stationary engines. line was opened towards the close of 1822.

The

During the progress of the Hetton railway, Mr. Stephenson was introduced by Mr. Lambeth and Mr. Wood, of the Killingworth Colliery, to Mr. Pease, with the hope of his employment as engineer to the Stockton and Darlington line. The application was successful, and, after a survey of the country, Mr. Stephenson proposed deviations in the route that rendered a new Act necessary. It was asked and obtained. Mr. Stephenson's appointment to this position required the resignation of his place at Killingworth, for the salary was £300 per annum, and the directors of the proposed line needed all his time. While engaged in planning their line, he determined to abandon cast iron rails, and to recommend the use of malleable iron. He was then interested, along with Mr. Losh, in his patent rails; and would have gained £500 by their use; but he preferred the success of his plans to any immediate profit; and even as a commercial transaction, he found "honesty to be the best policy." During the formation of this line, the breadth between the rails was settled, and the Stockton and Darlington Company dictated the narrow gauge which has been adopted upon nearly all the British railways; although we do not think its recommendations equal to those of the wide gauge.

When the works on this line were drawing towards completion, their engineer stated the conviction to some of his friends that "the time is coming when it will be cheaper for a working man to travel on a railway than to walk on foot," although he feared he might not live to see that day. He was permitted to see it, and to mix in

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the great railway undertakings after they had absorbed more capital than any other industrial process in the country, with the exception of rural operations. Before the line was opened, Robert Stephenson, by the advice and with the consent of his father, had accepted an appointment as engineer to a mining company in South America. He proceeded to the mining company's property in the republic of Columbia-which has, since that date, been divided into the three republics of Bolivia, New Granada, and Venezuela. The achievements of Bolivar, and the diplomacy of Canning, charmed even the monied men of England into enthusiasm for the interests of South America, which was demonstrated by large investments in the funds of the republics, and in their public works. Canning boasted that he had called a new world into existence. As yet its growth has been slow and unsatisfactory, but to none more vexing than to the unfortunate capitalists, of whom many were reduced to ruin by the failure of splendid schemes. It does not appear that Robert Stephenson was very successful there; but, at his father's request, he returned to assist him with the construction of the Liverpool and Manchester line.

The Stockton and Darlington line was opened in the autumn of 1825. The engine dragged along a vast train at occasionally the rate of twelve miles per hour; and thereby excited the amazement of local journalists, who have lived, we dare say, to pen angry paragraphs when trains were a quarter of an hour out of time upon long journeys, done at the rate of thirty miles an hour. The average speed on the first trip was eight miles an hour, for the engineer was prudent, and looked more for the success of his plans to economy than to speed. The train was certainly heavy for one engine. It consisted of twelve waggons loaded with coals and flour, and before its arrival at Stockton, nearly 600 persons were depending on that engine for progress.

A happy evening for George Stephenson was that of the 25th of September, 1825. The dreams of thirty years were realites. The visions which he had seen while watching widow Ainslie's cows of future changes, so dim, and dull, and far away in the mist of futurity, were now before him, clear and large, and very new. They cast no shadow. They looked then only like the harbingers of the world's spring and summer time. All the poets and philosophers, and very unphilosophical personages, who had talked and written long and wearisomely on equality and progress, had achieved nothing; but the man who, thirty years before, could not read a word of their essays, had never rested by day, nor often by night, until he had advanced a justifiable equality by a longer step than it had ever taken since first the foolish pride of Nimrod, perhaps, had established a feudal authority in the few over the many. The statesman, when he has carried some complicated measure through all the mazes in discussion and disputation of a clever and vigorous opposition

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the warrior leader on the evening of a day dark to many, light to him, when his genius has contributed to gain a great victory-could not feel more triumphantly than the chief of our modern engineers, when his train came safely into Stockton, and he deemed the struggle of many years was over and won. It was only beginning. ignorance of the scientific, and the prejudices of statesmen, had yet to be combated. Years, many years, were still to wear away before the success of the new system would be acknowledged universally. Even, however, if doubts and fears for the future pressed on that evening upon his mind, he must have felt and taken courage from the thought that the Stockton and Darlington line furnished a strong leverage for all his subsequent efforts.

Did, in that evening, thoughts of the single room in the cottage beside the colliery, where he was born of the life-long strife of his parents with want-of his own first home, and her who made it bright and happy, but passed soon away— of all his struggles to cut his way untaught through the world, and make it cheaper for his order, the working people, to ride than to walk-pass over his mind on that night? It is most probable; for he was not the kind of man to forget the past in the present. A curions proof of that tendency occurred long after. George Stephenson became a very prosperous and a very rich man. Edward Pease was born rich, and became richer. always felt that to the clear mind and strong will of the latter he was indebted for the means of carrying through his views, and Mr. Smiles, in his biography, says :

The former

It is pleasing to relate, in connection with this great work -the Stockton and Darlington Railway-projected by Edward Pease, and executed by George Stephenson, that afterwards, when Mr. Stephenson became a prosperous and a celebrated man, he did not forget the friend who had taken him by the hand, and helped him on in his early days. He always remembered Mr. Pease with gratitude and affection; and that gentleman is still proud to exhibit a handsome gold watch, received as a gift from his celebrated protegé, bearing the words, "Esteem and Gratitude,--from George Stephenson to Edward Pease."

It may be mentioned, in connection with this railway, that from it sprang the town of Middleborough-which now occupies land at that time entirely employed for agricultural purposes; and the success of the line, very much for the benefit of Mr. Pease and his friends, has turned a single farm house into a large town with 15,000 inhabitants.

During the progress of this line, and in conjunction with Mr. Pease and Mr. Richardson, Mr. Stephenson commenced the manufacture of railway engines in Newcastle, which afterwards became a very prosperous business. He trained there that class of mechanics who ultimately wrought his engines up to London and down to Edinburgh, and he gave to Newcastle one of its staple and most valuable trades.

The attempt to survey the country for a line of

railway between Liverpool and Manchester was first made by Mr. James, who encountered violent hostility from the peasantry and the proprietary on the route. His party of engineers were even compelled to employ "a leading pugilist" to carry some of the instruments. Mr. James became involved in banking and mercantile liabilities, and he was obliged to abandon his scheme for a time. A company had been formed, with a capital of £400,000, to construct a railway between these towns, in the autumn of 1824, and some of the directors proceeded to Killingworth to examine Mr. Stephenson's locomotive engines.

At a second visit they brought Mr. Sylvester, a mechanic, from Liverpool, to report upon Mr. Stephenson's engines. The report was favourable, and the reporter said that no ordinary limit existed to the probable speed that might be obtained, but any rate over ten or twelve miles per hour would be unsafe; and yet Mr. Sylvester was in advance of the age, and perhaps did not greatly disappoint Mr. Stephenson, who, as we have already remarked, looked then more to economy than to speed. After some negotiation, Mr. Stephenson was requested to survey the line; but physical violence was offered to the party by the keepers, and even by the tenantry of Earl Derby and Lord Sefton; so that the survey had to be completed imperfectly, by force, by fraud, or by stealth. The parties interested in the Bridgewater Canal were most vehement against the proposal, for obvious reasons, although we cannot now frame a ground for the resistance offered by the landowners, who were not shareholders in the canal, to the survey.

The promoters sought a bill from Parliament in 1825; but a great difference existed among the friends of the scheme respecting, the probable rate of speed that might be realised. Mr. Nicholas Wood, an old friend of Mr. Stephenson's, thought that "the idea of seeing engines travelling at the rate of twelve, sixteen, or twenty miles an hour, was nonsense." The Quarterly Review considered eight to nine miles hourly the highest safe rate of speed. Mr. McLaren, of the Scotsman, insisted on twenty miles as practicable. The counsel for the promoters of the bill assured Mr. Stephenson that he must moderate his proposed rate of speed, or he would be regarded as a maniac fit for Bedlam. It was only a short time previously that Mr. Pease, of the Stockton and Darlington line, entertained similar views. He described his first meeting with Mr. Stephenson in the following language ;

Mr. Pease liked the appearance of his visitor. "There was," as he afterwards remarked, in speaking of Stephenson, "such an honest, sensible look about him, and he seemed so modest and unpretending. He spoke in the strong Northumbrian dialect of his district, and described himself as "only the engine-wright at Killingworth; that's what he was."

But Mr. Pease was scarcely prepared for the bold assertion made by his visitor, that the locomotive engine with which he had been working the Killingworth railway for many years past was worth fifty horses, and that engines made after a similar plan would yet entirely supersede all

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horse power upon railroads. Mr. Stephenson was daily becoming more positive as to the superiority of his locomotive; and on this, as on all subsequent occasions, he strongly urged Mr. Pease to adopt it. "Come over to Killingworth," said he, "and see what my Blutcher can do; seeing is believing, sir."

Thus the Newcastle engineer discovered that the difficulties he had to meet were not nearly over, when his engine brought the first train, with six hundred passengers, triumphantly into Stockton. He was depressed by the disbelief of others. The force of their confidence almost balanced in his mind the force of his own truth. He stated, long afterwards, when he could afford to laugh over these difficulties, that he felt it almost impossible to keep up his spirits at the time.

The idea of travelling at a rate of speed double that of the fastest mail coach, appeared at the time so preposterous, that Mr. Stephenson was unable to find any engineer who would risk his reputation in supporting his " absurd views." Speaking of his isolation at this time, he subsequently observed, at a public meeting of railway men in Manchester:

He remembered the time when he had very few supporters in bringing out the railway system-when he sought England over for an engineer to support him in his evidence before Parliament, and could find only one man, James Walker, but was afraid to call that gentleman, because he knew nothing about railways. He had then no one to tell his tale to but Mr. Saunders of Liverpool, who did listen to him, and kept his spirits up; and his schemes had at length been carried out only by dint of sheer perseverance."

The members of the committee were not much more learned on the force of steam than the engi neers and lawyers of their time. They also regarded Mr. Stephenson either as an enthusiast or a fool, and some of them started opinions of the most absurd kind. One member, who had been more intimate with grazing than with mechanical pursuits, was concerned by anticipation for the sufferings that a stray cow might inflict upon an engine while in the lawful discharge of its duties; and the following conversation occurred in Mr. Stephenson's cross-examination :—

The committee seem to have entertained some alarm as

to the high rate of speed which had been spoken of, and proceeded to examine the witness further on the subject. They supposed the case of the engine being upset when going at nine miles an hour, and asked what in such a case would become of the cargo astern. To which the witness replied that it would not be upset. One of the members of the committee pressed the witness a little further. He put the following case :-"Suppose, now, one of these engines to be going along a railroad, at the rate of nine or ten miles an hour, and that a cow were to stray upon the line, and get in the way of the engine: would not that, think you, be a very awkward circumstance ?" "Yes," replied the witness, with a twinkle in his eye, very awkward, indeed for the coo!" The honourable member did not proceed further with his cross examination.

His task before the committee has been described by his biographer, but it is difficult now to recall the state of feeling then existing. All the preconceived notions of the members had to be plucked up by the roots. Against a host of legal and scientific gentlemen one man had to bear up, and carry his point, and he became occasionally confused, under a pressure that might have been expected to embarrass him.