Stephenson, George, 1781–1848, British engineer, noted as a locomotive builder. He learned to read and write in night school at the age of 18, while working in a colliery. He constructed (1814) a traveling engine, or locomotive, to haul coal from mines and in 1815 built the first locomotive to use the steam blast. He also devised (c.1815) a miner's safety lamp at about the same time as did Sir Humphry Davy, whose lamp was adopted in 1816; it embodied some features of the Davy lamp and is considered by some to have antedated Davy's invention. His locomotive the Rocket bested the others in a contest in 1829 and was used on the Liverpool-Manchester Railway. He became engineer for several of the railroads that rapidly grew up and was consulted in the building of railroads and bridges in England and in other countries. His son

Robert Stephenson, 1803–59, and a nephew,

George Robert Stephenson, 1819–1905, were also railroad engineers, and both designed numerous bridges.

Bibliography

See L. T. Rolt, The Railway Revolution: George and Robert Stephenson (1962); R. M. Robbins, George and Robert Stephenson (1966).

Stephenson, George

George Stephenson, detail of a mezzotint by Charles Turner after Henry Perronet Briggs, 1838.

(credit: Courtesy of the Science Museum, London)

(born June 9, 1781, Wylam, Northumberland, Eng.—died Aug. 12, 1848, Chesterfield, Derbyshire) English engineer, principal inventor of the locomotive. Son of a coal-mine mechanic, he himself became chief mechanic at a coal mine, where his interest in steam engines led to experiments on a machine to pull coal-filled cars out of the mines. In 1815 he devised a powerful “steam blast” system that made the locomotive practical. In 1825 he built a steam locomotive for the first passenger railway, from Stockton to Darlington, which could carry 450 people at 15 mph (24 km/hr). In 1829, assisted by his son Robert Stephenson, he built his improved locomotive, the Rocket, which won a speed competition at 36 mph (58 km/hr) and became the model for later locomotives. His company built all eight locomotives for the new Liverpool-Manchester railway (1830).