Robert Stephenson (1803–59)

As a young man Robert Stephenson worked closely with his father, the giant of railway history George Stephenson. Later, he became one of the greatest civil and mechanical engineers of the 19th century, making important innovations in the design of locomotives and railway bridges.

He was the only son of George Stephenson and his wife Frances, who died when Robert was aged 2. After elementary school, he attended Bruce’s Academy in Newcastle upon Tyne and was made a member of the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society. At the age of 15 he was apprenticed at the nearby Killingworth Colliery.

In 1821 his father was surveying the route of the proposed Stockton & Darlington Railway and Robert assisted him. He then spent six months studying sciences at Edinburgh University. When he returned to Newcastle, his father made him managing partner of a new engineering works, titled Robert Stephenson & Company. The firm completed its first locomotive, ‘Locomotion’, for the Stockton & Darlington Railway in 1825.

Robert left the country in 1824 to establish gold and silver mines in Colombia, South America. On his return journey in 1827 he met the locomotive pioneer Richard Trevithick. The proposers of the new railway between Liverpool and Manchester were debating whether to use stationary haulage engines or locomotives. Trials were organised and Stephenson designed crucial improvements that resulted in his locomotive ‘Rocket’ winning the trials at Rainhill in 1829. He continued to make innovations at Robert Stephenson & Company, which was recognised as the world’s first locomotive works and grew to employ 1,500 people.

After helping his father with the civil engineering of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, Robert became the engineer for many important routes during the ‘railway mania’ of the 1830s and 1840s. The first was the 160-km London & Birmingham Railway, opened in 1838. At Newcastle, he designed the high-level bridge over the River Tyne, which carried road and rail decks one above the other. He tackled the challenging railway route from Chester in north-west England along the coast of north Wales to Holyhead to join the ferry for Dublin. This involved crossing the Menai Strait without obstructing ships on the Britannia Bridge, opened in 1850. Stephenson’s innovative box-truss of wrought-iron plates formed a 460m-long tube through which trains passed with. The two main spans were each 140m and gave a clearance of 31m over the navigation channel.

Stephenson worked in many countries and influenced railway practice in Europe, Africa, North America and India. Among his notable structures were tubular bridges over the Saint Lawrence River in Canada and the Nile in Egypt. In Britain, he worked with his father to influence the ‘battle of the gauges’, which resulted in the adoption of their ‘standard’ gauge of 1,435mm. He was awarded the gold medal of the Paris Exhibition in 1855 and honoured in Belgium and Norway among other countries.