Wednesday 10 January 2024

LAHS Research Grant Funding for George Stephenson Monograph

This grant has helped the Railway & Canal Historical Society complete a publication of a fully referenced biography of George Stephenson.

Book cover “The Master of These Marvels” - George Stephenson and his Circle of Genius by Robert. F. Hartley “The Master of These Marvels” - George Stephenson and his Circle of Genius by Robert. F. Hartley. Published by Railway and Canal Historical Society

Assistance was sought to support the costs of completing the publication of this entirely new biography of George Stephenson, which includes new research into Stephenson's role in the creation of the Snibston Collieries and the town of Coalville, together with his time living in Leicestershire during a five-year period in which he planned a series of main line railways linking the East Midlands, Yorkshire and Lancashire.

We are pleased to announce that copes are now on sale from the Railway & Canal Historical Society's website.

Below is also a summary of the work. If you feel your project could benefit from the LAHS Research Fund, please get in touch!

“The Master of These Marvels” - George Stephenson and his Circle of Genius

By Robert F Hartley

This new work is the result of more than two decades of research, in archives and libraries, and out in the landscape. The story which emerges is unprecedented in its extent, detail and historical accuracy, and will be an essential reference to George Stephenson for years to come. The work was inspired by the author’s involvement in the series of seven International Early Railway conferences, during which a number of eminent researchers have shed light on many aspects of the early development of railways.

The first conference was prompted by a desire to widen knowledge of the other individuals who pioneered steam locomotion, and who have often been eclipsed by the fame of George Stephenson. However, as the author began his own studies it became apparent that there was also much more that could now be said about Stephenson’s life, by using recently published works on the period, and by seeking out in fifteen county record offices the 100 or so original railway surveys which Stephenson planned and signed off in the years between 1822 and 1848. In the process he laid the foundations for what would become the London & North Western Railway, the Midland Railway, the North Eastern Railway, and the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway.

Detailed analysis of surviving early locomotives by Micheal Bailey and others has also allowed a much more complete and accurate assessment of Stephenson’s role in the evolution of locomotives, mainly between 1813 and 1830, but also showing how his interest was sustained, leading to his joint patenting of the remarkable three-cylinder locomotive of 1846, which was the distant ancestor of “Flying Scotsman” and “Mallard”.

The volume which has resulted follows Stephenson’s life chronologically, revealing how many of his projects overlapped in time rather than following one after another in the way used in earlier biographies. The first Life of George Stephenson was published by Samuel Smiles in 1857, and the current volume looks at how Smiles assembled his work, given the resources of the time, and the strengths and weaknesses which it had as an objective history.

One major disadvantage of Smiles’s biography is the way that, in putting Stephenson forward as an example of a great self-made man, it inevitably downplays the importance of his rivals and assistants. The new work instead pays full tribute to these varied characters, including many of the younger men whom Stephenson recruited as apprentices, and who in many cases went on to great careers in their own right. These constitute the “Circle of Genius” - the human resources Stephenson carefully nurtured to enable him to bring his dreams to reality

There is also considerable detail from unpublished sources telling us about the coal mines and the new towns which grew from Stephenson’s original involvement in Coalville (Leicestershire) and Clay Cross (Derbyshire), as well as his colliery interests in Chesterfield.

Relatively little is known of Stephenson’s three marriages and his family life, but the fragmentary references which survive have also been assembled here, as well as details of his friendships with other eminent Victorians such as Joseph Paxton and Sir Robert Peel. Wherever possible, use is made of contemporary quotations in correspondence and publications.

The Author is a former archaeologist and museum curator with Leicestershire County Council. He has contributed many articles to railway society journals, and written a short history of the Great Central Railway, growing out of his work cataloguing the important Newton Collection of photographs, which show construction of the last main line in Victorian England.