Background of george stephenson

George Stephenson  ©Stephenson was a pioneering railway engineer and inventor of the 'Rocket', the most famous early railway locomotive.

George Stephenson was born on 9 June 1781 near Newcastle-upon-Tyne. His father was an engineman at a coalmine. Stephenson himself worked at the mine and learned to read and write in his spare time. He gained a reputation for managing the primitive steam engines employed in mines, and worked in a number of different coalmines in the northeast of England and in Scotland.

In 1814, Stephenson constructed his first locomotive, 'Blucher', for hauling coal at Killingworth Colliery near Newcastle. In 1815, he invented a safety lamp for use in coalmines, nicknamed the 'Geordie'.

In 1821, Stephenson was appointed engineer for the construction of the Stockton and Darlington railway. It opened in 1825 and was the first public railway. The following year Stephenson was made engineer for the Liverpool to Manchester Railw

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George Stephenson

English "Father of Railways" (1781–1848)

This article is about the English engineer. For other people called George Stephenson, see George Stephenson (disambiguation). For the similar name, see George Stevenson (disambiguation).

George Stephenson
Born	(1781-06-09)9 June 1781 Wylam, Northumberland, England
Died	12 August 1848(1848-08-12) (aged 67) Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England
Resting place	Holy Trinity Church, Chesterfield
Spouse(s)	Frances Henderson (1802–1806) Elizabeth Hindmarsh (1820–1845) Ellen Gregory (1848)
Children	Robert Stephenson Frances Stephenson (died in infancy)

George Stephenson (9 June 1781 – 12 August 1848) was an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer during the Industrial Revolution.^[1] Renowned as the "Father of Railways",^[2] Stephenson was considered by the Victorians as a great example of diligent application and thirst for improvement. His chosen rail gauge, som

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George Stephenson (1781–1848)

Civil and mechanical engineer

The combination of George Stephenson’s achievements in both civil and mechanical engineering has directly influenced much of our railway infrastructure. He foresaw a national network of lines, running at a ‘standard gauge’ with minimal gradients. Routes he surveyed and structures he designed and built are still in use today. For this pioneering work he is known as the father of the railways.

George Stephenson was born at Wylam, near Newcastle upon Tyne. Without a formal education, at the age of 18 Stephenson paid for his own lessons in reading, writing and arithmetic and quickly displayed considerable mechanical aptitude. His early career was spent working on different types of industrial machinery particularly at collieries in the North East at a time when the industry was expanding rapidly to satisfy the demand of the mills and factories at the uppstart of the industrial revolution. New technologies such as ste