Robert Stephenson edited by Michael Bailey, Ashgate, 拢55, ISBN 0754636798 Reviewed by Mick Hamer
ALTHOUGH George Stephenson was known as the father of the railways, and celebrated on the old British 拢5 note, his son Robert had a better claim to have begotten the railways. It was Robert who designed The Rocket, the steam locomotive that won the Rainhill Trials of 1829.
But Robert was much more than just a mechanical engineer. He was also a civil engineer: routing railways and building tunnels and bridges.
Advertisement
By 1850 Britain had built nearly 11,000 kilometres of railways, and Stephenson had played a part in a third of these schemes. He was a consulting engineer in America, Europe, Egypt and India. He also advised other countries such as Sweden, Denmark, and Switzerland to draw up a strategic plan for developing their railways.
This was engineering on an heroic scale, and such was his fame that thousands lined the route of his funeral when he was buried in Westminster Abbey in 1859. But as time passed the fame that he enjoyed in his life has subsided, and this comprehensive volume, edited by Michael Bailey, is the first full-length biography of him since 1864.