An interview with an enactor playing George Stephenson, the father of the railways

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An Interview with
“George Stephenson”
Hello, my name's George Stephenson. And you join us in holy Trinity church in
Chesterfield. And you're probably wondering what is a northerner doing in place like
this? Well, I'll tell you, this is where my home was at a place called Tapton House near
Chesterfield for the last 10 years of my life. And actually I was buried in this very
church, just over there behind me. All right, where the communion table is, is my actual
grave. And then a few years after that, the Institute of mechanical engineers of whom I
was its first president, they decided they wanted something a bit more fancy in the
ground. Obviously there's a statue of me as well over by the, uh, train station. Um, and
the reason I came down south was basically for work. Alright, but I'll tell you where it all
began. I was born in 1781 in a place called Willam in Northumberland, and I was one
of seven kids together.
Very, very crowded all. And I started off working like most people up there in the core
fields and in the pits. And, uh, I was gonna get married. However, the farmer to
daughter, I, uh, um, I wish to marry. He thought that I was in a, a dead end job going
nowhere with no prospects, no money. And I, so chief of bidder to marry anyway, she
vowed. She'd never marry another man. We'll come back to her a bit later on cuz she's
kind of important. Anyway. So I got married and started to work and eventually I

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worked my way up and I was what's known as, eh, Brisman so working on the colory
whining gear. So all the tubs and everything pulling the cage board up to the surface,
my job to make sure it's safe. And from that, obviously I'm getting a lot of experience
with the engines and I start out, make improvements, repair a few things.
And from that I eventually get promoted until I'm a head engineer and as a head
engineer, all right, I've got responsible, not just for the pit I was at killing with, but lots
of other pits as well on the house that we live in for a time. All right. The works is
literally right outside the back door so I can fall out bed and fall straight into work. As
I'm getting myself a bit of a reputation. All right. I mean, money's going up and up as
well. At one point I was getting paid over a hundred pounds a year, which you gotta
remember. This is back in the 18, 18, what? 1810s, 1820s. That's a lot of money
compared to what I was on. When we first wife died. Now I've made something of
myself, the lady who said, she'd never marry another man eventually marries his me 20
years afterwards.
And she, I use me first love. All right. So we have a great time. And eventually my son,
Robert, he's born as well. Now Robert's obviously known for being an engineer all and
together by the 1820s we're working together. Now I made sure Robert went to
school. I never went to school. All right. I was illiterate until the age of 18 and I taught
myself how to read and write because I was illiterate and I didn't talk posh. Lots of
people didn't take me seriously. For instance, a safety lamp. All right. Now lots of
people say
It's, um, Humphrey, da then invaded into safety, lump and that's right. Okay. He won
the prize 2000 pounds for it, but actually had demonstrated a safety lamp a few
months before in front of witnesses. All right. But because he's the one with the
science in his mind and lives down south ands got all his fancy friends. He's the one
that got recognition for it. Eventually I got recognised for it, but it took a little time and
a bit of a battle to do so. So I made sure Robert had a proper education and I thought
Robert spoke a bit Poer than what I do. All right. So it's the 1820s. I've started building
lo automotives for, um, the colours in the Northeast. All right. And then the stock and
darling and railway is where I build one of the famous locomotives, a thing called lo
motion.
All right. And that's in the mid 1820s, 1825. All right. And basically it's two beam
engines going for a little ride. It's quite difficult to operate. It's not massively efficient.

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Alright. And I have to say, it's not all of my genius. All right. For example, there's
something on it called Murray side valve. All right. It's a tr boiler. It's not pure
Stevenson genius, but what I'm good at is recognising other people's talents and
putting it all together in a one thing and make it massively efficient by 1829, I've come
up with great ideas and that the rain hill trails to determine what sort of lo tive should
run between Liverpool and Manchester. I come up with probably my most famous
creation. The rocket, the rocket is massively efficient, very fast, 29 miles an hour at the
opening of the railway. The one, unfortunately I run over a local MP called Mr.
Hutchinson, Mr. Hutchinson. He wanted a better view of the train. So unfortunately for
him stepped out in front of it and then got hit by it. So 29 miles an hour, it was land
speed. Rattled of its day. We take Mr. Hutchinson. We put him on the wiring and try
and get him to the nearest hospital as quickly as possible suddenly he died, but he did
get there before he did. All right. So another efficient way of the use of railways had
some work in Scotland and then moved down to Lestershire where I built the Lester
waning and railway. Very, very famous railway. That one of the earliest in the world, in
fact, the tunnel at Glenfield was for the time, one of the longest railway tunnels in the
world as well, very, very narrow. In fact, by the time in British railways, they had to have
specially designed local automotives and coaching stock to actually make it way
through the tunnel and address.
Anyway. So part of that is an incline plane. You winch the waggons up and you use
gravity to go down the other side. All right, now built a railway like that, a place called
BOS as well, which is in Northland. And those waggons were able to free wheels for 20
mile. All right. And pull up the empty waggons, an incredibly efficient way of doing it.
It was so efficient in BOS. In fact, the British coal or the national cold board, as it was
back in the seventies, they were able to use that as it was until 1974. All right. So let's
than Swanton railway. The, uh, the estate of ston comes up for sale in Northwest
Lestershire and I'm told there's Lords of call under it. They've been digging coal in that
part of less this year since the Juda period. So I decided by the estate find, call sync a
pit pit headgear still there and still see it today.
It's a listed monument. All right. And eventually this huge town Springs up that I build
for all the workers and that becomes known as Coleville call town Coalville coal town.
Basically it was so prosperous that they was still being mined until 1986. All right. So by
that time, I'm under undergoing various engineering projects. All right. And it's at that
point, I moved to tap house. All right. In what year are we looking at now? 1838 now
tap house niche. Chesterfield. I'm still undergoing engineering products projects, but
now I can sit back and relax, put me feet up. I've earned me money. I've done me

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grafting. All right. And as such, I live the relatively last 10 years of my life in comfort,
I'm leasing the building. I don't have to own it. I'm making loads of money from all me
coal mines that are coming in and it's a good life. So if you wanna find out a little bit
more about George Stevenson, there's lots of places you can do it. One place. Of
course, Chesterfield museum here inside holy Trinity church. And of course at the
national railway museum after all, I'm the father of the railways. So if you wanna find
out more, get a look at those places and find out about one of England's greatest
engineers.