1803.]

GEORGE STEPHENSON AT WILLINGTON.

9

his right hand plied its craft. The child, too, bore in body as well as heart a memorial of his father's tenderness. His seat was always on George's left knee, his body encircled by his father's left arm. The consequence was that the left hand and arm, left at liberty by the position, became stronger and were more often used than the right; and the child's habit of trusting the left hand, strengthening with time, gradually developed into a permanent defect.

Its

George Stephenson did not remain long at Willington, but his brief residence on the quay side was marked by other incidents besides the birth of his child. It was there that his intercourse with Robert Hawthorn first took the form of personal intimacy. It was at Willington, too, that he first took to clock-mending and clock-cleaning as an additional field of industry. The pit-man's cabin has points by which it may be distinguished from the southern peasant's cottage. prominent article of furniture is a good and handsome bed. Not seldom a colliery workman spends ten, or fifteen pounds on his bedstead alone, and when he has bought the costliest he can afford he places it in the middle of his principal apartment. Invariably he has also a clock-usually a valuable one-amongst his possessions. Every village, therefore, abounds in clocks, and as the people are very particular and even fanciful about them, a brisk business is everywhere carried on by clockcleaners. Each petty district has its own clock-cleaner, who is supported by all the inhabitants; and it is to be observed that this artificer almost invariably has been self-taught.

George Stephenson, therefore, in occupying his spare

time in cleaning clocks, did only what the superior and more intelligent workmen of his time and country were in the habit of doing. His new employment was lucrative, and enabled him, for the first time in his life, to lay by money out of his own earnings.

Recent circumstances have connected the Stephensons in the public mind with Willington; but their relations with that township were neither lasting nor intimate. Scarcely had George Stephenson formed attachments to his neighbours when he moved to the parish of Long Benton, where he was engaged as brakesman of the West Moor colliery engine. On receiving his new appointment, George, now twenty-three years old, with his wife and little Robert (then in his second year), settled in a cottage in Killingworth township, close to the West Moor colliery-about four or five miles to the north of Newcastle, and about the same distance from Willington Quay.

The cottage in which George Stephenson lived on Willington Quay has been pulled down, but before it was destroyed the public interest attaching to it was so great, that photographic pictures and engravings of it had been circulated in every direction. The site, however, of Robert Stephenson's birthplace is appropriately preserved. Of the objects which arrest the attention of a person making the passage up the river from Tynemouth to Newcastle, there is nothing of greater architectural merit than the Gothic edifice that stands out upon Willington Quay. This structure, generally spoken of as the Stephenson Memorial,' comprises (besides rooms for officers and teachers) two school-rooms, one for boys and another for girls, and a reading-room

1803.]

THE STEPHENSON MEMORIAL.'

11

for mechanics. The entire building is a model of what such a structure ought to be, and the children's playgrounds are as spacious and well-appointed as the interior of their excellent institution. The exact spot on which the Stephenson cottage stood, is now the boys' play-ground, in the rear of the school.

CHAPTER II.

LONG BENTON.

(ETAT. 1-9.)

The West Moor Colliery -The Street' of Long Benton - Road from Newcastle to Killingworth-The Cottage' on the West Moor - View from the Cottage Windows-Apparent Amendment of Mrs. Stephenson's Health - Robert and his Mother visit Black Callerton-Robert Stephenson's Sister-Death of his Mother-George Stephenson's Journey to Montrose - Eleanor Stephenson — Her great Disappointment The Artificials' Little Robert's Visits to the Red House Farm, Wolsingham-The Hempy Lad'Tommy Rutter's School - The young Gleaner-A Lesson for the Lord's Day - George Stephenson's Sundays - His Friends, Robert Hawthorn and John Steele-The first Locomotive ever built on the Banks of the Tyne-Anthony Wigham-Captain Robson-Evenings at the West Moor.

TOWARDS

WARDS the close of 1804, George Stephenson moved to the West Moor colliery, and fixed himself and family in the little cottage where he resided, till he made rapid strides to opulence and fame. Long Benton,* a wide straggling parish, comprising in its five townships numerous colonies of operatives, presents those contrasts of wealth and poverty for which mining and manufacturing districts are proverbial. The long irregular street of the village is not without beauty. The vicarage

In this parish Smeaton, in 1772, erected the large atmospheric engine, which formed the standard engine before Watt's improvements.-W. P.

1804.]

THE COTTAGE AT LONG BENTON.

13

is a picturesque dwelling, and on either side of the road, surrounded by gardens, with paths of crushed slag and refuse coal, and plantations of a somewhat sooty hue, are the houses of prosperous agents and employers. The general aspect of the place, however, is humble, and the abodes of the poorer inhabitants are comfortless.

The road from Newcastle to Long Benton quits the town at the northern outskirt, and, leaving the moor' on the left, passes through the picturesque plantations of Jesmond Vale (watered by the brawling Dean that flows to Ouseburn), and, having ascended the bold and richly wooded sweep of Benton Banks, leads on over a bleak and unattractive level to Long Benton, where art and nature again combine to render the landscape attractive. Pursuing its course down the disjointed village, the road descends to the church, where it turns to the left over a rustic stone bridge, curves round a corner of the churchyard, and bears away to Killingworth township and the West Moor colliery.

The cottage in which the young brakesman and his middle-aged wife settled, was a small two-roomed tenement. Even as it now stands, enlarged by George Stephenson to the dignity of a house with four apartments, it is a quaint little dena toy-house rather than a habitation for a family. The upper rooms are very low, and one of them is merely a closet. The space of the lower floor is made the most of, and is divided into a vestibule and two apartments. Over the little entrance door, in the outer wall, is a sun-dial, of which mention will be made hereafter. The principal room of the house is on the left hand of the entrance, and in it stands to this day a piece of furniture which is now the property of Mr. Lancelot Gibson, the