CHAPTER X.

CONSTRUCTION OF THE LONDON AND BIRMINGHAM RAILWAY.

(ÆTAT 29-34.)

Appointment as Engineer-in-Chief to the London and Birmingham Line Contract Plans Drawing-Office in the Cottage on the Edgeware Road, and subsequently at the Eyre Arms, St. John's Wood Health and Habits of Life-Staff of Assistant and SubAssistant Engineers - The principal Contractors - Primrose Hill Tunnel-Blisworth Cutting-Wolverton Embankment and Viaduct - Kilsby Tunnel — Interview with Dr. Arnold at Rugby -Conduct and Character of Navvies-Anecdotes -Robert Stephenson proposes the Extension of the Line from Camden Town to Euston SquareProposition first rejected and then adopted by Directors— Act of Parliament obtained for Extension of the Line - The Incline from Camden Town to Euston Square originally worked by Stationary Engines and Ropes - Lieut. Lecount's Comparison of Labour expended on the London and Birmingham Railway, and Labour expended on the Great Pyramid - Conduct of a certain Section of the Directors to Robert Stephenson-Opening of the Line — Dinner at Dee's Royal Hotel, Manchester-Robert Stephenson's Anger with a Director - Dinner and Testimonial given to Robert Stephenson at Dunchurch-Brunel uses Robert Stephenson's System of Drawing on the Great Western- Robert Stephenson's Appointment as Consulting Engineer.

THE

HE labours of three surveys having been accomplished, the inordinate demands of landholders of every rank and condition having been satisfied, and a defeat as iniquitous on the part of the conquerors as any to be found in the chronicles of parliamentary warfare having been sustained, the London and Birmingham Railway Company had at length obtained their Bill. They had gained their

1833.]

ENGINEER-IN-CHIEF.

185

point on a new trial: but when Parliament reverses the unjust decision of a preceding session, the injured party has still to pay the costs of previous injustice. The sum of £72,869 recorded in the Company's books as paid for obtaining their Act of Incorporation is an eloquent memorial of a conflict that stirred Westminster thirty years

since.

The Bill however was won, the Royal assent being granted on May 6, 1833. Mr. Isaac Solly, the first chairman, was succeeded in 1834 by Mr. George Carr Glyn, M.P., under whose able direction the line was completed, and was brought to its present high state of prosperity. The appointment of an engineer was the next affair for consideration. Three years' indefatigable attention to the interests of the Company gave Robert Stephenson a claim upon their gratitude. His display of capacity during successive examinations before parliamentary committees had raised him high in the esteem of his profession and the public. A strong party, composed principally of his father's Liverpool antagonists, spared no pains, however, to snatch from him the appointment of engineer-in-chief. He is a promising young man, but still he is only a young man,' these gentlemen repeated in every quarter, forgetting that public railways were young things, and that the men best qualified to construct the new roads were all young menthe pupils of George Stephenson, who was himself still in the middle period of life.

Fortunately Robert Stephenson's enemies were borne down by more prudent and more honest directors; and on September 7, 1833, the board resolved - That Mr. Robert Stephenson be appointed engineer-in-chief for the

whole line at a salary of £1,500 per annum, and an addition of £200 per annum to cover all contingent expenses, subject to the rules and regulations for the engineers' department, as approved by the respective committees.'* On Mr. Brunel's appointment as engineer to lay down the Great Western Railway, with an annual stipend of £2,000, Robert Stephenson's smaller salary was increased to the same amount, the directors of the London and Birmingham line rightly thinking that their character was concerned in treating their engineer not less liberally than Brunel was treated by a similar association.

In their next published report, dated September 19, 1833, the directors thus speak of their engineer's appointment The directors, considering it indispensable that, in the execution of the works, one engineer should have entire direction, and that his time and services should be exclusively devoted to the Company, have under these conditions appointed Mr. Robert Stephenson engineer-in-chief for the whole line; and they are persuaded that to no one could this charge be more safely or more properly confided. He has received instructions to stake out the line without delay, and the directors have reasons to expect that the railway will be completed in about four years from the commencement of the work.'

Having at length secured the post, Robert Stephenson quitted Newcastle and came to the scene of his next five years' labour. For a short time he resided in a furnished cottage in St. John's Wood; but as soon as it was fitted

The above resolution was, for the purpose of this work, extracted from the Minutes of the London and Birmingham Railway, by the late Admiral Moorsom, R.N., who

at the time of his lamented death was chairman of the Company, to which at its first outset he acted as secretary.

1833.]

STATE OF HEALTH.

187

up and ready for his reception, he moved into the house on Haverstock Hill, which continued to be his home as long as his wife lived.

He had undertaken a stupendous task. Up to that time no railway of similar magnitude had been attempted. The line from Liverpool to Manchester was by comparison a trifling work. Its length was little more than a quarter of the length of the new road, and its most important works, including the Sankey viaduct (with nine arches each of fifty feet span thrown over the Sankey valley, and running seventy feet above the Sankey canal), its principal tunnel, 2,250 yards long, and its firm highway over the bogs of Parr Moss and Chat Moss, are in respect of magnitude not to be compared with the Kilsby tunnel, the Blisworth cutting, and the Wolverton embankment and viaduct.

A man of iron nerve would have experienced some uneasiness at the commencement of such an undertaking. But Robert Stephenson, unlike his father, had throughout life to contend with a distrust of himself, which was partly due to innate modesty of disposition, and partly attributable to a delicate nervous organisation. Though the climate of South America had saved him from pulmonary consumption, he had by no means acquired the soundness of constitution which young men ordinarily enjoy. He was never a really strong man; and the exertions of the four preceding years brought him to London in 1833 in a very unsatisfactory condition of health.

Had circumstances left him free to follow his own inclinations, Robert Stephenson, instead of taking a conspicuous position in London society, would have passed his whole

life at Newcastle in comparative retirement. Naturally no man was more averse to the turmoil of public life; no man more prized the tranquillity of home. He had also become intensely fond of the mechanical part of his profession. His labours in the Newcastle factory had been attended with so much genuine pleasure, that he did not without reluctance give them up for a more ambitious career; and in his later years he repeatedly declared to his intimate companions the regret he felt at not having remained at Newcastle as a builder of locomotives, though he had risen to be the most successful civil engineer of his time.

The engineer wished to ascertain with accuracy the amount of the work before him. To effect this, before cutting a turf, he went over every inch of ground, and endeavoured to calculate the exact cost of every operation necessary for the accomplishment of his task. Hitherto, in laying down railways, engineers had been accustomed to do their work piecemeal, making a commencement, working up to difficulties, and then seeing how those difficulties should be overcome. In laying down the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, George Stephenson had at the outset of the undertaking only a general notion of the labour before him. The details were not considered till their consideration could no longer be deferred. Robert Stephenson saw that this plan of leaving each day to take care of its own evils was little calculated for so vast an undertaking as the London and Birmingham line. If the 112 miles of the proposed railway between Camden Town and Birmingham were to be completed within four or five years, the works must be advanced at various points simultaneously, and the engineer-in-chief