George Stephenson

George Stephenson was a British inventor and engi­neer. He is famous for building the first practical rail­way locomotive.

Stephenson was born in 1781 in Wylam, near New­castle upon Tyne, Northumberland. During his youth he worked as a fireman and later as an engineer in the coal mines of Newcastle. He invented one of the first miner's safety lamps independently of the British inventor Humphry Davy. Stephenson's early locomotives were used to carry loads in coal mines, and in 1823 he estab­lished a factory at Newcastle for their manufacture. In 1829 he designed a locomotive known as the Rocket, which could carry both loads and passengers at a greater speed than any locomotive constructed at that time. The success of the Rocket was the beginning of the construc­tion of locomotives and the laying of railway lines.

Robert Stephenson, the son of George Stephenson was a British civil engineer. He is mostly well-known known for the construction of several notable bridges.

He was born in 1803 in Willington Quay, near New­castle upon Tyne, and educated in Newcastle and at the University of Edinburgh. In 1829 he assisted his father in constructing a locomotive known as the Rocket, and four years later he was appointed construction engineer of the Birmingham and London Railway, completed in 1838. Stephenson built several famous bridges, includ­ing the Victoria Bridge in Northumberland, the Britan­nia Bridge in Wales, two bridges across the Nile in Damietta in Egypt and the Victoria Bridge in Montreal, Canada. Stephenson was a Member of Parliament from 1847 until his death in 1859.

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