Audiobook: Lives of the Engineers (George and Robert Stephenson)

Lives of the Engineers (George and Robert Stephenson) cover

Lives of the Engineers (George and Robert Stephenson)

1 - 00 - Introduction Part 1

00:00
00:00
SPONSORED AD

Audiobooks Genres

Author

Description

George Stephenson did not invent the steam engine, that was due to Newcomen and later to James Watt. He did not invent the steam locomotive, that was due to a number of people including Cugnot, Trevithick and others. He did not invent the Railway. Railways or tramways had been in use for two hundred years before Stephenson.

The reason why Stephenson was known as ‘The father of the steam locomotive’ was that he took a primitive, unreliable and wholly uneconomic device and turning it into an efficient machine not very different to those which ran until fifty or so years ago, married it with the iron rail and alone, and against considerable opposition,began, via the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway and then the London and Birmingham Railway, the development of steam railways in England and the world.

George Stephenson began life in 1781 in the worst and poorest of all circumstances, he did not learn to read until he was twenty years old, but he, together with his son Robert, became the foremost engineers in the railway world.

If, in the middle years of the nineteenth century you wanted to build a railway, then, if you wanted it big bold and imaginative you might go to Mr. Brunel. If you wanted it to pay however, you would go to the Sephensons.

You are listening Lives of the Engineers (George and Robert Stephenson) - Samuel Smiles.
Liked what you heard? Share it with your friends and family!.
To report a problem or copyright issue, send the page link to the email address listed on our Contact page

Comment

The Share button is completely free of charge

SPONSORED AD