Birth: 1698 in Ricalton, Oxnam Parish, Roxburghshire, Scotland
Death: 1748 in County Antrim, Ulster Province, Ireland
Vashi Cem.Stephenson Cem.,
WAS CONSIDERED SCOTCH-IRISH DUE TO HIS EMIGRATION FROM SCOTLAND TO IRELAND
His father was William Stephenson Stinson ( born 1649 Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland died in 1711 in Scotland) and his mother Katherine Alison. His grandfather was Henry Stephenson (1582-1649) and his paretrnal grandmother was Mary WIlson (1585 -)
Note: Henry was christened at age 9 on March 23, 1707 in Ricalton. After Henry's death, his widow and some of their children came to America. His widow Ann married a Mr. White in Ireland and they immigrated to Washington County, PA., where their household also included a James, John and William Stephenson.
Henry S. Stephenson, Oxnam, 1698
Henry Stephenson was born in 1698 in Oxnam in Roxburghshire. As a child his family moved to Ireland probably as a result of the severe famine in Scotland. Henry worked as shepherd.
He married Ann Curlett in 1720 in Antrim in Ireland. Ann Curlett came from County Down in Ireland. He moved back to Oxnam soon after his marriage. Their residence was six miles from Jedburgh, Parish of Oxnam, Roxburgh County, Scotland. Children were; James STEPHENSON, born 1724 in County Antrim, Ire; died 1821 in Iredell NC; James married Sarah Kelly and had 9 children. He passed away on 1819 in Stephenson Cementery Vashhi. Robert STEPHENSON, born 1723 Ricalton, Parrish Oxnam, Roxburghshire, Scotland; married Agnes McCelland.
Ann Curlette died in 1725, in Ireland. Henry later married Isabella Oliver
June 28 1735. Their children were: James, Ricalton, Parrish Oxnam, Roxburghshire, Scotland
June 16 1736; Janet, Ricalton, Parrish Oxnam, Roxburghshire, Scotland
June 5 1738; Richard, Bloody Laws, Oxnam Parrish, Roxburghshire, Scotland
May 16 1742; Henry, Bloody Laws, Oxnam Parrish, Roxburghshire, Scotland
Feb 27 1745; Isabella died in 1745.
Note:The Stephenson's left Scotland ca 1715 when the Catholic Stuarts brought more armies tramping through the countryside, plundering farms, killing sheep, and readering peilous the practice of Presbyterian beliefs. Henry had died and his wife Ann remarried to a White. She might have been pregnant at the time as her son was named John White Stevenson. She moved to United States with all the children except William who was an apprentice at that time and did not join the family until 1748 in Pennsylvania.
WILLIAM STEVENSON, born 1725 in Antrim, Ulster Ireland; died May 01, 1809 in Statesville, NC; married MARY MCCLELLAND Abt 1750.
James Stephenson
Scotch-Irish Migrations with Rev. William Martin, Names of Passengers from Ireland
| Name: |
James Stephenson |
| Year: |
1772 |
| Place: |
South Carolina |
| Source Publication Code: |
8980 |
| Primary Immigrant: |
Stephenson, James |
| Annotation: |
Pages 30-31, 35, 42-101 name satisfied passengers listed in the Belfast News Letter, December 22, 1772, concerning the arrival of the Mary and James at "Charles-Town," S.C., October 18, 1772; and those of the ship Lord Dunluce, which arrived December 20,
Some records show name:
Stinson (Stephenson)
The Bounty Act of South Carolina
In order to help settle unoccupied lands the General Assembly of the Colony of South Carolina provided financial aid to encourage the immigration of poor Protestants from Europe . As early as 1730, "poor Protestants" were given land if they settled it. The grantees were required to clear and cultivate the land at the rate of at least 3 acres per year for each 100 acres of land granted. After two years, the land owner was required to pay 4 shillings per 100 acres quit rent (essentially land taxes). The amount of land granted was 100 acres for the head of the household and 50 acres for each dependent (wife and children under 15). Although the land was free there were significant fees to be paid for surveys and other legal matters. However, the Governor could and often did waive or otherwise pay these fees for poor immigrants.
In 1752, the act was amended to provided money for tools and provisions. Each person under 50 years old and over 12 years old was given £5. Each person under 12 years, but over 2 years received 2 pounds 10 shillings. In 1761 the bounty was changed to provide money to defray the costs of passage from Europe . Each adult received £4 and each child received £2. Both received twenty shillings to purchase tools and provisions. To receive these benefits, immigrants were required to have certificates to show that they were of that religion and of good character.
"Warrants of Survey for their Lands" were issued on petition of the immigrants, generally at the same time, as authorized under the Act. Encouraged by the Act, large numbers of these protestant immigrants, many otherwise destitute, came to South Carolina , mostly from Europe , but also from other Colonies in America .
The acts that provided for these bounties were amended or expired and reinstated from time to time, but generally continued until 1768 when the Attorney General reported to the General Assembly that the "Bounty Act" had expired and no bounty could be paid to the individuals. He also noted that the eighth clause of the General Duty Act of June 14, 1751 , that they were still entitled to "their land free of charge".
Source: Jean Stephenson, The Scotch-Irish Migration to South Carolina , 1772 (Rev. William Martin and His Five Shiploads of Settlers) , Washington , DC , 1971, reprinted: Clearfield Company (General Publishing Co.) Baltimore , MD 1999 - 2008, ISBN-13:978-0-8063-4832-2 and ISBN-10: 0-8063-4832-1
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| i. | Ann Stevenson was born ABT 1755 in Maryland, United States, and died 2 DEC 1780 in Rowan, North Carolina, United States. She marriedGeorge Lackey 2 SEP 1780, son of John William Lackey. | | + | 7 | ii. | Margaret Stevenson was born 1756 in Maryland, United States, and died AFT 1850 in Alexander, North Carolina, United States. | | + | 8 | iii. | Agnes Nancy Stevenson was born 1758 in Maryland, United States, and died 23 APR 1826. | | + | 9 | iv. | James Stevenson was born 27 MAY 1760 in Maryland, United States, and died 1828. | | | 10 | v. | Sarah Stevenson was born ABT 1762 in Maryland, United States, and died Dead. She married David Milligan. He was born ABT 1762. She married Clary. He was born ABT 1762. | | | 11 | vi. | Jane Stevenson was born ABT 1764 in North Carolina, United States, and died Dead. She married John Buttram. | | + | 12 | vii. | Mary Stevenson was born ABT 1765 in Maryland, United States, and died AFT 18 JUL 1860 in Washington, Arkansas, United States. | | | 13 | viii. |
William Stephenson was born ABT 1768 in North Carolina, United States. He married Mary Milligan. He married Miranda Williams. |
Robert Stephenson, Oxnam, 1723
Robert was born in Oxnam in Roxborough in 1723. He married Katherine Allison in 1743 in Oxnam. They had five children. William was born in 1744, James in 1746, Elizabeth in 1748, Nancy in 1750 and Robert in 1753. He left Scotland to find work in England . A story is that he migrated after his land was stolen. Samuel Smiles reported that Ann Stephenson, the daughter of Robert’s third son, John, “stated that a suit was commenced for recovery of the property, but was dropped for want of the requisite means to prosecute it”.
Robert Stephenson, Wylam, 1753
Robert Stephenson was born in 1753 in Wylam. Robert Stephenson worked as fireman on a steam engine driving a water-pump at a colliery at Wylam, a small village on the north bank of the Tyne near Newcastle . This was an unskilled job for which he was paid labourer’s rate. He married Mabel Carr.
Robert Stephenson was known as “Old Bob”. They were a respectable couple, careful and hard-working. For some time after their marriage, Robert resided with his wife at Walbottle, a village between Wylam and Newcastle , where he was employed as a labourer at the colliery; after which the family removed to Wylam, where he found employment as a fireman of the old pumping-engine at that colliery.
Mabel and Robert lived in a common, two-storied, red-tiled, rubble house, portioned off into four labourers’ apartments. It was known by the name of High-street House, and was originally so called because it stands by the side of what used to be the old riding post-road or street between Newcastle and Hexham, along which the post was carried on horseback.
The house was an ordinary labourer’s dwelling; its walls are unplastered, its floor is of clay, and the bare rafters are exposed overhead.
They had seven children: Hannah in 1770, Robert in 1778, James in 1779, George in 1781, Eleanor in 1784, John in 1789 and Anne in 1792. He died in Walbottle in Northumberland in 1817.
John Stephenson, Wylam, 1780
John Stephenson was born in Wylam on 4 November 1789 . He married Hannah Forster who was born in the 1780s or 1790s. They had five children: Ann born in 1821, Robert in 1822, Jane in 1825, James in 1826, George in 1830 and Elizabeth Francis in 1831.
John worked in the mines and kept in close contact with George. When George was having troubles on the construction of the Stockton and Darlington Railway he hired John and his brother James as gang leaders.
After this was finished they both went to work in the Newcastle engine works, but then tragedy struck. John was ‘killed by a fall of the shear legs’ in January 1831, and a similar fate befell James. George was very upset by all this, and made himself responsible for the upbringing of the families. Eleanor had only one daughter, but Hannah was left with four children aged between nine and two years old, and another on the way. George Stephenson asked them to live with him. Mildred Rose (‘Nunny’) said “You see, when my great-grandfather died, Uncle George Stephenson took great-grandmother, who was his niece, to live with him. My father remembers some quaint stories his mother handed down to him”. It was only a few months after this that George bought a large mansion near Ashby-de-la-Zouch probably for his new extended family.
George Stephenson
June 23 1823
George and Robert Stephenson open their locomotive foundry in Newcastle upon Tyne.
George Stephenson was born in Wylam. None of the children received any education. Even if there were schools in the neighbourhood the small fees could not be afforded. At the age of eight the family moved to another colliery at Dewley Burn George was put to work herding cows at the rate of two pence a day. After a little while he was promoted to leading horses when ploughing or hoeing, and the rate was doubled to four pence. Agricultural life did not please him, and before long he was working in the colliery driving a gin, a winch used for raising the coal out of the pit. For this he earned three shillings a week.
George at the age of fourteen moved to Dewley Burn to work as assistant fireman to his father for a shilling a day and hoping for promotion to engine-man. The pit ran out of coal and the family had to move to Jolly’s Close. They had a cottage to live in consisting of a single room in which father, mother, four boys and two girls (who were all by now quite grown-up) had to live, eat and sleep.
Moving from one pit to another, George was soon promoted to the post of engineman at Newburn Colliery. He was responsible not just for keeping the fire alight but for keeping the engine working. He was in his element among moving parts of machinery. In his spare time he started to make models of steam-engines in clay, but he really wanted to be able to read about them in books. He still could not do at the age of eighteen, and so he found a poor teacher in a near-by village to give him lessons in the evenings for threepence a week. By the time he was nineteen he was able to write his own name, and then went to an evening school.
The cost of living was by now increasing, and a move to another pit for higher wages helped but there was still not enough money to pay for more lessons so George took to making and repairing shoes in his spare time – apparently quite a common occupation for farm workers – and also to repairing clocks. As a result he was soon able to think about getting married. His first love, at the age of nineteen, was Elizabeth Hindmarsh, a daughter of the largest farmer in the parish of Black Callerton, where he was now living; but her parents did not think that an uneducated colliery engineman was good enough for their daughter and forbad the marriage. Elizabeth was heartbroken and vowed never to marry anyone else.
George before long was courting Ann Henderson, a domestic servant in the farmhouse where he was lodging. When he proposed marriage she refused; so he turned his attentions to her sister Frances and married her instead. Frances had been engaged to the village schoolmaster but he had died at the age of 26. She was now 32, twelve years older than George.
Fanny bore her first child, Robert, in 1803. George became a brakeman as well as engineman at a colliery at Killingworth, a more important post as it also involved controlling the pithead gear. He gained a reputation as an ingenious and trustworthy workman. In 1805 Fanny had a daughter, also called Fanny, who sadly died at the age of three months. She never recovered and died of consumption a year later.
George was a widower at the early age of 25 with a two-year-old son. Although devoted to his son, he decided to get away; leaving Robert in the care of a neighbor. He took a post at Montrose in Scotland , walking the 150 miles to get there. Within a year he fell out with the owners and walked the 150 miles home again – but with £28 in his pocket. While he had been away his father had been blinded by an accident. George used his savings to buy a cottage for his parents near his own. He went on working and saving, but then had the misfortune to be “drawn for the militia”. He paid some to take his place which used up all his savings and he seriously considered emigrating to America as his sister Ann had done.
The neighbor who had been looking after Robert now decided to get married, (as it happened to George’s brother Robert) so George moved back into his old cottage and his sister Eleanor, who was unmarried, moved in to look after them. “Aunty Nelly” brought up Robert until he started an apprenticeship at the age of fifteen; at this stage she too decided to get married and once again George needed help! What better solution than to get married himself – to his first love Elisabeth Hindmarsh, who had kept her word and remained a spinster! This turned out a fine move and the couple were very happily married for twenty five years until her death. They had no children but as she was nearly forty when they married this, while not impossible, was not very likely.
A steam-engine at Killingworth broke down and when all the engineers had tried to repair it without success the owners, as a last resort, let ‘Geordie’ have a go. He took it to pieces and put it together again in working order, and besides receiving £10 as a reward he was put on a permanent footing as an engineer. He was now 29 years old. Not only was he paying for his son Robert to be educated but he himself was learning mathematics from a friend and he was also saving money – a hundred guineas which he sold to money-brokers for 26 shillings each!
After another two years he was appointed colliery engineer and ‘planner of machinery for working pits and wheeling off coal’ at all the collieries owned by Lord Ravenscroft. At his suggestion a steam engine installed underground to pump water was adapted to haul coal up inclined ramps, reducing the number of horses required at Killingworth from 100 to 15.
In 1802 Richard Trevithick, a Cornish tin-miner, had made a steam engine to run on such lines, capable of pulling ten tons of ore at a speed of five miles an hour, but the engine was always breaking down and the idea was abandoned.
A Mr.Blenkinsop then designed one which could pull thirty wagons at 3 miles an hour but progress was delayed by the problem that iron wheels could not grip on iron rails. This meant that a toothed wheel had to be the driving force on the loco set to engage in a cogged line on the track, and as the cogging had to be set on one side of the track so as not to impede the horses which also used it an out-of-balance strain was put on the machinery.
Then he had an inspiration; what was needed was a forced draught to the furnace to make the coal burn more fiercely, and this he provided by making the waste steam go up a chimney, thus increasing the efficiency by up to 200%. There was still much to do, both to the locomotives and to the tracks, (with the materials available the latter were not strong enough to bear the heavier loads being put on them) to make the idea workable, but at last good progress was being made.
His connection with the Stockton & Darlington railway led to his employment in the construction of the Liverpool & Manchester railway. When the line was nearing completion he persuaded the directors, who were rather in favour of haulage by fixed engines, to give the locomotive a trial. In consequence they offered a prize of £500 for a suitable machine, and in the competition held at Rainhill in October 1829 his engine “The Rocket” met with approval.
On the 15th of September in the following year the railway was formally opened, the eight engines employed having been made at the works started by Stephenson with his cousin Thomas Richardson (1771-1853) and Edward Pease (1767-1858) at Newcastle in 1823.
Geordie lamp
It was not only with locomotives for as the colliery engineer he was involved with everything which went on in the pits. One of the great problems was ‘firedamp’, the accumulation of gases which could lead to devastating explosions. Without any scientific knowledge he carried out experiments with a lamp which would give warning of the presence of these gases. Purely by trial and error, came up with one which worked; it was adopted by his employers and by most of the colliery owners in the North East and was used by them for many years. But at the same time a group of other owners engaged the famous physicist Sir Humphrey Davy to investigate the problem and within two and a half months he had not only defined the problem but had come up with a safety lamp almost identical with Stephenson’s.
Accusations flew around that one had stolen the idea from the other. Davy had been awarded £2000 for his invention, and as a result of the furore George was eventually given the measly sum of £100 towards his costs. This by no means satisfied the Newcastle men. They opened a subscription list as a result of which George was given £1000 and a silver tankard. The workmen joining in with a silver watch. The fact that Davy gave a paper on his lamp to The Royal Society in London on 9th.November 1815 while Stephenson described his to a meeting of the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society only four weeks later suggests that it was purely coincidental.
The term “Geordie” is thought to come from miners from Newcastle traveling to other mining areas with their “Geordie” Lamps.
In 1821 a group of Quaker businessmen led by Edward Pearce obtained a Parliamentary Bill for the construction of a railway from Stockton to Darlington , for the transport of coal. There was no mention of steam locomotives, haulage was to be by horses. When Stephenson heard, he called on Pearce and invited him over to Killingworth so that he could see what a steam locomotive could do. Pearce was immediately won over, an amended Bill was submitted to include the use of steam-powered haulage and George was appointed engineer to the project at a fee of £300 per annum. The railway was soon built to George’s design, including the track width of four feet eight inches which had been that of the wooden tramways at Killingworth. Somewhere or other an extra half inch has been added, but this is the standard gauge of all British railways and of most of those throughout Europe and many other parts of the World, probably because most of them. When railways were being built in different States and cities in America , without any central control, twenty four different gauges were used!
The line was opened with great pomp and ceremony on 25th.September 1825, the first trip with 450 passengers covering the distance of 8 miles, at speeds of up to 12 miles per hour, in 65 minutes; the return journey, now inexplicably extended to 12 miles, took 3 hours and 7 minutes ‘including stoppages’, the passenger load on this occasion including a brass band.
In 1821 George had entered into a partnership for the manufacture of ironwork but it was not a great success, so in 1823 he set up his own company in Newcastle as engine builders and millwrights. One of the shareholders was his son Robert and the regard of father for son was such that, although Robert’s shareholding was small, and the money for it mostly borrowed anyway, the company was called Robert Stephenson and Company. Another firm, George Stephenson and Company, was established shortly afterwards, but this was for design and employed only draughtsmen.
At about the same time as the opening of the Stockton to Darlington Railway a group of businessmen proposed the construction of a railway from Liverpool to Manchester and they appointed George as Engineer to the project. Before construction could be started a Parliament Bill had to be approved, requiring surveys and detailed estimates. When it was eventually laid before Parliament George was called to give evidence to a committee of the House. He was questioned by all the best engineering and legal brains in the country, and things started to go badly when it was shown that the levels of the railway were lower than those of a river it had to cross; it was then downhill all the way.
The Bill was thrown out. Another engineer, more highly educated and more urbane in manner, was appointed in his place to make a second application. On this the Bill was passed. George was now re-engaged as Engineer to the project and work on design commenced. Among the Stephenson criteria for lay-out was a requirement for the line to be kept as straight and level as possible because sharp curves and gradients were uneconomical on power. As a result much work was required on the construction of tunnels, viaducts, cuttings and embankments including the remarkable crossing of the four miles of a spongy peat-bog called Chat Moss. The construction of the line was proving far more expensive, both of time and money, than was envisaged; in addition George was taking on other commissions, and as a result the Newcastle engineering works was not being attended to and was on the verge of bankruptcy.
It seems surprising to us today to read that although an Act of Parliament had been obtained for the construction of the railway and that work on it was already far advanced the proprietors had not decided what form of motive power they were going to use – horses, stationary engines with ropes and inclined planes or steam locomotives. Various teams of engineers were sent off to Killingworth and Stockton to give their views on the worth of the locomotive and all of them, including the senior engineer of the day Thomas Telford, suggested that stationary engines pulling the trains by winch would be far better than mobile locomotives. George was dead against this on the grounds that if one stationary engine broke down the whole system would come to a standstill and there was a strong faction within the Company who agreed with him.
Things could not go on like this so the Directors decided to settle the matter once and for all. They offered a prize of £500 for a locomotive which could be running satisfactorily by a certain date. The detailed conditions for the competition will be found as an appendix. The engine had to weigh not more than 6 tons, be able to pull 20 tons at 10 miles per hour, consume its own smoke and not cost more than £550. There were originally ten entrants but by the date of the trial only five were ready. One was withdrawn because it never managed a trial run: one was a “joke” entry, powered by a horse trotting along a moving carpet. This left only three – George Stephenson with his “Rocket”, Hackworth with “Sanspareil” and Braithwaite & Ericson with “Novelty”; the latter was far and away the favourite. The trials started on 8th.October 1829 and were spread over two weeks; “Rocket” went first and completed its course along a two mile stretch of track over which 15 passes had to be made, a total of 30 miles, without mishap although its speed was said to be very variable and its smoke consumption “only partial”. “Novelty” went next, was continually giving trouble and although given every assistance and extra time was eventually withdrawn. The second week saw “Sanspareil” at work; it actually ran for two hours but eventually it too broke down beyond repair. “Rocket” meanwhile had been given demonstration runs in the intervals while its rivals were being worked on, without breaking down at all; and it had completed its test in 2 hours 7 minutes, its slowest pass being at 12 mph and its fastest reaching 29; its only failure was to overcome the “no smoke” requirement although they had tried their best to do so by using coke as the fuel. So George won the prize and went on to construct another six engines for the Company at the Newcastle works.
The Railway was opened, as usual with pomp and ceremony, on 15th.September 1830. There were by now eight locomotives available and each pulled its own train of carriages. The line was twin-track, and the train drawn by “Northumbrian”, with George Stephenson at the controls and carrying the Prime Minister, (the Duke of Wellington) members of Parliament and other notables, ran on one track. The other trains ran at intervals on the other. All went well for seventeen miles when the P.M.’s train stopped so that he could see the others go by. The passengers had all been told, verbally and in writing, that they must on no account leave the train but many of them did so. They included Mr William Huskisson M.P a great supporter of steam (which the’ P.M. was not), and he went over to shake the hand of the great General. At this moment the first of the other trains appeared and although most people got out of the way William did not and he was badly injured. George immediately disconnected all but the front carriage on his train. With the badly injured man on board, set off post-haste for Eccles at the unheard-of speed of 36 mph; Huskisson nevertheless died that night.
This of course completely disrupted the proceedings because the two tracks were not linked. It was impossible to connect one of the other engines directly to the Prime Minister’s coach. The P.M really wanted to go back, by any means, to Liverpool but the Shreeve of Manchester implored him to go on. There was a great crowd at Eccles waiting to see him and it was doubtful if order could be maintained if he did not appear. So three engines on the second line were connected, at an angle, by ropes to the Prime Minister’s train and after many breakdowns it eventually reached its destination, only to be met by a howling mob who had been waiting all day to see the great event, their anger made worse by the fact that they were not political friends of the Duke either. Stones were thrown and he had to stay aboard while things were sorted out. The last train got back to Liverpool at ten o’clock at night.
The line had originally been designed purely for the transport of merchandise, but passenger traffic, to the delight of the Board of Directors, escalated to the extent that before long six trains a day were being used. The stage-coach trade between the towns was reduced to one a day.
From this time on George was constantly in demand, to the extent that he once wrote to a friend, in the same vein as today’s anti-road campaigners, “It is really shameful the way the country is going to be cut up by Railways – - “. How right he was; between the opening of the Liverpool to Manchester Line and the early 1860′s over fourteen thousand miles of line were constructed at a cost of £500 million!
One of these projects was the construction of a line between Leeds and Derby . George went with his son to survey the line; the coal was being dug in this area from fairly close to the surface and George, with his coalmining experience, thought that there was a good deal more deeper down. With some business colleagues he bought up an area of land near Coalville and also bought a large mansion, Alton Grange at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, to be on the spot while development was going on. He tried to persuade the
Leicestershire miners to sink some shafts through the Keuper Marl- a well-know source of trouble in excavations – and then through some hard rock below it. They failed, so he brought down some of his old friends from Newcastle , including his brother James, and they succeeded; and sure enough there was a lot of very
good coal deep down.
Commissions still came flooding in, none of which was ever refused, mainly because George thought that no one could do the work as well as he. Much of it was in this country, for such was his reputation that promoters did all they could to get his name on the prospectus; but he also carried out work in Belgium , in Egypt and finally in Spain . It was the last of these which hastened his end. With a companion he had to traverse the Pyrenees and then walk the length of a line down to Madrid , and as a result he developed pleurisy and only just made it home. This was the end of his professional life, although he continued to help in the education and training of engineers.
Robert Stephenson, 1803
English engineer, only son of George Stephenson, was born at Willington Quay on the 16th of October 1803 . His father, remembering his own early difficulties, bestowed special care on his son’s education, and sent him in his twelfth year to Mr. Bruce’s school in Percy Street, Newcastle, where he remained about four years. In 1819 he was apprenticed to Nicholas Wood, a coal-viewer at Killingworth, after which he was sent in 1822 to attend the science classes at the University of Edinburgh . On his return he assisted his father in surveying the Stockton & Darlington and Liverpool & Manchester lines, but in 1824 he accepted an engagement in South America to take charge of the engineering operations of the Colombian Mining Association of London. On account of the difficulties of the situation he resigned it in 1827, and returned to England via New York in company with Richard Trevithick, whom he had met in a penniless condition at Cartagena.
He then undertook the management of his father’s factory in Newcastle , and greatly aided him in the improvement of the locomotives. His practice was not confined to his own country, but extended also to Sweden , Denmark , Belgium , Switzerland , Piedmont and Egypt . In this connection his most remarkable achievements were his railway bridges, especially those of the tubular girder type. Among his more notable examples are the Royal Border bridge at Berwick-on-Tweed, the High Level bridge at Newcastle-on-Tyne , the Britannia tubular bridge over the Menai Straits, the Conway tubular bridge, and the Victoria tubular bridge over the St. Lawrence at Montreal .
In 1847 he entered the House of Commons as member for Whitby , retaining the seat until the end of his life. In 1855 he was elected president of the Institution of Civil Engineers, of which he became a member in 1830. He died in London on the 12th of October 1859 , and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Ann Stephenson, Newburn, 1822
Ann Stephenson was born in 1821 in Newburn in Northumberland. In 1845 in Ashby de la Zouche, Ann Stephenson married John Rose, a twenty one year old engine-driver from Derby . They had had six daughters and two sons: Mary J in 1847, John Stephenson in 1849, Elizabeth Mabel in 1856, Margaret A in 1858, Robert S in 1860, Hannah in 1861, Helena Susan in 1863 and Margaret Ann in 1867.
They lived in Derby in 6 Railway Terraces. In 1881 they moved to 100 Furnace Road in Alfreton. She died in Pyebridge, Belper in 1884.
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