George Stephenson gets the statues. But a plain-dressing Quaker wool merchant from Darlington put up the money, drove the Act through Parliament, and hired Stephenson in the first place. He helped found the world’s first [more…]
For generations, the phrase “grim up north” has lingered in the national imagination — conjuring images of soot-stained skylines, struggling towns, and industries long past their prime. It is a shorthand that flattens the region [more…]
Known for muck and brass, the grim north of England was formerly a hotbed of the Industrial Revolution, rich in sweat, resources, enterprise and plutocrats. Nowadays synonymous with grim decline, my wife and I have [more…]
Before George Stephenson’s name ended up on everything, a colliery manager from Newburn settled the one argument that decided whether railways would ever work. He won it with a hand-cranked cart, two iron engines, and [more…]
Born in the same village as George Stephenson, 5 years earlier. The man who saved the Stockton and Darlington when the engines kept breaking down. The man who built Russia’s first locomotive… and then vanished [more…]
Monday Good morning, my happy readers. The heat wave is over and it is back to normal temperatures here in London, and it is actually forecast to rain this evening. Legohead is back in town [more…]
Everyone knows George Stephenson. The self-taught genius who invented railways. Except he didn’t, really. George was the visionary, the man who saw what steam could do. But the man who actually designed the engines, surveyed [more…]
Monday Good morning, everyone. It’s nice and sunny at the moment, but there is thunder and lightning forecast for later. I don’t like all those flashes and bangs. As usual, Legohead has been at Chequers [more…]
He couldn’t read his own name until he was 18. Then he built the technology that shrank the planet. George Stephenson was born in a two-room cottage in Wylam, Northumberland, on 9 June 1781. There [more…]
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