The rail gave us the modern science of thermodynamics when the French military engineer, Sadie Carnot tried his hand at figuring out why British locomotives were more efficient than French ones. His idea for the theoretical most efficient engines is what engineers and physicists still start with when studying thermodynamics.
Having studied the lives of both George and Robert Stephenson in some detail the brief biography is spot on and covers the key points in under 25 min. Nicely done Simon👍
1:30 - Chapter 1 - Early years 4:50 - Chapter 2 - The miner's lamp controversy 9:10 - Mid roll ads 10:40 - Chapter 3 - The engines 12:55 - Chapter 4 - The railways 16:15 - Chapter 5 - From liverpool to manchester 21:00 - Chapter 6 - Later life
As a railway enthusiast I really appreciate videos like this one, I found it very informative and easy to follow ☺️ Thank you Simon and your team for making videos like this!
George Stephenson is actually my great great... grandad on my father's side and this video had a lot of info I didn't know. Another great vid as always. Keep up the awesome work.
I'm also a descendant Kieran, which I suppose means you and I are related? I'm unsure how it al works. Shoot me a message if you see this, we have a family tree.
Stephenson is every bit as significant as Bill Gates. Neither invented what they became famous for, but they both had the vision and ability to see how to make it work on a global scale - and both literally changed the world.
Just came here to tell you keep up the great work. I listen to your podcasts on my 21 minute commute to and from work. Something about your calm voice helps my anxiety while driving in horrible traffic. I hope you never stop making these videos. Thanks again. 10/10!!!!!
Would you consider a video on James (Jim) Kirby? He was an inventor who patented hundreds of ways to make household chores we know today easier. Spin washers, dry cleaning methods, etc. he put his name on the vacuum. Kirby Vacuums is now owned by Warren Buffett and is indirectly responsible for the success plans of companies like Dominos pizza, Church’s chicken and others. James Kirby played an enormous role in modern houses. Innovations we still use today. I’ve hard a harder time piecing together his life but there was a book written on him in the 1930s(20s?) called “The Man Who Revolutionized the American Household”
Hi I’m a teacher at a high school & we will be going over Augustus, the first roman emperor in the coming weeks & I was hoping to see you do a video on his life. I love your show & if you can’t do the video I’ll be able to find a good documentary online but I think my students would prefer your videos over that. Thanks Simon!
The tracks of the local nature park where I live are the former waggonways (spelt that way on the signs too) from Killingworth colliery down to the Tyne for used for coal export. It's nice to live nearby a core element of industrial history and there's loads of it too.
Hello from Newton-le-Willows. An important town on the Liverpool to Manchester line and the place where Huskinson was killed. It's also where the Nine Arches Railway viaduct is located... and hometown of Rick Astley!
Stephenson's move to Scotland was quite astute. At the time he was apprenticed to James Watt, whose improvement of the the steam engine basically kick-started the Industrial Revolution. In the collieries around the Tyne, Stephenson would have been familiar with the locomotives of William Hedley; Wylam Dilly (1815) and Puffing Billy (1816), and no doubt adopted ideas from these two successful engines. Today Wylam Dilly, the world's oldest surviving steam locomotive, can be found in the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh.
Geordie first built to 4'-8" but bends were a problem so the rails were moved another 1/2" apart, the extra 1/4" either side being just enough. The original gauge was standard to him as the chauldrons (coal waggons) were built to this. These were built by Cartwrights and had been a standard size for carts. The origin is reputed to be a decree by a Roman Emperor for the minimum width of gate ways in the Empire. The cart that just gets though having Standard Gauge of 4'-8".
That may be true. However, it was stated that 4'8" is THE standard gauge. It is NOT. 4'8 1/2" is. Perhaps you may believe 1/2 an inch means nothing and that is fine. I disagree though. It's like saying this is the year of 2024 rather than 2020. Being close to correct does not make it correct.
I'm pretty proud to live in Newcastle. Beautiful architecture, harts and culture and to this day, always full of new surprises. Definitely worth a visit from elsewhere.
Interesting fact, Stevensons Standard Gauge (4' 8 1/2") Was nationally adopted, not because it was better but because he'd already laid 7 times the amount of track his main rival Brunel had. The 7 foot 'broad gauge' was far superior in many ways not least had it been adopted our trains would today would be way more spacious and the amounts carried would be much greater. Quantity won out over quality in this instance. That 1 decision all those years ago are now set in stone.
Thanks so much! Part of the original Stockton to Darlington line is still in use today and I think its the part that runs along the bottom of my back garden. I loved learning about our local history.
Love your work, could you do one on George Washington Carver I had to do a high school project some 15 years ago and still today I'm amazed by a man few know.
I use to live about 1/4 mile from Dial Cottage which was George Stephensons home in Forest Hall next to West Moor. The street I use to live in were old pit homes from back when there was a mine in Killingsworth.
I have been looking forward to a Biographics feature on the Stephenson`s for quite a while now. Thanks, Simon. Would you also consider doing a feature on the Navis? What they went through is hardly written or talked about, but the world owes them a debt. I`d love to see a feature on them soon.
I grew up right next to George Stephenson's birthplace. One time, as the women who owned the house was a family friend, me and my sister stayed over night. Since the room he grew up in is a musuem, it has been re-created as it was then. Needless to say I was kept up all night by creaks and what I swore were footsteps up and down the stairs. Very interesting man, and a very terrifying house!
If you ever visit Wylam, you can of course find the National Trust-owned George Stephenson's Cottage along Keelman's Way. The excellent pub ''The Boathouse'' with its large selection of local beers is next to Wylam's railway station, the latter having some original features from Stephenson's life-time, both places being points of pilgrimage for the railway traveller. Fortunately for me, I live only 4 miles away along the line...
First off THANK YOU SO MUCH for the brief mention of his time in derbyshire and the use of the photograph of the statue of Stephenson outside Chesterfield station. I find it sad you didn't mention about his burial being in Chesterfield. His body is the Holy Trinty Church while a grave stone statue is outside for all to know he is there. As someone who lives in Chesterfield it's disheartening this brief part wasn't mentioned. Thank you for the great video and content as usual
Locomotive No. 1 is renamed Stephenson's Rocket, and a replica is currently at the Yorkshire Railway Museum. It was even reincarnated in the Thomas and Friends TV show as Stephen!
Firstly Stockton and Darlington are not Cities, they were towns and still are towns. The railway didn’t run between Stockton and Darlington. It stated at Witton Park, near Bishop Auckland via two inclines, to Shildon the Cradle of the Railway. There Locomotion took over hauling the train via Darlington the first railway Town, onto Stockton.
Funny to see Simon report on a railway innovator. His own productions have become a goliath machine transporting us to history. I don't know about Simon's education but somebody should make him a PhD in history if he keeps this train rolling much longer.
Hey Simon just finished watching the movie 300 again. You should make a biographics episode of xerxes the great and the real story of the 300 really love your channels btw
I liked this video, as it's right up my alley (I've been a model railroader for 65 years). I learned a lot about the Stephensons, father and son, filling in the gaps. However, for all the research you've done, you botched one very *basic* fact..._by one-half inch!_ I scrolled all the way down to the first comment and apparently, I'm the only railroad fan to see this. Contrary to another garbled "fact," the "Standard Gauge" used by most nations of the world did originate from mines, which from Roman times have for some reason been built so as to leave ruts four feet eight _and 1/2_ inches apart. When it was discovered that putting flanges on the wheels and making the rails that distance apart on the insides of the rail-heads, they would roll with a great deal less friction. Great Britain built a great deal of trackage to five-foot gauge, as did several railroads here in the States, but interchange was impossible. I vaguely remember reading an article in the distant past that ALL of Britain's Wide Gauge trackage was re-gauged to 4'8-1/2" _on the same day! 'Course, at 80 I could be mistaken...
Rocket was his name for not one but many of his steam locomotives including some of his first. The sad thing is those Buffon royal society guys only accepted upper class people they knew from birth and outsiders such as him or the explorer who went to find lost city of Z or the guy who invented the first clock that kept time at sea and the guy who discovered the measurements of distance/time at sea were never acceptable because they weren’t ENGLISH GENTLEMEN but simply English people. Unless you were the equivalent of Elton boys you just were not praised or recognised for whatever amazing things you discovered
There were quite a few differences in lamps in the north east compared to the rest of the country. One is a statue outside the stadium of light to this day.
Martin Fawkes it could be one of the reasons because in Sunderland. The people are called mackems which comes from the geordies calling them mackems because people from Sunderland would say mack for make. They would make things and the geordies would joke about it. So when referring to ships that were built in Sunderland they would say that they would mack em, instead of make them. The mackems could have used the word geordie in relation to the fact that a lot of towns around the area would use the geordie lamp for mining and also the fact that Stephenson was a famous geordie. It could be the case.
Should do a video on Jan Smuts. People don't seem to talk about him much because he's associated with the south African apartheid but though he was originally pro segregation he eventually fought against it. He was also the only person to sign both the treaty of Versailles and the ww2 peace treaties. He is absolute proof that no one is wholly good or wholly bad but some where in the middle.
It's only speculation that George was born in Wylam, many believe that speculation. Rumour has it, that his mother had been to the village of Greenside to visit friends, on her return to Wylam it's believed she got as far as the village of Crawcrook when she went into labour, she was taken in by the Charlton family, another family friend. This story was first told to me by a teacher of mine who grew up in the village.
My great great great great grandad worked Stephensons rocket no. 1 but long before these trains they were work horses used constantly but because Newcastle was so far away from London nobody in London recognise it. Unfortunately the prejudice to northern people was horrendous then
Hey! Loved the video! Here 's a list of interesting people for bios! António Salazar - Portuguese XX century dictator Andrew Jackson - 1820's us president Abraham Lincoln - 1860's us president (duhh) Ronald Reagan - 1980's us president Paul Von Hinderburg - WW1 general and president of the Weimar Republic Erich Ludendorff - infamous WW1 German general Duke of Wellington - (the guy that beat Napoleon Bonaparte) Love your Channel! thanks!
Not necessarily. Trains running on standard gauge track tend to be about 10 ft wide, so a 7 ft gauge could be used for the same size train to be a little more stable. It would, on the other hand, require more work in grading and leveling.
Had to go ask a trained expert and he said no there were no 7 gauge gauge trains during this era Great. 4feet 8 1/2 inches is Standars Gauge throughout the world. Anything smaller is narrow gauge. The Rissians built 5 foot gauge to keep the Nazis from inter changing into their railroads during WWII. Standard Gauge as described above is the width of two horses butts.....All Fact So standard gauge would be 56 and 1/2 in. Around 4 feet Standard Gauge & Russians for word correction.
This is a great biography on Stephenson but think it completely misses the reason why the steam engine became popular in the north east and that was the hills.
Simon, I hope you recall that boast you made way back when : "If Biographics hits a million subs, I'll eat my hat.....and I'll also do an episode on myself !" Remember ? Ok good 👍 Congratulations in advance to you and your team man - you deserve it 😎 Thanks for making sure I've got at least one quality video (how many channels now ?) every single day ☕
Quite a decent video that. :) Might have been worthy of mentioning that the Bedlington Iron Works just to the north of Tyneside invented the malleable rail. That invention changed the railways forever - gone were the flat iron plates, iron angle plates and short fish belly rails and in came something quite recognisable by todays standards.
origionaly from co. durham and we refer to it as a davey lamp. maybe we're just so stubborn we won't be classed as geordies. I should perhaps do some research.
Wasn't unheard of for guys to solve the same problem about the same time in those days. But it took a while for word to get around no internet or airmail after all.
Stephenson, the man who changed the world! Rudolf Diesel then changed it again. What is next? The cold fusion engine or the superconductive motor looms just over the horizon. The future will be unreal!
I am now imagining a world where George Stephenson is known for inventing the Cucumber Straightener, instead of his work on railways. Because sometimes the world just sees some things as more important than other things.
