Stephenson was drawn for the militia: he must therefore either quit his work and go a-soldiering, or find a substitute. He adopted the latter course, and borrowed £6, which, with the remainder of his savings, enabled him to provide a militiaman to serve in his stead. Thus the whole of his hard-won earnings were swept away at a stroke. He was almost in despair, and contemplated the idea of leaving the country, and emigrating to the United States. Although a voyage thither was then a much more formidable thing for a working man to accomplish than a voyage to Australia is now, he seriously entertained the project, and had all but made up his mind to go. His sister Ann, with her husband, emigrated about that time, but George could not raise the requisite money, and they departed without him. After all, it went sore against his heart to leave his home and his kindred, the scenes of his youth and the friends of his boyhood; and he struggled long with the idea, brooding over it in sorrow. Speaking afterwards to a friend of his thoughts at the time, he said: “You know the road from my house at the West Moor to Killingworth. I remember once when I went along that road I wept bitterly, for I knew not where my lot in life would be cast.”
In 1808, Stephenson, with two other brakesmen, took a small contract under the colliery lessees for brakeing the engines at the West Moor Pit. The brakesmen found the oil and tallow; they divided the work amongst them, and were paid so much per score for their labour. It was the interest of the brakesmen to economise the working as much as possible, and George no sooner entered upon the contract than he proceeded to devise ways and means of making it “pay.” He observed that the ropes which, at other pits in the neighbourhood, lasted about three months, at the West Moor Pit became worn out in about a month. He immediately set about ascertaining the cause of the defect; and finding it to be occasioned by excessive friction, he proceeded, with the sanction of the head engine-wright and the colliery owners, to shift the pulley-wheels and re-arrange the gearing, which had the effect of greatly diminishing the tear and wear, besides allowing the work of the colliery to proceed without interruption.
About the same time he attempted an improvement in the winding-engine which he worked, by placing a valve between the air-pump and condenser. This expedient, although it led to no practical result, showed that his mind was actively engaged in studying new mechanical adaptations. It continued to be his regular habit, on Saturdays, to take his engine to pieces, for the purpose, at the same time, of familiarising himself with its action, and of placing it in a state of thorough working order. By mastering its details, he was enabled, as opportunity occurred, to turn to practical account the knowledge he thus diligently and patiently acquired.
Such an opportunity was not long in presenting itself. In the year 1810, a new pit was sunk by the “Grand Allies” (the lessees of the mines) at the village of Killingworth, now known as the Killingworth High Pit. An atmospheric or Newcomen engine, made by Smeaton, was fixed there for the purpose of pumping out the water from the shaft; but somehow it failed to clear the pit. As one of the workmen has since described the circumstance—“She couldn’t keep her jack-head in water: all the enginemen in the neighbourhood were tried, as well as Crowther of the Ouseburn, but they were clean bet.” The engine had been fruitlessly pumping for nearly twelve months, and began to be spoken of as a total failure. Stephenson had gone to look at it when in course of erection, and then observed to the over-man that he thought it was defective; he also gave it as his opinion that, if there were much water in the mine, the engine would never keep it under. Of course, as he was only a brakesman, his opinion was considered to be worth very little on such a point. He continued, however, to make frequent visits to the engine, to see “how she was getting on.” From the bank-head where he worked his brake he could see the chimney smoking at the High Pit; and as the men were passing to and from their work, he would call out and inquire “if they had gotten to the bottom yet?” And the reply was always to the same effect—the pumping made no progress, and the workmen were still “drowned out.”
One Saturday afternoon he went over to the High Pit to examine the engine more carefully than he had yet done. He had been turning the subject over thoughtfully in his mind; and seemed to have satisfied himself as to the cause of the failure. Kit Heppel, one of the sinkers, asked him, “Weel, George, what do you mak’ o’ her? Do you think you could do anything to improve her?” Said George, “I could alter her, man, and make her draw: in a week’s time I could send you to the bottom.”
Forthwith Heppel reported this conversation to Ralph Dodds, the head viewer, who, being now quite in despair, and hopeless of succeeding with the engine, determined to give George’s skill a trial. At the worst he could only fail, as the rest had done. In the evening, Dodds went in search of Stephenson, and met him on the road, dressed in his Sunday’s suit, on the way to “the preaching” in the Methodist Chapel, which he attended. “Well, George,” said Dodds, “they tell me that you think you can put the engine at the High Pit to rights.” “Yes, sir,” said George. “I think I could.” “If that’s the case, I’ll give you a fair trial, and you must set to work immediately. We are clean drowned out, and cannot get a stop further. The engineers hereabouts are all bet; and if you really succeed in accomplishing what they cannot do, you may depend upon it I will make you a man for life.”
Stephenson began his operations early next morning. The only condition that he made, before setting to work, was that he should select his own workmen. There was, as he knew, a good deal of jealousy amongst the “regular” men that a colliery brakesman should pretend to know more about their engine than they themselves did, and attempt to remedy defects which the most skilled men of their craft, including the engineer of the colliery, had failed to do. But George made the condition a sine quâ non. “The workmen,” said he, “must either be all Whigs or all Tories.” There was no help for it, so Dodds ordered the old hands to stand aside. The men grumbled, but gave way; and then George and his party went in.
The engine was taken entirely to pieces. The cistern containing the injection water was raised ten feet; the injection cock, being too small, was enlarged to nearly double its former size, and it was so arranged that it should be shut off quickly at the beginning of the stroke. These and other alterations were necessarily performed in a rough way, but, as the result proved, on true principles. Stephenson also, finding that the boiler would bear a greater pressure than five pounds to the inch, determined to work it at a pressure of ten pounds, though this was contrary to the directions of both Newcomen and Smeaton. The necessary alterations were made in about three days, and many persons came to see the engine start, including the men who had put her up. The pit being nearly full of water, she had little to do on starting, and, to use George’s words, “came bounce into the house.” Dodds exclaimed, “Why, she was better as she was; now, she will knock the house down.” After a short time, however, the engine got fairly to work, and by ten o’clock that night the water was lower in the pit than it had ever been before. It was kept pumping all Thursday, and by the Friday afternoon the pit was cleared of water, and the workmen were “sent to the bottom,” as Stephenson had promised. Thus the alterations effected in the pumping apparatus proved completely successful.
Dodds was particularly gratified with the manner in which the job had been done, and he made Stephenson a present of ten pounds, which, though very inadequate when compared with the value of the work performed, was accepted with gratitude. George was proud of the gift as the first marked recognition of his skill as a workman; and he used afterwards to say that it was the biggest sum of money he had up to that time earned in one lump. Ralph Dodds, however, did more than this. He released the brakesman from the handles of his engine at West Moot, and appointed him engineman at the High Pit, at good wages, during the time the pit was sinking—the job lasting for about a year; and he also kept him in mind for further advancement.
Stephenson’s skill as an engine-doctor soon became noised abroad, and he was called upon to prescribe remedies for all the old, wheezy, and ineffective pumping-machines in the neighbourhood. In this capacity he soon left the “regular” men far behind, though they in their turn were very mach disposed to treat the Killingworth brakesman as no better than a quack. Nevertheless, his practice was really founded upon a close study of the principles of mechanics, and on an