MEN OF MARK

TWIXT

TYNE AND TWEED.

By RICHARD WELFORD,

IN THREE VOLUMES

VOL Il*

LONDON: WALTER SCOTTS LTD., PATERNOSTER SQUARE, AND NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE. 1895.

Timothy Hackworth,

LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEER AND LOCAL PREACHER.

‘The steam engine . . . is the king of machines, and a permanent realisation of the genii of eastern fable, whose supernatural powers were occasionally at the command of man.' Dr. ARNOTT.

THREE natives of Tyneside, born in adjoining parishes, with less than eight years interval separating the oldest from the youngest of them, were the chief instruments in creating a social and commercial revolution to which the history of mankind offers no parallel. Whatsoever may be their respective claims to priority of invention or utility of design, whatsoever opinion may be formed as to the degree in which each of them contributed to the general result, these three industrial heroes - William Hedley, George Stephenson, and Timothy Hackworth - undoubtedly solved amongst them a problem that had lingered long in the lap of experiment and expectation; they demonstrated the practical and profitable adaptation of the power of steam to locomotion, and gave us our present railway system.

Timothy Hackworth was born at Wylam, where his father, John Hackworth, was foreman of the colliery blacksmiths, on the 22nd December 1786. He received his education, such as it was, at the village school, and, at the age of fourteen, was apprenticed to the owners of the colliery to learn his father's trade, and to follow a calling in which his progenitors had distinguished themselves for many generations. Two years after he had entered upon his indentures - the father died, and upon Timothy devolved the care of providing for his mother and the family. He was a studious and painstaking lad, whose devotion to his work and his home secured the goodwill of his fellow-workmen, attracted the sympathy of his neighbours, and, above all, won the confidence of his employers. As soon as his apprenticeship expired, in 1807, the colliery authorities rewarded his diligence, intelligence, and skill by raising him to his father's post of foreman smith.

While Timothy Hackworth was serving under indentures, colliery managers were speculating upon the probabilities of using steam as a motive-power in the haulage of coal. Christopher Blackett, the owner, and William Hedley the viewer, of Wylam Colliery, took a lively and intelligent interest in the matter. So early as 1805 a locomotive engine had been made to Mr. Blackett order at Whinfield's Foundry in Gateshead. It was a failure but Mr. Blackett was not discouraged. Taking up the wooden rails of his wagon-way and replacing them by cast-iron plates. he made Wylam Colliery the theatre of interesting experiments. Mr. Hedley had proved to him, by repeated trials, that the law of gravitation was the true basis of locomotion - in other words, that smooth wheels would work upon smooth rails by pressure of the weight above them In 1812, Mr. Blackett directed that Hackworth and his smiths, assisted by Thomas Waters, a Gateshead iron-founder, should build a locomotive from Mr. Hedley's design. This engine, constructed with a cast-iron boiler, a single cylinder, a fly-wheel, and a straight fire-tube, was tried in February, 1813, and proved defective. Another engine was put in hand, and Hackworth, helped by Jonathan Forster, the colliery engine-wright succeeded to admiration. Wrought-iron was used for the boiler, the fire-tube was made to return to the chimney, which was placed at the same end of the boiler as the furnace, and thus equipped, the engine drew eight loaded coal wagons after it, at the rate of four miles an hour. The victory was won. Mr. Hedley had demonstrated the soundness of his ideas; Hackworth had brought them into effective operation; the era of steam locomotion had begun.

While these experiments were in progress Timothy Hackworth had received serious impressions on the subject of religion. In a list of candidates for confirmation at Ovingharn in 1801, now in the possession of Mr. Ralph Nelson, of Bishop Auckland his name appears, but at the beginning of 1811 he united himself to the Methodist body, and soon afterwards, having developed considerable gifts of speaking and exhorting, his name was entered in the Circuit Plan as a local preacher. Fidelity to his religious convictions severed the tie which bound him to Wylam Colliery. One Sunday, in 1815, as we read in Lawsons "Wesleyan Local Preachers," he was passing the pit to fulfill a preaching appointment when a fellow workman accosted him with, 41 Where’s thee gannin?" Hackworth answered, “I am going to preach." Is thee not gannin' to de this wark ?" “I have other work than that to do today." “Weel, if thoo’ll not, somebody else will and thoo'll lose thee job” “Lose or not lose, I shall not break the Sabbath,” rejoined Hackworth and passed on to his engagement. The man's prediction proved to be accurate. The owner of Wylam Colliery, or his representative, discharged a most faithful servant because he refused to work on a Sunday.

Dismissed from Wylam, Mr. Hackworth obtained the foremanship of the smiths at Walbottle Colliery, and there he remained until 1824. In the meantime George Stephenson, improving upon the Wylam experiments, had established a great reputation as a railway pioneer, and had his hands full of business. At the date just mentioned he was undertaking a survey for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway and required a competent man to superintend, during his absence the manufactory of steam engines which he had opened in Newcastle. He applied to the agent of Walbottle Colliery for the loan of Timothy Hackworth, and the latter, nothing loth, accepted the position. So well did he manage the concern that Stephenson offered him strong inducements - half his own share in the manufactory, it is said - to remain. For reasons of his own, Hackworth declined, refused at the same time an offer to accompany an exploring expedition to the gold and silver mines of Venezuela, New Granada, and Trinidad and determined to start in business for himself.

His arrangements for commencing to build engines were approaching completion when he received through Mr. Stephenson’s recommendation, an offer of the post of resident engineer to the Stockton and Darlington Railway Company. This was an office worthy of his acceptance, and he closed with the offer. In the books of the Company, under date May 13^th, 1825, is the following record of his appointment - “John Dixon reports that he has arranged with Timothy Hackworth to come and settle on the line, particularly to have the superintendence of the permanent and locomotive engines. The preliminary arrangement as regards salary is £150 per annum. the Company to find a house, and pay for his house rent and fire."

At Darlington, Timothy Hackworth began a system of laborious research and rigorous investigation into the principles of locomotive mechanism and their adaptation to the requirements of traffic, which made the Stockton and Darlington line famous in the history of railway enterprise. Five miles of the railway consisted of inclined planes, worked with stationary engines, and to the safe and effective arrangement of these planes he devoted in the first instance the greater part of his time and energies. He designed double-acting drums for the Brusselton Incline, and to fixed a drum upon the Etherley Incline that it worked the coal-waggons, up and down a long bank and a short bank with a minimum of strain upon the engine. Among other of his devices were the discharge-hook by which the ropes could be detached from waggons in motion, the drag-frame attached to last carriages in ascending inclines with the object of arresting precipitate descent in case of accident, and the switch, fixed a short distance from the top of inclines, by which waggons could be thrown off the line if they happen to run over the bank head.

But his greatest achievement on the Stockton and Darlington line was the construction of an engine on a new principle~ "the boldest step in mechanical construction ever concentrated in a single effort." The locomotives in use upon the line worked so badly that the directors contemplated the use of fixed engines over the whole of their mileage. Hackworth expressed confidence in his own ability to build a locomotive that would travel with greater speed, draw a heavier load, and consume less fuel than the imperfect specimens which the Company were running. Permission was granted and he constructed, in 1827, the engine celebrated in railway history as the Royal George. In this engine, departing from the usual plan of having two upright cylinders working on different shafts, Hackworth inverted his cylinders and, placing them on opposite sides of the boilers applied their connecting rods to actuate the same axle-tree. At the some time, in lieu of the straight flue employed in Blenkinsop's and, Stephenson’s engines, he adopted the return fire-tube which was used by Trevethick and Hedley; and by throwing the escaping steam into the chimney throug a narrow orifice, he greatly augmented the force of the stem blast, and consequently the rapidity of combustion in the furnace. Finally, he placed the engine upon six whees all coupled which yielded an increase of adhesion upon the rails in every state of the weather. The Royal George was "the first of a new type of engine and the nearest approach to the modem locomotive of any that had yet been built.

Although the superiority of locomotive over stationary engines was practically demonstrated by the construction of Hackworth's masterpiece the question of their relative utility continued to be debated with considerable vigour. The Liverpool and Manchester Company were not satisfied with their locomotives, and they appointed a deputation of engineers to visit the North of England and inspect the engines at work them. The report of the deputation being unfavourable to the locomotive, Mr. Robert Stephenson applied to Hackworth for arguments in its favour. He informed him that the deputation “state it positively as their opinion that a locomotive engine of ten horsepower will not convey more than ten tons exclusive of the waggons, at the rate of ten miles an hour in winter time, and in summer the same engine will take 13-1/2 tons." And he added, “Let me have your general opinion as to the locomotive engine system. Is it as convenient as any other? Would you consider 13-1/2 tons in summer and ten tons in winter a fair performance for a good locomotive engine?” To which request Hackworth sent the following reply:

"The statement that a complete locomotive will take but 10 tons at 10 miles an hour is quite at variance with facts. Four of our waggons, laden for depots frequently take from 12 to 13 tons of coals exclusive of the waggons, Our engines never take less than 16 laden waggons in winter, and in summer from 20 to 24 and 32 laden, and can maintain a speed of five miles an hour. Engines thus loaded have frequently traveled at nine miles an hour, sometimes more. I am verily convinced that a swift engine, upon a well-conditioned railway will combine profit and simplicity, and will afford such facility as has not hitherto been known. I am well satisfed that an engine, of the weight you mention will convey, on a level, in winter, 30 tons of goods 10 miles per hour exclusive of carriages, and 40 tons in summer exclusive of carriages. ... I hear the Liverpool company have concluded to use fixed engines. Some will look on this with surprise; but as you can well afford it, it is all for the good of the science and of the trade to try both plans. Do not discompose yourself, my dear air; if you express, your manly, firm, decided opinion, you have done your part as their adviser; and if it happen to be read some day in the newspapers 'Whereas the Liverpool and Manchester Railway has been strangled by ropes,’ we shall not accuse you of guilt in being accessory either before or after the fact.”

In the celebrated trial of locomotives upon the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1929, Hackworth entered the Sanspariel, an engine built upon the same principle as the Royal George but it broke down, and the prize of £500 was awarded to the Rocket built by George and Robert Stephenson. The Sanspariel is described as "a marvel of mechanism, considering the conditions under which it was made." It was sold to the Bolton Railway Company, after it had done some service elsewhere, and gave great satisfaction.

In another competition, which was opened the same year by his employer, Hackworth was more successful. The Stockton and Darlington Company offered 150 and 75 guineas respectively for the best and second best plans, sections, and estimates for staiths, machinery, etc, to be used in the shipment of coals at Middlesbrough, and he obtained the first prize. Other remarkable achievements in locomotive engineering followed. A new engine, the Globe, with which he opened the branch line from Stockton to Middlesbrough, showed a marked improvement, and still further ingenuity was displayed in the Majestic, Lord Brougham, William IV., etc. In some of these engines Hackworth introduced a number of small copper tubes, by which the area of heating surface was increased; in others these tubes were made to return, with the object of still further augmenting the heating surface; in all of them he shortened the stroke, and made the whole structure more compact and more easy to manipulate.

When Mr. Hackworth had given to the Stockton and Darlington line nine years of service as engineer and locomotive manager, the conditions of his engagement were changed. He had won the entire confidence of the directors, and in 1834 they placed their machinery and workshops at his disposal, and contracted with him for the entire haulage of the line. The arrangement lasted till, 1840 when he erected the Soho Engine Works, Shildon and commenced business on his own account. At the jubilee celebration of the Stockton and Darlington line, September 27th, 1875, two of the engines which he built for the Company on the eve of his departure to his own establishmen4 the Auckland and the Dart were exhibited. Although thirty-six years had passed away since they left his hands, they were described a still capable of service, and one of them, the Dart, as actually running in daily use.

To Timothy Hackworth, not the locomotive engine alone, but the whole system of colliery haulage is indebted for many ingenious contrivances. Improvements equally as effective as those which he introduced into the working of inclined planes, he brought into operation among winding engines and general mining machinery He had a great fancy for the rotary engine, and in 1836 patented one. About the more economical and effective smelting of iron, too, he had original ideas but his active labours with the locomotive did not afford him the necessary time to elaborate them.

Throughout his life, Mr. Hackworth retained his connection as a Methodist class leader and local preacher. "Naturally endowed with great moral courage and fortitude of mind," writes one who knew him, "he possessed a fluency and happiness of expression, with a thread of delicate humour and anecdote pervading his discourses which charmed all who listened to his artless eloquence. He loved retirement, and preferred the joys of private life to worldly honours, which caused him, though a public character, not to be universally known. Constitutionally healthy and robust, his life was one of great activity, both mental and physical; every moment was pressed into service."

In this happy state of mind and body he continued till his death, which occurred after a few day’s illness on the 7th of July, 1850, in the sixty-fourth year of his age.