| Samuel Smiles |  |
| Samuel Smiles | |
Smiles was born in Haddington on 23 December 1804 and died in Kensington on 16 April 1904. He trained as a medical doctor and actually practiced from 1832 to 1838. He the took up editorial work and became assistant secretary to the Leeds & Thirsk Railway. He then became Secretary of the South Eastern Railway. He met George Stephenson for the first time at the opening of the North Midland Railway. He was the author of several books, notably Self-help and Lives of the engineers As a young man he was a radical, but gradually moved to the right (he was a Unionist on the Irish issue) and was an advocate of public libraries. He is the subject of an entry in the ODNB by H.C.G. Matthews (biographer of over 700 entries, including George V and George VI).
Jack Simmons gave a sympathetic pen portrait of Samuel Smiles in the Oxford Companion to British Railway history. He described his life of George Stephenson as "an honest and careful book" and fully justified its original enthusiastic reception.
The life of George Stephenson: railway engineer. 3rd ed. London: John Murray, 1857. 546p. portrait facing title page
Extract pp. 306-08: Mr. Stephenson did not rest satisfied with the success he had achieved in the constructiolf of the "Rocket." He regarded it only in the light of a successful experiment; and every succeeding engine which he placed upon the line exhibited some improvement upon its predecessors. The engines were varied in their form, in their arrangement, in their weight and proportions, as the experience of each successive day, or week, or month suggested. No sooner were defects made apparent than steps were taken to remedy them; and each quarter produced engines of such increased power and efficiency, that their predecessors were abandoned; not because they were worn out, but because they had been outstripped in the rapid march of improvement.
The "Planet" engine embodied most of the improvements made by Mr. Stephenson and his son between the construction of the" Rocket" and the opening of the railway on the 15th of September. The "Planet" was in the Mersey, but not landed, on that day. This engine exhibited in one combination nearly all the improvements which the inventors had by this time effected, — the blast pipe, the tubular boiler, the horizontal cylinders inside the smoke-box (a great improvement on the "Rocket"), and the cranked axle, together with a fire-box firmly fixed to the boiler. In the "Rocket" the fire-box was only screwed against the boiler, allowing a considerable leakage of air which had not passed through the fire. The tubes and furnace of the "Planet" gave a heating surface of 407 ¼ feet. The cylinder was 11 inches in diameter, with a 16-inch stroke; the boiler was 6½ feet long, by 3 feet in diameter; the four wheels were 5 and 3 feet in diameter respectively.
On the 4th of December, the "Planet" took the first load of merchandise from Liverpool to Manchester, consisting of 18 waggon-loads of cotton, 200 barrels of flour, 63 sacks of oatmeal, and 34 sacks of malt. The total load, exclusive of the engine, was 80 tons, and it was taken to Manchester, in the face of a strong, adverse wind, in two hours and thirtynine minutes, which was considered an exceedingly successful trip. Previous to this, however, the speed of the "Planet" had been tested in bringing up a cargo of voters from Manchester to LiverpooJ, on the occasion of the contested election there, when she performed the journey between the two places in sixty minutes.
The next important improvement in the locomotive was made in the "Samson," which was placed upon the line about the beginning of 1831. In this engine the plan of coupling the fore and hind wheels of the engine was adopted; by which means the adhesion of 'the wheels on the rails was more effectually secured, and thus the hauling force of the locomotive was made more available. This mode of coupling the wheels was found to be a great improvement, and it has since been adopted in all engines constructed for drawing heavy loads, where power is of greater consequence than speed. On the 25th of February, the "Samson" drew a train of thirty waggons, weighing 151 tons exclusive of the weight of the tender, between Liverpool and Manchester, at the rate of about twenty miles an hour on the level parts of the railway. In this engine the blast, the tubes, and furnace were so contrived, that the consumption of coke was reduced to only about one-third of a pound per ton per mile.
The rapid progress thus made will show that Mr. Stephenson's inventive faculties were kept fully on the stretch; but his labours were amply repaid by the result. He was, doubtless, to some extent stimulated by the number of competitors who about the same time appeared as improvers of the locomotive engine. Of these the most prominent were the Messrs. Braithwaite and Ericsson, whose engine, the "Novelty," had excited such high expectations at the Rainhill competition.
The directors of the railway, desirous of giving all parties a fair chance, ordered from those makers two engines on the same model; but their performances not proving satisfactory, they were finally withdrawn. One of them slipped off the rails near the Sankey viaduct, and was nearly thrown over the embankment. Their chief defect consisted in their inability to keep up a sufficient supply of steam for regular work; the steam-blast not being adopted in the engines.
Indeed the superiority of Mr. Stephenson's locomotives over all others that had yet been tried, induced the directors of the railway to require that the engines supplied to them by other builders should be constructed after the same model. It is now an invariable practice with railway companies to determine the kind of locomotive with which they are to be supplied by contractors; but in those days it was positively made a ground of complaint, against both the company and the engineer, that this salutary precaution was adopted.
2007-10-31