Edward Pease's fifth son, Henry Pease a Quaker railway company promoter, was born at Darlington on 4 May 1807. He also entered with enthusiasm into the railway projects of his father. His principal achievement was the opening in 1861 of the line across Stainmoor, called ‘the backbone of England’, the summit of which was 1374 feet above sea level. It joined at Tebay the London and North Western Railway (LNWR), and was soon extended at its eastern limit to Saltburn-on-Sea.
Henry Pease was a director of the Stockton and Darlington Railway and was responsible for the foundation of the seaside resort of Saltburn-by-the-Sea. He purchased the Pierremont house in Darlington in 1845, moving in 1846. The Pease family also rented the Stanhope Castle, Durham. Henry Pease was elected in 1857 as MP for South Durham and held the seat until 1865.
In January 1854 Pease was deputed by the meeting for sufferings, held on the 17th of that month, to accompany Joseph Sturge and Robert Charleton as a deputation from the Society of Friends to Russia. On 10 February they were received by the emperor Nicholas, and presented him with a powerful address, urging him to abstain from the then imminent Crimean War. He received them politely, but their efforts were unavailing, and Alexander William Kinglake ridiculed their action in his history of the campaign, Invasion of the Crimea (1863). Pease was MP for South Durham from 1857 to 1865. In 1867 he visited Napoleon III with a deputation from the Peace Society, but their request for permission to hold a peace congress during the Universal Exhibition in Paris was rejected.
Henry Pease married, on 25 February 1835, Anna, only daughter of Richard Fell of Uxbridge, who died on 27 October 1839, leaving a son, Henry Fell Pease, MP from 1885 for the Cleveland division of Yorkshire; second, on 19 January 1859, he married Mary, daughter of Samuel Lloyd of Wednesbury, with whom he had three sons and two daughters.
Henry Pease was chairman of the first Darlington school board in 1871, in 1867 the first mayor of the town, and president of the Peace Society from 1872. In the early 1860s, when negotiations were in hand for a takeover of the Stockton and Darlington Railway by the North Eastern Railway Company (NER), Pease declared his opposition to the merger, in spite of the generous terms on offer to his family as leading shareholders in the Stockton and Darlington Railway. Following the takeover, however, Pease's sensibilities were overcome by his appointment as vice-chairman of the NER board. It was in that capacity that he presided over the railway jubilee held at Darlington on 27 September 1875, at which eighty British and thirty foreign railways were represented. He was always a prominent member of the Religious Society of Friends. He died at 23 Finsbury Square, London, while attending the yearly meeting, on 30 May 1881, and was buried in the Quaker burial-ground at Darlington on 2 June.
Date
? 1875 - ? 1876
Scope and ContentThe undated note is presumably written by Henry Pease and it includes mentions of 1875, which was the year of the 50th jubilee of the Stockton and Darlington Railway: '... we celebrate the opening of the line in the 17 of Sept. 1825', and George Stephenson: '... he is plain George Stephenson better know in [?] as Geordy'. The Stanhope Castle was leased as Pease family's summer home.
George Stephenson (1781–1848), colliery and railway engineer, was born at Wylam, Northumberland, on 9 June 1781. He is often credited as being the ‘Father of Railways.’ He was the second son of Robert Stephenson, foreman at the Wylam colliery pumping engine. At fourteen he was appointed an assistant fireman to his father and when he was seventeen Robert Hawthorne employed him in the position of ‘plugman’, or engineman. Robert worked on engines at Willington Quay, Killingworth and Montrose, Scotland, before returning to Killingworth, where in 1812 he was appointed engineman and given responsibility for all the machinery at a number of collieries in the Newcastle area.
Stephenson built his first locomotive, Blucher, in 1814 for Killingworth colliery, and in 1816, he patented the ‘steam spring’ with William Losh, of Walker Ironworks, Newcastle. Losh had previously supported Stephenson’s claim that he invented the first safety lamp for underground mineworkers in 1815. In early 1822, George was appointed engineer to the Stockton and Darlington Railway, after submitting survey plans and cost estimates for the proposed line and in
May 1823, the company was given permission to use steam locomotives on the line.
On 23 June 1823, George Stephenson established the engine manufacturing company Robert Stephenson & Co. with Edward Pease, Thomas Richardson and Michael Longridge, which was to be managed by George’s son, Robert. Work commenced in August 1823 and by the time the Stockton and Darlington line opened for traffic on 27 September 1825, four winding engines had been delivered together with a operational steam locomotive: Locomotion No.1.
In 1824, George was employed to undertake surveys and prepare plans for the proposed Liverpool and Manchester Railway, but the bill was rejected in parliament. A new bill was passed in 1826, and Stephenson was appointed engineer. Stephenson fought strenuously for using locomotive power on the line, and his locomotive Rocket, built under the direction of his son Robert, won the Rainhill locomotive trials, held in October 1829, to determine the best means of propulsion on the Liverpool and Manchester line.
Stephenson was chief engineer to the Grand Junction line connecting Birmingham with Liverpool and Manchester, begun in 1833 and he was also chief engineer to the following railways: Manchester to Leeds, Birmingham to Derby, Normanton to York, and Sheffield to Rotherham, and others, all begun in 1836. The Derby to Leeds Railway (afterwards called the North Midland line) was commenced under his supervision in 1837.
In 1838 Stephenson was elected vice-president of the mechanical science section of the British Association at its Newcastle meeting.
In 1845, Stephenson’s party won a parliamentary battle as supporters of the locomotive against the upholders of the atmospheric railway system, led by I.K. Brunel. In 1847 Stephenson became president of the Institution of Mechanical
Engineers, which was founded by him that year in Birmingham. He received in 1835 the honour of knighthood from Leopold I of Belgium and in 1845 he also visited northern Spain in connection with a proposed railway. Stephenson consistently refused all proffered honours in England, however, declining a knighthood on two occasions.
He died of pleurisy at Tapton House, Tapton, near Chesterfield, on 12 August 1848. He was buried on 17 August at Holy Trinity Church, Chesterfield.
The Stockton & Darlington Railway (S&DR) was the first steam operated public railway in the world when it opened in 27 September 1825. The object of the railway was to reduce the cost of carriage of coal sent from the small coal mine in the Shildon area to Darlington & Stockton and at first it was not thought that there would be any need to provide facilities for passengers. For the first eight years the few passengers were carried in horse-drawn coaches operated by the contractors, it was not until 1833 that the company started to operate passenger trains hauled by locomotives.
Synonymous with the S&DR are the names Pease and Stephenson. The Pease family, led by Edward Pease strongly supported the railway and Edward's son, Joseph, prepared the original prospectus and became the company's first treasurer. George Stephenson was appointed engineer in January 1822 to see to the survey and the building of the line, he also supplied the first locomotives which were built be his son, Robert Stephenson.
In May 1825 Timothy Hackworth was appointed locomotive foreman and worked with the company for eight years and designed a type of locomotive more suitable for coal traffic, with six-coupled wheels.
Most of the branches and extensions to the Stockton and Darlington Railway were built by separate companies, although worked by the S&DR, however most of these companies were taken over by S&DR in 1858.
In 1863 the Stockton & Darlington Railway ceased to exist as a separate concern, but until 1876 it was run as the Darlington section of the North Eastern Railway.
