Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 188, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 August 1913 — HONOR IS NOT STEPHENSON'S [ARTICLE]

HONOR IS NOT STEPHENSON'S

Fifteen Years Before He Built the Rocket, William Hedley Had Produced Practical Locomotive. There is cause for wonder at the failure of the industrial world to commemorate fittingly the centenary of the locomotive steam engine. It is, of courae, still less than a hundred years since the building of StephenBon’s Rocket, and there are many who think of it as the first locomotive; but it was not, nor was Stephenson the original inventor of steam traction on railways. Doubtless his genius well deserves the fame which it has won, as does that of Fulton and Morse; yet it can scarcely be disputed that all &ree of those illustrious benefactors of the race did their great works in the successful adaptation and combination of elements which had previously been discovered and employed by others. ' , . - I'.:/

The germ of the locomotive was first displayed by Trevithick, at the end of the eighteenth century, but he lacked the genius or the persistence to bring it to perfection. It was left to William Hedley, chief engineer of the historic Wylam colliery, near Newcastle-on-Tyne, assisted by his colleague, Timothy Hackworth, to produce in June, 1813, a practical locomotive steam engine for use on the colliery railroad. This epoch-making machine, which was named Puffing Billy and which is still preserved in the South Kensington museum, worked satisfactorily and was the prototype of many others which were widely used for fifteen years, until in 1829 the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad company encouraged Stephenson to devise and build the Rocket.

It is doubtless true that it was Stephenson who gave the impulse to the marvelous development of the locomotive which has since occurred. It la equally true that it was Hedley’s great invention which gave the inspiration and the impulse to Stephenson. The Newcastle engineer’s achievement of just a century ago may therefore be regarded jlb the beginning of what must rank among the three or four most valuable and influential mechanical Inventions in' the history of the world. •