arithmetician, and Stephenson sought his society chiefly for the purpose of improving himself in writing and “figures.” Under Andrew Robertson, he had never quite mastered the Rule of Three, and it was only when Wigham took him in hand that he made much progress in the higher branches of arithmetic. He generally took his slate with him to the Wighams’ cottage, when he had his sums set, that he might work them out while tending his engine on the following day. When too busy to be able to call upon Wigham, he sent the slate to have the former sums corrected and new ones set. Sometimes also, at leisure moments, he was enabled to do a little “figuring” with chalk upon the sides of the coal-waggons. So much patient perseverance could not but eventually succeed; and by dint of practice and study, Stephenson was enabled to master successively the various rules of arithmetic.
John Wigham was of great use to his pupil in many ways. He was a good talker, fond of argument, an extensive reader as country reading went in those days, and a very suggestive thinker. Though his store of information might be comparatively small when measured with that of more highly-cultivated minds, much of it was entirely new to Stephenson, who regarded him as a very clever and ingenious person. Wigham taught him to draw plans and sections; though in this branch Stephenson proved so apt that he soon surpassed his master. A volume of ‘Ferguson’s Lectures on Mechanics,’ which fell into their hands, was a great treasure to both the students. One who remembers their evening occupations says he used to wonder what they meant by weighing the air and water in so odd a way. They were trying the specific gravities of objects; and the devices which they employed, the mechanical shifts to which they were put, were often of the rudest kind. In these evening entertainments, the mechanical contrivances were supplied by Stephenson, whilst Wigham found the scientific rationale. The opportunity thus afforded to the former of cultivating his mind by contact with one wiser than himself proved of great value, and in after-life Stephenson gratefully remembered the assistance which, when a humble workman, he had derived from John Wigham, the farmer’s son.
His leisure moments thus carefully improved, it will be inferred that Stephenson continued a sober man. Though his notions were never extreme on this point, he was systematically temperate. It appears that on the invitation of his master, he had, on one or two occasions, been induced to join him in a forenoon glass of ale in the public-house of the village. But one day, about noon, when Dodds had got him as far as the public-house door, on his invitation to “come in and take a glass o’ yel,” Stephenson made a dead stop, and said, firmly, “No, sir, you must excuse me; I have made a resolution to drink no more at this time of day.” And he went back. He desired to retain the character of a steady workman; and the instances of men about him who had made shipwreck of their character through intemperance, were then, as now, unhappily but too frequent.
But another consideration besides his own self-improvement had already begun to exercise an important influence on his life. This was the training and education of his son Robert, now growing up an active, intelligent boy, as full of fun and tricks as his father had been. When a little fellow, scarcely able to reach so high as to put a clock-head on when placed upon the table, his father would make him mount a chair for the purpose; and to “help father” was the proudest work which the boy then, and ever after, could take part in. When the little engine was set up at the Ochre Quarry to pump it dry, Robert was scarcely absent for an hour. He watched the machine very eagerly when it was set to work; and he was very much annoyed at the fire burning away the grates. The man who fired the engine was a sort of wag, and thinking to get a laugh at the boy, he said, “Those bars are getting varra bad, Robert; I think we main cut up some of that hard wood, and put it in instead.” “What would be the use of that, you fool?” said the boy quickly. “You would no sooner have put them in than they would be burnt out again!”
So soon as Robert was of proper age, his father sent him over to the road-side school at Long Benton, kept by Rutter, the parish clerk. But the education which Rutter could give was of a very limited kind, scarcely extending beyond the primer and pothooks. While working as a brakesman on the pit-head at Killingworth, the father had often bethought him of the obstructions he had himself encountered in life through his want of schooling; and he formed the noble determination that no labour, nor pains, nor self-denial on his part should be spared to furnish his son with the best education that it was in his power to bestow.
It is true his earnings were comparatively small at that time. He was still maintaining his infirm parents; and the cost of living continued excessive. But he fell back upon his old expedient of working up his spare time in the evenings at home, or during the night shifts when it was his turn to tend the engine, in mending and making shoes, cleaning clocks and watches, making shoe-lasts for the shoe-makers of the neighbourhood, and cutting out the pitmen’s clothes for their wives; and we have been told that to this day there are clothes worn at Killingworth made after “Geordy Steevie’s cut.” To give his own words:—“In the earlier period of my career,” said he, “when Robert was a little boy, I saw how deficient I was in education, and I made up my mind that he should not labour under the same defect, but that I would put him to a good school, and give him a liberal training. I was, however, a poor man; and how do you think I managed? I betook myself to mending my neighbours’ clocks and watches at nights, after my daily labour was done, and thus I procured the means of educating my son.” [52]
Carrying out the resolution as to his boy’s education, Robert was sent to Mr. Bruce’s school in Percy Street, Newcastle, at Midsummer, 1815, when he was about twelve years old. His father bought for him a donkey, on which he rode into Newcastle and back daily; and there are many still living who remember the little boy, dressed in his suit of homely grey stuff, cut out by his father, cantering along to school upon the “cuddy,” with his wallet of provisions for the day and his bag of books slung over his shoulder.
When Robert went to Mr. Bruce’s school, he was a shy, unpolished country lad, speaking the broad dialect of the pitmen; and the other boys would occasionally tease him, for the purpose of provoking an outburst of his Killingworth Doric. As the shyness got rubbed off, his love of fun began to show itself, and he was found able enough to hold his own amongst the other boys. As a scholar he was steady and diligent, and his master was accustomed to hold him up to the laggards of the school as an example of good conduct and industry. But his progress, though satisfactory, was by no means extraordinary. He used in after-life to pride himself on his achievements in mensuration, though another boy, John Taylor, beat him at arithmetic. He also made considerable progress in mathematics; and in a letter written to the son of his teacher, many years after, he said, “It was to Mr. Bruce’s tuition and methods of modelling the mind that I attribute much of my success as an engineer; for it was from him that I derived my taste for mathematical pursuits and the facility I possess of applying this kind of knowledge to practical purposes and modifying it according to circumstances.”
During the time Robert attended school at Newcastle, his father made the boy’s education instrumental to his own. Robert was accustomed to spend some of his spare time at the rooms of the Literary and Philosophical Institute; and when he went home in the evening, he would recount to his father the results of his reading. Sometimes he was allowed to take with him to Killingworth a volume of the ‘Repertory of Arts and Sciences,’ which father and son studied together. But many of the most valuable works belonging to the Newcastle Library were not lent out; these Robert was instructed to read and study, and bring away with him descriptions and sketches for his father’s information. His father also practised him in reading plans and drawings without reference to the written descriptions. He used to observe that “A good plan should always explain itself;” and, placing a drawing of an engine or machine before the youth, would say, “There, now, describe that to me—the arrangement and the action.” Thus he taught him to read a drawing as easily as he would read a page of a book. Both father and son profited by this excellent practice, which enabled them to apprehend with the greatest facility
