3-070-815 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

George Stephenson, Father of Railways: Killingworth Pit where Stephenson distinguished himself, 1881. '...Stephenson's first great local triumph was at the village of Killingworth, where the High Pit was being pumped by an atmospheric or Newcomen engine. The water could not be kept under. A whole year's pumping had done little or no good, and the engine had come to be regarded as a complete failure...[Stephenson] was asked by a man employed at the pit what he made of it. "In a week I could send you to the bottom," said George in reply. Although Stephenson was then only a brakesman, he was regarded as a practical and ingenious man, and the conversation was reported to Mr. Ralph Dodds, the head viewer, who hunted George up and told him if he really could pump the pit dry he would "make him a man for life." George undertook the job. He took the engine to pieces, enlarged the injection cap, packed the cylinder at the bottom, made other alterations which occupied four days, and within the week the pit was dry and the men at work. This gave the self-taught engineer a wide reputation'. Illustration published in a special supplement to celebrate the centenary of the birth of British civil engineer and mechanical engineer George Stephenson (1781-1848). From "Illustrated London News", 1881