son, if he did not quite invent the modern “navvy,” at least drew him from obscurity, and placed his proper work before him. His was the great Titanic period of engineering. Men were then in doubt as to points which to us, who are acting by the light of their experience, are as clear as noon-day. When George Stephenson was examined before the Parliamentary Committee, he was well nigh pooh-poohed out of Court—out of every thing, in short, but his convictions—by the glib tongue and agile wit of the late Baron—then Mr.—Alderson. There was something so supremely ridiculous in the bare idea that a steam-engine could sail upon land, and drag twenty or thirty carriages after it. What could honourable gentlemen and learned brothers think of such a monstrous proposal? They could not be in earnest; and, as for that rough north-country fellow, who was endeavouring to palm off his crude notions upon men of education—really the thing would not bear looking at. Somehow or other this rough north-countryman did get a hearing, and in 1826 he became the engineer of the Manchester and Liverpool Railway, and Chatmoss was turned into solid ground, and the iron rails were laid down, and despite of the dismal and jovial prognostications of the lawyer, the engineer’s words were made good. Steam answered.
To think that railways have only existed for thirty years or thereabouts—we mean of course railways such as are now used for the conveyance of passengers—not the mere tramways of the north country! But thirty years ago the minds of the greatest engineers in Europe were still in a condition of hesitation, as to what was the best motive power which could be employed. Atmospherics, and rope-traction, and what not, had their advocates. At this period it was that old George took the consideration of this matter up in solemn earnest, and called to counsel with him his boy Robert and Joseph Locke. Young Locke was then about twenty-three or twenty-four years of age. He and his friend Robert Stephenson prosecuted their experiments to so much purpose that the superiority of the locomotive as the motive power was clearly established. So true were the results obtained that any departure from the conclusions at which those two young men arrived some thirty years ago has invariably ended in failure and waste of money. In those days young men who had real power in them did not long linger in the rear—nor was George Stephenson the man to keep his lads back when he saw they were of the right stuff. When the Manchester and Liverpool Railway was completed, and was found to work well, the Birmingham men soon came to the conclusion that they could not afford to depend any longer upon the old turnpike-road. George Stephenson took the matter in hand for them—but about the year 1834 handed over the responsibilities and duties to Joseph Locke, then a young man scarcely thirty years of age. This was the absolute commencement of a career which has now extended over twenty-five years of unabated distinction and prosperity. His great English achievement, however, was the construction of the London and Southampton line. Just as Brunel made the Great Western, and Robert Stephenson the North Western; so Joseph Locke will be principally remembered as the engineer of the London and Southampton line. In France he was the engineer of the lines from Paris to Rouen, and Rouen to Havre. Professional men will tell you that, amongst engineers, one of his great titles to distinction is that he was the man who first dared to grapple with the steeper gradient, and so avoided unnecessary outlay in construction. In one respect Locke was the very opposite to Brunel; practically speaking, his estimates invariably covered his expenditure. He was member for Honiton for thirteen years, and president of the Institution of Civil Engineers after Robert Stephenson’s death. There seems to be a fatality over our great engineers. The three most distinguished members of the profession have been called away in rapid succession. To the honoured names of Robert Stephenson and Brunel, must now be added that of Joseph Locke.
TRAMWAYS, SUBWAYS, HIGHWAYS, AND BYWAYS.
