The story of railway engineers George and
Robert Stephenson is one of the greatest ever
told. The offspring of an illiterate colliery hand
and his son developed the steam locomotive
concept to the point where it became universally
accepted as the primary mode of land transport,
and in doing so not only paved the way for the
British railway network, but opened up the five
continents with rapid communication and
changed the world in a way that emperors and
kings with all their might had never managed.
Their locomotive Rocket was not the first in the
world, but in terms of transport technology it
was the turning point that provides the essential
link between the Industrial Revolution and the
modern world of today. Together with I.K. Brunel,
George and Robert Stephenson were the
towering giants of British – and world –
engineering in the nineteenth century, inspiring
generations in the years since.
In Halsgrove’s pocket-sized hardback series
of great lives, renowned railway specialist Robin
Jones re-tells the story of the Stephensons –
Father George whose entire family at his birth
lived in one room in an obscure
Northumberland village, and son Robert who left
a fortune at his death and is buried in
Westminster Abbey – who rose from the
humblest of beginnings to dominate the
engineering landscape and to become true
heroes of Victorian Britain.
A graduate of the University of
Central England, Robin Jones, founding
editor of Heritage Railway magazine,
was a news editor and chief
investigative reporter at the Birmingham
Evening Mail, and over the years
has produced several books and
special publications, along with
historical features for numerous other
newspapers and periodicals. He has
been interested in railways from a
very early age, when his elder brother
Stewart took him trainspotting at
Widney Manor station in Solihull at
the age of four, at the end of the
British Railways steam age.
Imprint: PiXZ Books. ISBN 978 0 85710 057 3, hardback, 110x155mm, 64 pages. Published July 2011.