9 June: George Stephenson

George Stephenson, civil engineer who built the first public railway line in the world to use steam locomotives, renowned as being the "Father of Railways", was born on 9 June 1781. 10 things you might not know about him.

1. He was born in Wylam, Northumberland, to Robert and Mabel Stephenson. Robert was a fireman.
2. His parents were both illiterate and couldn't afford to send George to school, so he, too, was illiterate until the age of 18 when, realising the value of an education, used the salary from his first job as an engineman at Water Row Pit in Newburn to pay for night school lessons in reading, writing and arithmetic.
3. He had a series of jobs working for collieries, becoming an expert in the steam powered engines in the coal pits. He supplemented his income by fixing clocks and making Shoes in his spare time.
4. He was married three times. His first wife was Frances Henderson, who he married in 1802. The couple had two children, a son, Robert, and a daughter, Fanny, who died in infancy. Frances died of consumption in 1806. In 1820 he married Betty Hindmarsh, who had been his first love, before Fanny, and had courted her secretly, meeting in an Apple orchard. Betty's father, a farmer, refused to allow Betty to marry him because of his lowly status, but now, he was literate and much better off. They were married until 1845 when Betty died. He didn't have any children with her. Three years later, he married Ellen Gregory, his housekeeper, but died seven months later.
5. His lack of education and also the fact he spoke with a broad Northumberland accent meant he was sometimes treated unfairly and not given credit for his inventions. An example of this was his safety lamp. In 1815, aware of the explosions often caused in mines by naked flames, Stephenson began working on a safer lamp for miners to use. He experimented and came up with the idea of a lamp in which the air entered via tiny holes, which contained the flames of the lamp inside. However, at the same time, the scientist Humphrey Davy was independently working on the same problem and came up with a similar idea. Davy was awarded £2,000, but Stephenson was accused of stealing the idea from Davy, because people didn't believe an uneducated man with a Geordie accent could possibly have thought of such a thing all by himself. In fact, it's even possible that Stephenson's lamp was safer than Davy's - in a strong influx of gas, Davy's lamps became red hot while Stephenson's just went out.
6. Incidents such as this made George determined that his son, Robert, would get a proper education and learn to speak without an accent. When father and son were working together, Robert, thanks to his education, was more popular with politicians.
7. Stephenson's lamps became known as Geordie lamps. There's a theory that the term "Geordies" for people from the North East of England derives from this.
8. George Stephenson invented his first steam locomotive in 1814, for use at a colliery in Killington. It was capable of pulling 30 tons of coal uphill at 4 miles per hour (6.4 km/h). It's thought he invented around sixteen locomotives. (It was Robert, not George, however, who was responsible for Stephenson's Rocket.)
9. In due course, he was inventing locomotives for railways. His first railway locomotives weren't completely successful - they caused damage to the tracks. Stephenson wasn't deterred - he began looking at ways to cushion the weight of the locomotive. The solution he came up with was to put more wheels on them to distribute the weight more. He worked with another engineer called William Losh to find ways of strengthening the rails. This, and the fact that he chose the standard rail guage of 4 feet 8½ inches (1,435 mm), now a standard all over the world, earned him the nickname, "Father of the Railways".
10. He didn't just invent trains and tracks, but bridges as well. He designed the "skew bridge" which crosses the railway at an angle. The first skew bridge opened at Rainhill station on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830. The bridge is still in use today, carrying the A57 (Warrington Road) over the railway.

Closing the Circle

A stable wormhole has been established between Earth and Infinitus. Power Blaster and his friends can finally go home.

Desi Troyes is still at large on Earth - Power Blaster has vowed to bring him to justice. His wedding to Shanna is under threat as the Desperadoes launch an attempt to rescue their leader. 

Someone from Power Blaster's past plays an unexpected and significant role in capturing Troyes.

The return home brings its own challenges. Not everyone can return to the life they left behind, and for some, there is unfinished business to be dealt with before they can start anew.

Ben Cole in particular cannot resume his old life as a surgeon because technology no longer works around him. He plans a new life in Classica, away from technology. Shanna hears there could be a way to reverse his condition and sets out to find it, putting herself in great danger. She doesn't know she is about to uncover the secret of Power Blaster's mysterious past.

Available from:

Amazon (Paperback)

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Completes The Raiders Trilogy. 

Other books in the series:

Book One

Book Two