Robert Stephenson - Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK
Posted by: 
dtrebilc
N 54° 58.168 W 001° 36.833
30U E 588732 N 6092272
This blue plaque celebrates Robert Stephenson, a local railway engineer who was President of The Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society from 1855 to 1859.
Waymark Code: WMNH0R
Location: North East England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 03/15/2015
Views: 5
The Literary & Philosophical Society
"The Literary & Philosophical Society (Lit & Phil) is the largest independent library outside London, housing over 150,000 books. A wide selection of current fiction and non-fiction can be found alongside historical collections covering every field of interest.
The Society was founded early in 1793 as a ‘conversation club’, with an annual subscription of one guinea. The subjects of the conversations - and the books that supported them - were wide-ranging, but religion and politics were prohibited."
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Robert Stephenson
"Robert Stephenson FRS (16 October 1803 – 12 October 1859) was an early railway engineer. The only son of George Stephenson, the "Father of Railways",[1] he built on the achievements of his father. Robert has been called the greatest engineer of the 19th century.[2]
Robert was born in Willington Quay, Northumberland, to George and Frances née Henderson, before they moved to Killingworth, where Robert was taught at the local village school. Robert attended the middle-class Percy Street Academy in Newcastle and at the age of fifteen was apprenticed to the mining engineer Nicholas Wood. He left before he had completed his three years to help his father survey the Stockton and Darlington Railway. Robert spent six months at Edinburgh University before working for three years as a mining engineer in Colombia. When he returned his father was building the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, and Robert developed the steam locomotive Rocket that won the Rainhill Trials in 1829. He was appointed chief engineer of the London and Birmingham Railway in 1833 with a salary of £1,500 per annum. By 1850 Robert had been involved in third of the country's railway system. He designed the High Level Bridge and Royal Border Bridge on the East Coast Main Line. With Eaton Hodgkinson and William Fairbairn he developed wrought-iron tubular bridges, such the Britannia Bridge in Wales, a design he would later use for the Victoria Bridge in Montreal, for many years the longest bridge in the world. He eventually worked on 160 commissions from 60 companies, building railways in other countries such as Belgium, Norway, Egypt and France.[3]
In 1829 Robert married Frances Sanderson who died in 1842; the couple had no children and he did not remarry. In 1847 he was elected Member of Parliament for Whitby, and held the seat until his death. Although Robert declined a British knighthood, he was decorated in Belgium with the Knight of the Order of Leopold, in France with the Knight of the Legion of Honour and in Norway with the Knight Grand Cross of the order of St. Olaf. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1849. He served as President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and Institution of Civil Engineers. Robert's death was widely mourned, and his funeral cortege was given permission by Queen Victoria to pass through Hyde Park, an honour previously reserved for royalty. He is buried in Westminster Abbey."
The Blue Plaque
This blue plaque is one of two on the walls of The Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society building celebrating people with an association with the society.
This one was erected by the City of Newcastle Upon Tyne and was erected on the bi-centenary of the birth of Robert Stephenson.
ROBERT STEPHENSON BI-CENTENARY
2003
LITERARY & PHILOSOPHICAL
SOCIETY
Society established 1793.
This building, designed by John
Green, opened in 1825.
Robert Stephenson was
President of the Society,
1855 - 59.
CITY OF NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE