Richard
Trevithick,
was born in Illogan, Cornwall, in 1771. Richard was educated
at Camborne
School but he was more interested in sport than academic learning.
Trevithick was six feet two inches high and was known as the Cornish
giant. He was very strong lad and by the age of eighteen he could
throw sledge hammers over the tops of engine houses and write his
name on a beam six feet from the floor with half a hundredweight hanging
from his thumb. Trevithick also had the reputation of being one of
the best wrestlers in Cornwall.
Trevithick went to work with his father at Wheal Treasury mine and
soon revealed an aptitude for engineering. After making improvements
to the Bull Steam Engine, Trevithick was promoted to engineer of the
Ding Dong mine at Penzance. While at the Ding Dong mine he developed
a successful high-pressure engine that was soon in great demand in
Cornwall and South Wales for raising the ore and refuse from mines.
Trevithick also began experimenting with the idea of producing a steam
locomotive. At first he concentrating on making a miniature locomotive
and by 1796 had produced one that worked. The boiler and engine were
in one piece; hot water was put into the boiler and a redhot iron
was inserted into a tube underneath; thus causing steam to be raised
and the engine set in motion.
Richard Trevithick now attempted to produce a much larger steam road
locomotive and on Christmas Eve, 1801, it used it to take seven friends
on a short journey. The locomotive's principle features were
a cylindrical horizontal boiler and a single horizontal cylinder let
into it. The piston, propelled back and forth in the cylinder by pressure
of steam, was linked by piston rod and connecting rod to a crankshaft
bearing a large flywheel. Trevithick's locomotive became known as
the Puffing Devil but it could
only go on short journeys as he was unable to find a way of keeping
up the steam for any length of time.
Despite these early problems, Trevithick travelled to London where
he showed several leading scientists, including Humphrey
Davy, what he had invented. James Watt
had been considering using this method to power a locomotive but had
rejected the idea as too risky. Watt argued
that the use of steam at high temperature, would result in dangerous
explosions. Trevithick was later to accuse Watt and his partner, Matthew
Boulton, of using their influence to persuade Parliament to pass
a bill banning his experiments with steam locomotives.
In 1803 a company called Vivian & West, agreed to finance Trevithick's
experiments. Richard Trevithick exhibited his new locomotive in London.
However, after a couple of days the locomotive encountered serious
problems that prevented it pulling a carriage. Vivian & West were
disappointed with Trevithick's lack of practical success and they
withdrew from the project.
Richard Trevithick soon found another sponsor in Samuel Homfray, the
owner of the Penydarren Ironworks in Merthyr
Tydfil. In February 1804, Trevithick produced the world's first
steam engine to run successfully on rails. The locomotive, with its
single vertical cylinder, 8 foot flywheel and long piston-rod, managed
to haul ten tons of iron, seventy passengers and five wagons from
the ironworks at Penydarren to the Merthyr-Cardiff Canal. During the
nine mile journey the Penydarren
locomotive reached speeds of nearly five miles an hour. Trevithick's
locomotive employed the very important principle of turning the exhaust
steam up the chimney, so producing a draft which drew the hot gases
from the fire more powerfully through the boiler.
Trevithick's Penydarren
locomotive only made three journeys. Each time the seven-ton steam
engine broke the cast iron rails. Samuel Homfray came to the conclusion
that Trevithick's invention was unlikely to reduce his transport costs
and so he decided to abandon the project.
Trevithick was now employed by Christopher Blackett, who owned the
Wylam Colliery in Northumberland. A five-mile wooden
wagonway had been built in 1748 to take the coal from Wylam to
the River Tyne. Blackett wanted a locomotive that would replace the
use of horse-drawn coal wagons. The Wylam
locomotive was built but weighing five tons, it was too heavy for
Blackett's wooden wagonway.
Trevithick returned to Cornwall and after further experiments
developed a new locomotive he called Catch
Me Who Can. In the summer of 1808 Trevithick erected
a circular railway in Euston Square and
during the months of July and August people could ride on his locomotive
on the payment of one shilling. Trevithick had plenty of volunteers
for his locomotive that reached speeds of 12 mph (19 kph) but once
again the rails broke and he was forced to bring the experiment to
an end.
Without
financial backing, Richard
Trevithick had to abandon his plans to develop a steam locomotive.
Trevithick now found work with a company who paid him to develop a
steam dredger to lift waste from the bottom of the Thames. He was
paid by results, receiving sixpence for every ton lifted from the
river.
Trevithick found it difficult to make money from his steam dredger
and in 1816 he accepted an offer to work as an engineer in a silver
mine in Peru. After some early difficulties, Trevithick's steam-engines
were very successful and he was able to use his profits to acquire
his own silver mines.
However, in 1826 war broke out and Trevithick was forced to flee and
leave behind his steam-engines and silver mines. After a unsuccessful
spell in Costa Rica, Trevithick moved to Columbia, where he met Robert
Stephenson, who was building a railway in that country. Stephenson
generously gave Trevithick the money to pay for his journey back to
England.
Although inventors such as George Stephenson
argued that Trevithick's early experiments were vital to the development
of locomotives, in February 1828, the House
of Commons
rejected a petition suggesting that he should receive a government
pension. Trevithick continued to experiment with new ideas. This included
the propulsion of steamboats by means of a spiral wheel at the stern,
an improved marine boiler, a new recoil gun-carriage and apparatus
for heating apartments. Another scheme was the building of a 1,000
feet cast-iron column to commemorate the 1832
Reform Act.
All these schemes failed to receive financial support and Richard
Trevithick
died in extreme poverty at the Bull Inn, Dartford, on 22nd April,
1833. As he left no money for his burial, he faced the prospect of
a pauper's funeral. However, when a group of local factory workers
heard the news, they raised enough money to provide a decent funeral
and he was buried in Dartford churchyard.
Catch Me Who Can
(1)
The Engineering Magazine (27th March 1868)
Trevithick
was the real inventor of the locomotive. He was the first to prove
the sufficiency of the adhesion of the wheels on the rails for all
purposes of traction on lines of ordinary gradient, the first to make
the return flue boiler, the first to use the steam jet in the chimney,
and the first to couple all the wheels of the engine.
(2)
Richard Trevithick, letter to Davies Gilbert (22 February, 1804)
Yesterday
we proceeded on our journey with the engine. We performed the nine
miles in four hours and five minutes. We had to remove some large
rocks on the way. On our return home one of the small bolts that fastened
the axle to the boiler broke, and all the water ran out of the boiler.
Boulton and Watt have strained every nerve to get a bill passed in
the House of Commons to stop these engines, saying the lives of the
public are endangered.
(3)
Richard Trevithick, letter to Davies Gilbert (2nd March, 1804)
We have tried the carriage with twenty-five tons of iron, and found
we were more than a match for that weight. The steam is delivered
into the chimney above the damper. It makes the draught much stronger
by going up the chimney.
(4)
In May 1854, Thomas Ellis, an engineer from Tredegar, wrote a letter
describing the first journey the Penydarren
took in February, 1804.
My father was at Penydarren when the engine was made and tried. Samuel
Homfray, proprietor of the Penydarren Iron Works, Merthyr Tydfil,
made a bet of 1,000 guineas with Richard Crawshay, of the Cyfarthfa
Iron Works, that Trevithick's steam-engine could convey a load of
iron from his works to the Navigation House (nine miles distant).
(5)
In October 1858, Rees Jones was interviewed by the Mining Journal.
I assisted Mr. Trevithick in the making of his locomotive. She worked
very well; but frequently her weight broke the tram-plates. On the
third journey she broke a great many of the tram-plates. She was brought
back to Penydarren by horses. The engine was never used as a locomotive
after this.
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