Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Is this a work of fiction or fact, 30 Jan 2006
By A Customer
This book is an interesting read, written some 30 or 40 years after events which at the time were nor very well logged, the author seems to let his imagination run wild at times, as it would appear that George Stephenson had very little to do with development of the railways. Plus there certainly a lot of sour grapes over the rain hill trials...even though the Sans Pareil broke all the rules of entry.....the book should be read as it does have some good articles inside...but very little of its content can be relied on as being fact...So not sure whether this book should be classified as fact or fiction. Reading Samuel smiles books on the early locomotives would be a better bet.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
19th C, Vorsprung Durch Technik, 3 Mar 2008
This is a history textbook first published 1925. It is written with real passion and affection for a long gone Victorian engineer (one of the many) and should be enjoyed by anyone interested in the amazing engineering developments of the 18th C. Timothy's son, John, had failed in his objective to write his father's biography and so Robert Young of the next generation of the family took on the task.
The book is not only biographical but an excellent contribution to the history of steam locomotion from Cugnot (1769) through to Hackworth's death in 1850. T.H. was a contemporary of George Stephenson, though five years younger, and both had been colliery blacksmiths at Newcastle. With Stephenson's input as surveyor and engine builder, the proprietors of the Stockton and Darlington Railway were about ready for its opening when T.H. was head-hunted `to settle on the line' as superintendent of engines, so it is inevitable that we find some history of that railway embedded in the book.
Robert Young has described the life and times of T.H. from many points of view such as his inventions; his locomotives; correspondence with, and essays about celebrities of the day; his family's dutiful attention to his workers' well being, including their further education (many of his men learned to read and write in middle age). The book and its fourteen appendices includes many illustrations including technical drawings; portraits; maps; facsimile letters; photographs; cash accounts; engine and driver lists etc.
Though this book was written 100 years after the opening of the S&DR the author, as historian, with the advantage of hind-sight assembled a prodigious amount of data. This is evident from the abundance of cross references, probably averaging more than one for each of the 406 pages.
Since T.H's death, history has at times been less than kind to the memory of the man and his achievements, largely due to the acrimonious arguments widely reported (since his death) about the originality or otherwise of his ideas. In a paragraph of the book, an anecdote tells of a bystander at an engine test who speaks out obtusely and out of turn which prompts comment from an engineer nearby that, "Had he said nothing, he would have passed off as a highly respectable man, but by speaking out he has only exposed his own ignorance". I suspect that was true of many of the antagonists. However, in his lifetime, and typical of the man, T.H. the engineer seems to have kept out of such squabbles.
As a retired engineer I am amazed at the improvements in engines made in a mere 25 years. We only have to consider the transition from Robert Stephenson's Locomotion with its forest of iron bars to the clean lines of Sanspareil (No.2).
Robert Young's respect for his grandfather shines through the covers of this book, so it hardly surprising to find him describing T.H. in typical Victorian style as "a loving, kindly, gentle man, sincerely mourned by all who knew him, who had lived an upright, unselfish life, `- - as honest a man as ever walked - - -`, a shining example to others, a benefactor of mankind, who earned the love of the poor, who did his duty and whose end was peace". This is surely true, but as a descendant of one of Timothy Hackworth's engine-men I would say that !
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