24 Feb 2021
RAIL HISTORY: Timothy Hackworth, great-great-grandfather of Teesdale s Jane Hackworth-Young.
AFTER nearly 200 years, descendants of the original railway pioneers have been reunited to promote the historic line that their forefathers were instrumental in creating. Matthew Pease, the great-great-great-great-grandson of Edward “Father of the Railways” Pease has become the President of the Friends of the Stockton & Darlington Railway (S&DR), while Jane Hackworth-Young, the great-great-
granddaughter of Timothy Hackworth, has become the organisation’s vice president. Edward Pease was the driving force behind the railway, which is regarded as the birthplace of the modern railway, and Timothy Hackworth was the superintendent engineer when the line opened on September 27, 1825.
A PLAN to attract 200,000 more visitors to a North-East town every year by creating an array of railway heritage attractions has moved forward with the purchase of buildings linked to the birth of the world’s first passenger railway. Leading members of Darlington Borough Council this week approved spending an undisclosed amount of funding it has received from the Government as part of a drive to level up the UK economy on buying a vacant ground floor takeaway premises and some upper storey rooms. The former pizza shop forms part of the railway entrepreneur Edward Pease’s home in Northgate, where on April 19, 1821 the Quaker mill owner met Tyneside colliery engineer George Stephenson, perhaps for the first time.
Ten years ago this month, Bishop Auckland was in uproar as the Church Commissioners tried to sell the town’s treasures. Then a multi-millionaire philanthropist stepped in… “WHAT I saw was that Bishop Auckland, which I didn’t really know even though I was brought up 30 miles away, had an extraordinary legacy,” says Jonathan Ruffer, via the wonders of Zoom. “You’ve got Emperor Constantine at Binchester – he was in York in 306, so there are chances that he was regularly at Binchester, and we’re now searching for a pair of pyjamas with his initials on. “That set of Zurbarans is the best set of pictures that he did, and they are in the cradle of Christianity.
Fable: The Man Who Set The Gauge
In 1825 a great engineer designed the Stockton and Darlington Railway using a gauge of 4 feet 8 inches commonly used in coal pit railway tracks.
When he built his second railway, the Liverpool and Manchester, the opening of which was attended by the Duke of Wellington, the great engineer added half an inch to the gauge.
It turned out that 4 foot 8.5 inches had been the gauge used by Roman chariots and the ruts they made in the roads were convenient for laying rails.
The great engineer realised that the success of railways worldwide depended on inter-operability of track, wagons, engines and carriages and, because railway engineers all over the world came to Scotland to consult him, he impressed upon them the importance of conforming to the 4ft 8.5” gauge.