The Peases & the S&D Railway

The S & D Railway was officially opened September 1825, the rest of the North of England if not the whole Country watched with interest. The Peases played a major role in Es-tablishing this exciting rail venture and infact it was the first passenger travelling railway in the world. George Stephenson was chief engineer and I have charted this brilliant time in history having a look at all of the people involved along the way. Through trials and tribula-tions to the final successful conclusion. The man credited to pushing this project forward was undoubtedly Edward Pease; he found cash and resources when all else had failed. I have also added selected years of the Edward Pease Diaries to the end of the story and this makes compelling reading; he shares with the pub-lic his innermost thoughts and later his sadness when losing his great friend and wife Rachel, & his grandson John Henry in 1854, then on to his final sad death in July 1858. The diaries were made public some years ago, edited by A.E. Pease, but are long out of print and I have again made selected years available to the public. In the Diaries the years 1840 & 1843 mention the deaths of Johnathan Backhouse & George Stephenson; also in 1851 the discovery of a large amount of Iron Ore in the Cleveland hills. Edward, found the balance of £7000, which was needed to progress the legislation for the S&D Railways when all else had failed; saving years of delay in the Companies second application. Edward also backed the Stephenson's in their engineering works at Fourth Street, Newcastle enabling them to produce the brilliant Locomotives that was the start of a wonderful transport system throughout the world. Joseph, Edwards second son put an equal amount of work into coal and collier-ies, owning many in the North of England transporting the coal on the family owned railways. The family also showed that they could work hand in hand with the miners in adversity at the sad time of strikes and recession. Throughout the trials and tribulations of the S&D, George & Robert Stephenson kept producing the best Locomotives in the world & ex-ported them world wide, they made profit when the Peases were hit by heavy recession and the dividends from the Company kept them going to the brilliant conclusion of the S&D Railway Company; later Robert produced the best bridges known to man. The Stephenson's were initially sponsored by Edward Pease after the famous meeting at Darlington. I have told the story of this & the wonderful people in history that created the wealth of the period for the benefit of all. Coal Every worthwhile invention over this period was developed around the power of the age Coal as the S&D became more and more established production increased enormously all over the North of England and I have included people who I felt was very important in producing this wonderful power of the day. At the time of the Ironstone Boom in Middlesbrough, Joseph and the family backed Bolckow & Vaughan, in their quest to develop the ironstone from the Cleveland Hills, also converting their own coal operation into coke to support the production of iron. They even had bailiffs removed from Bolckow & Vaughan sites when the partners had cash flow problems. Advise came from the family on the re-structure of Middlesbrough to make it into a thriving port. Although Darlington benefited from Libraries, Alms Houses, Market Halls, Market areas, Cemeteries, most of the North of England were grateful for Miners Hospitals and Schools, Mechanics and Miners Institutes, Assembly Rooms, But the family can be remembered mainly for their part played in the early Railways.