Stephenson’s Cottage (NZ127651)

© Copyright Ken Brown and licensed for reuse 

under this Creative Commons Licence.

On a quiet byway on the north bank of the River Tyne a few hundred yards east of Wylam, lies a lucky survival of North-East history. For, sitting sedately on a former waggonway out of the reach of motorised vehicles, can be found a modest cottage whose claim to fame is that it is the birthplace and childhood home of the ‘Father of the Railways’, George Stephenson.

It is nothing much to look at, made to seem all the more modest due to the fact that four families lived here at the time of the famous man’s birth – each crammed into a small apartment in the tiny two-storey abode. Humble beginnings indeed for the the little chap with the big future, who entered this world on 9^th June 1781.

At the time of his birth, railways, of course, did not exist. But waggonways did, and young George must have been used to the horse-drawn affairs rumbling slowly past his window. In later years much larger and noisier items would have trundled before the family home – though George, by this time, was long gone, of course. Interesting, though, that it was largely due to his own efforts that the transformation was made possible…

We are told in an 1857 account that… The lower room in the west end of this house was the home of the Stephenson family, and there George Stephenson was born, the second of a family of six children ... The apartment is now, what it was then, an ordinary labourer’s dwelling; its walls are unplastered, its floor is of clay, and the bare rafters are exposed overhead.

Bizarrely, the cottage is now painted white. Until around the turn of the millennium it bore its original bare stone walls. Institutionalised vandalism?

Black Callerton’s Stephenson Link (NZ174698)

© Copyright PhilThirkell and licensed for reuse 

under this CreativeCommons Licence.

The tiny hamlet of Black Callerton between Newcastle and Darras Hall holds a rather important place in the personal history of perhaps the greatest ever north-easterner, George Stephenson. Not only does it feature in the earliest years of the man’s illustrious career, but it also had quite a say in his family life, too.

There is, I am pleased to say, a commemorative plaque to mark the story, which, if filled out a bit, runs something like this…

The famous engineer and ‘Father of the Railways’ was born in 1781 at Wylam, a few miles to the south-west of Black Callerton. Illiterate until the age of eighteen, the self-taught genius first worked at Newburn colliery, before becoming a brakesman at Black Callerton (which involved controlling the pit’s winding gear) in 1801.

Rumour has it that whilst there he secretly courted a local farmer’s daughter called Betty Hindmarsh, whom he would meet in her orchard – and behind her parents’ back. All attempts to woo her failed, though – the girl’s father having none of it on account of our man’s lowly status. He thereafter made approaches to another local lass, Anne Henderson, before moving onto her sister, Fanny, who quickly became his wife. In 1802, the couple moved to Willington Quay, east of Newcastle.

Fanny died in 1806, leaving George with one surviving child, the famous Robert, born 1803. Whilst George built his career, young Robert was raised by a succession of neighbours and relatives. Eventually, though, George would marry again, and, strangely, the Black Callerton link would return to shape his life – for it was into the arms of his first love, Betty Hindmarsh, that the now hugely successful (and very wealthy) George would fall. They married (at Newburn) in 1820.

The marriage appears to have been a happy one, though they had no children. Betty took great care of her step-son, Robert, before her death in 1845. George still found time to marry for a third time shortly before his own death in 1848, but was buried alongside ‘Black Callerton Betty’ in Chesterfield.