Robert Stephenson
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- For men with the similar name of Stevenson, see Robert Stevenson
Image:Robert Stephenson - Statue - Euston Railway Station - London - 020504.jpg Robert Stephenson FRS (October 16, 1803–October 12, 1859) was an English civil engineer. He was the only son of George Stephenson, the famed railway and locomotive engineer; many of the achievements popularly credited to his father were actually joint efforts of father and son.
After a private education at the Bruce Academy in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, an apprenticeship to Nicolas Wood, the manager of Killingworth Colliery, and a period at the University of Edinburgh, Robert went to work with his father on his father's railway projects, the first being the Stockton and Darlington. In 1823 Robert set up a company in partnership with his father and Edward Pease to build railway locomotives; the firm, Robert Stephenson and Company, built a large proportion of the world's early locomotives and survived into the mid-20th century; the original factory building still exists, at Forth Street in Newcastle, and is now known as the Robert Stephenson centre.
Robert did a good deal of the work for the Rainhill Trials-winning Rocket; following its success, the company built further locomotives for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway and other newly-established railways, including the Leicester and Swannington Railway.
In 1833 Robert was given the post of Chief Engineer for the London and Birmingham Railway, the first railway to enter London. The line posed a number of difficult civil engineering challenges, most notably the Kilsby Tunnel, and was completed in 1838.
He constructed a number of well-known bridges including the High Level Bridge at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the wrought iron box section Britannia Bridge across the Menai Strait, the Conwy railway bridge between Llandudno Junction and Conwy, the Arnside Viaduct in Cumbria and the Royal Border Bridge at Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Robert Stephenson served as a Conservative Member of Parliament for Whitby from 1847 until his death. He was a commissioner of the short-lived London Metropolitan Commission of Sewers from 1848. He was President of the Institution of Civil Engineers for two years from 1855. His remains are interred at Westminster Abbey.
Despite officially being rivals, Robert Stephenson shared a friendship with Isambard Kingdom Brunel and they would often help each other on various projects.
The Stephenson Railway Museum in North Shields is named after George and Robert Stephenson.
In fiction
Robert Stephenson appears as a character in the anime film Steamboy, in that world having apparently lived until 1866. In the English dub of the film his character also speaks with a rather posh stereotypical English accent and not the northern tones the actual Stephenson used.de:Robert Stephenson ja:ロバート・スチーブンソン (技術者) pl:Robert Stephenson it:robert Stephenson