Cornish Characters and Strange Events

He was named after his godmother, a daughter of General Goldsworthy and a maid of honour to Queen Charlotte. He was educated at the Truro Grammar School, and during part of his holidays was wont to stay with a relative, the rector of S. Erth, in which parish lived Mr. Davies Giddy (who afterwards changed his name, and was better known as Mr. Davies Gilbert, President of the Royal Society), in whose house he very frequently met Richard Trevithick, a plain, unpretending man, of great genius, connected with the neighbouring copper mines, who lived near, and who often consulted Mr. Giddy on mathematical calculations connected with the steam-engine and his mechanical inventions. Although so young, Mr. Gurney, whose natural bent was for these subjects, soon formed an acquaintance with this singularly original and talented man, and he continued during the period of his medical studies in correspondence with him.

Mr. Gurney saw Trevithick's first steam-carriage in 1804, and followed closely his improvements and experiments on locomotion, and he remembered, moreover, the contemptuous treatment this gifted man received at the hands of the engineers of the day.

His views were described as "wild theories," and his plans were scoffed at. But Mr. Giddy or Gilbert encouraged Trevithick to go on and not be discouraged, and Richard Trevithick became the inventor of the locomotive as well as of the high-pressure engine. His first locomotive was constructed to travel on common roads; he afterwards modified it and set it to run on rails at Merthyr Tydvil. The trial was made there on February 4th, 1804. In the year 1813 he exhibited his locomotive on a temporary railway, laid for the purpose near Euston Square, and showed the great speed it was capable of attaining. This speed, however, was only maintained while the accumulated steam in the boiler was worked off, but his experiment showed that, if a sufficient quantity of steam could be "kept up," as he termed it, the speed might be maintained for any distance and any length of time. But how was this to be effected? That was the difficulty, and that difficulty arose out of another—how was a sufficient draught to be created to keep the fire in the furnace at full activity? As the locomotive moved it created a draught the reverse of that required for the fire, and unless a strong and steady draught into the furnace could be created, sufficient heat could not be generated to produce a sufficient and continuous amount of steam.

Trevithick in his first locomotive had discharged the steam up the funnel to get rid of it, but without any idea of creating a vacuum by means of which a draught could be caused. Stephenson did the same. Mr. Smiles has claimed that the "steam-jet" was invented by Stephenson, but this was not the case. The steam used in Trevithick's and Stephenson's engines was waste or exhaust steam, discharging itself through the funnel indeed, but not filling it, so that it created no perceptible draught.

Mr. Smiles says: "The steam after performing its duty in the cylinders was at first allowed to escape into the open atmosphere with a hissing blast, to the terror of horses and cattle. It was complained of as a nuisance, and a neighbouring squire threatened to commence an action against the colliery lessees unless it was put a stop to."

Accordingly the steam was introduced into the funnel about half-way up at the side so as to get rid of it and obviate the objection of the noise. But the evidence that Stephenson had discovered that it could be employed to create a draught is inconclusive.

Goldsworthy Gurney had been placed at Wadebridge with Dr. Avery as a medical pupil, and there he married Elizabeth Symons in 1814. He settled down at Wadebridge as a surgeon, but his active mind would not let him rest as a small country practitioner; he felt that he had powers and visions that would bring him before the public as an inventor and a benefactor. Accordingly he moved to London in 1820, where he made the acquaintance of several able physicians, and was called to deliver a course of lectures on the elements of chemical science at the Surrey Institute. It was in 1823 that he began his experiments with steam and on locomotion, and he abandoned the medical profession in order to devote himself to these researches. His desire was to construct an engine that would travel on common roads, and travel at a more rapid pace than horses.

In the first edition of Nicholas Wood's Treatise on Railways, 1829, occurs this passage: "It is far from my wish to promulgate to the world that the ridiculous expectations, or rather professions, of the enthusiastic specialist, will be realized, and that we shall see them travelling at the rate of 12, 16, 18, or 20 miles an hour. Nothing could do more harm towards their adoption or general improvement than the promulgation of such nonsense."

Nicholas Wood was a viewer at Killingworth Colliery, and assisted George Stephenson in his experiments, and he first saw the steam-blast in Mr. Hackworth's Sans Pareil in 1829, so that gentleman had adopted it on Mr. Gurney's recommendation and according to his plan.

Wood thus describes what he then saw: "Mr. Hackworth had, it appears, in his engine, resorted to the use of the waste steam in a more forcible manner than before used, throwing it up in a jet, and which, when the engine moved at a rapid rate, and the steam thereby almost constantly issued from the pipe, had a most powerful effect. The consequence was, that when the engine began to travel at the rate of twelve or fifteen miles an hour, the draught was so great that it actually threw the coke out of the chimney."

"A. I saw frequent experiments made by Mr. Gurney in 1826 to produce draught by the action of high-pressure steam, exactly in the same way as it is now employed for producing ventilation in the collieries; that is, there were a number of jets of about a quarter to three-eighths of an inch diameter, communicating directly with a high-pressure boiler; the cock being open, the full steam from the boiler was brought upon those jets, and a draught was produced by their action in the chimney-shaft.

"A. In the chimney-shaft of a locomotive and in the shaft of a factory; the experiments were tried in various ways. I saw these experiments frequently; many other persons saw them at the same time; and I employed the same myself shortly afterwards for a like purpose abroad."

"Many persons visited the place daily, and the carriage went out into the road, and into the barracks, and was often surrounded by a group of persons. It was understood and known how this draught was procured, because the passage of the steam was heard up the chimney when the carriage was still, and the great draught of the furnace was the occasion of remark by everybody who was around it; they were quite surprised how such a great current could be produced with so small a height of chimney: it was a very remarkable thing, and drew attention from everybody around at that time."

The principle of the action of the steam-blast was simple enough. It was to fill the funnel with high-pressure steam, which would act much as the sucker in a pump, exhaust the air and draw up air through the furnace, as the cone of steam escaped out of the funnel. To act thus, the steam must completely fill the chimney, allowing of no down draught.

Stephenson now adopted it, and employed it for his locomotive the Rocket, that ran on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in October, 1829. Previously on one occasion Stephenson had run his engine continuously for fifty-three minutes doing twelve miles. But now, with the adoption of the steam-blast, it attained a velocity of twenty-nine miles an hour.

"It is not too much to say that the success of the locomotive depended upon the adoption of the steam-blast. Without that, by which the intensity of combustion, and the consequent evolution of steam, were maintained at the highest point, high rates of speed could not have been kept up, the advantages of the multitubular boiler afterwards invented could never have been fairly tested, and locomotives might still have been dragging themselves unwieldily along at little more than five or six miles an hour."[13]

It had been in July of the same year that Gurney had made a journey in his steam-coach from London to Bath and back again, on the main road, at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. This journey, undertaken at the request of the quartermaster-general of the army, was the first long journey at a maintained speed ever made by any locomotive on road or rail.

The Mirror of December 15th, 1827, says: "Mr. Goldsworthy Gurney, whose name is familiar to most of our readers, after a variety of experiments during the last two years, has completed a steam-carriage on a new principle. We have accordingly introduced the annexed engraving, which will enable our readers to enter into the details of the machinery. First as to its safety, upon which point the public are most sceptical. In the present invention it is stated that even from the bursting of the boiler there is not the most distant chance of mischief to the passengers. The boiler is tubular, and upon a plan totally distinct from anything previously in use.... The weight of the carriage and its apparatus is estimated at 1½ tons, and its wear and tear of the road, as compared with a carriage drawn by four horses, is as one to six. When the carriage is in progress the machinery is not heard. The engine has a 12-horse power, but may be increased to 16; while the actual horse-power in use, except in ascending a hill, is but eight horses.... Mr. Gurney has already secured a patent for his invention; but he has our best wishes for permanent success."

Sir Charles Dance in 1831 ran a steam-coach of Gurney's make between Gloucester and Cheltenham five times a day for four months, and during this time carried three thousand passengers some four thousand miles, without a single accident occurring.