served for a monument, though his best
monument will always be his works. The statue referred to was placed in
St. George's Hall, Liverpool. A full-length statue of him, by Bailey,
was also erected a few years later, in the noble vestibule of the London
and North-Western Station, in Euston Square. A subscription for the
purpose was set on foot by the Society of Mechanical Engineers, of which
he had been the founder and president. A few advertisements were
inserted in the newspapers, inviting subscriptions; and it is a notable
fact that the voluntary offerings included an average of two shillings
each from 3150 working men, who embraced this opportunity of doing honour
to their distinguished fellow workman.

[Picture: Trinity Church, Chesterfield]

But unquestionably the finest and most appropriate statue to the memory
of George Stephenson is that erected in 1862, after the design of John
Lough, at Newcastle-upon Tyne. It is in the immediate neighbourhood of
the Literary and Philosophical Institute, to which both George and his
son Robert were so much indebted in their early years; close to the great
Stephenson locomotive foundry established by the shrewdness of the
father; and in the vicinity of the High Level Bridge, one of the grandest
products of the genius of the son. The head of Stephenson, as expressed
in this noble work, is massive, characteristic, and faithful; and the
attitude of the figure is simple yet manly and energetic. It stands on a
pedestal, at the respective corners of which are sculptured the recumbent
figures of a pitman, a mechanic, an engine-driver, and a plate-layer.
The statue appropriately stands in a very thoroughfare of working-men,
thousands of whom see it daily as they pass to and from their work; and
we can imagine them, as they look up to Stephenson's manly figure,
applying to it the words addressed by Robert Nicoll to Robert Burns, with
perhaps still greater appropriateness:--

"Before the proudest of the earth
We stand, with an uplifted brow;
Like us, thou wast a toiling man,--
And we are noble, now!"

The portrait prefixed to this volume gives a good indication of George
Stephenson's shrewd, kind, honest, manly face. His fair, clear
countenance was ruddy, and seemingly glowed with health. The forehead
was large and high, projecting over the eyes, and there was that massive
breadth across the lower part which is usually observed in men