was employed as engineer to make the line, and
his success as a road-making engineer proved equal to his brilliance as
a mechanical inventor.

In 1829 the line was completed. The directors were at first strongly
opposed to the use of steam-locomotion, but were induced by Stephenson,
before finally rejecting the idea, to offer a reward of L500 for the
best locomotive that could be made. Of four engines which were entered
for the competition, Stephenson's _Rocket_ was the only one that would
move, and it proved able to travel at the rate of thirty-five miles an
hour. The opening of the railway in 1830, and the fatal accident to Mr.
Huskisson which attended it, have been noticed already. The accident did
more to attract attention to the power of the locomotive than to
discredit it. The opposition to railways was not, however, at an end. A
proposal for a railway between London and Birmingham was carried through
parliament, only after a struggle of some years' duration, but the
construction of the line was at length authorised in 1833. The English
railway system now developed with great rapidity, and by the end of the
reign of William IV. lines had been authorised which would when complete
form a system, joining London with Dover, Southampton, and Bristol, and
both London and Bristol with Birmingham, whence lines were to run to the
most important places in Yorkshire and Lancashire, and on to Darlington.
Numerous small lines served other portions of the country, partly in
connexion with these, but more often independently.

Among the more conspicuous metropolitan improvements of this age may be
mentioned the introduction of gas and the incipient construction of new
bridges over the Thames, in which the engineer Rennie took a leading
part. Before the end of the eighteenth century the workshops of Boulton
and Watt had been lit by gas, and Soho was illuminated by it to
celebrate the peace of Amiens. By 1807 it was used in Golden Lane, and
by 1809, if not earlier, it had reached Pall Mall, but it scarcely
became general in London until somewhat later. At the beginning of the
century the metropolis possessed but three bridges, old London bridge
and the old bridges at Blackfriars and Westminster. The first stone of
the Strand Bridge (afterwards to be called Waterloo Bridge) was laid on
October 11, 1811, and Southwark Bridge was commenced in 1814, but these
bridges were not completed till 1817 and 1819 respectively. The existing
Lo