There is little or no documentary information about John Wesley Hackworth in his formative years, except that which can be gleaned for letters in the Hackworth archives at the York NRM, but given what Robert Young tells us below, his story is very much Timothy Hackworth’s story… 

Robert Young tells us in Timothy Hackworth and the Locomotive. “from the age of 5, when his

“I saw it opened, was brought up upon it, knew every horse and driver, every director, most of the shareholders, and every noteworthy incident that occurred thereon for the first 20 years. If any man knows anything of its history and working operations, I am the man- to the minutiae.”

Robert Young continues “He was a clever boy but no student of books. While other children were spinning tops, he was spragging the wheels of coal waggons as they reach the bottom of the incline or riding on the locomotives. He went with the Royal George on its final trip and knew as much about it as most of the men and a good deal more than some of them. He thus began his early training as an engineer and never dreamt of any other career. It was part and parcel of his existence and he was a  born mechanic. As we shall see, he went off with the first locomotive ever sent to Russia when he was only 16 years of age and on his return completed his apprenticeship with his father, married at the age of 20 and settled down at Shildon.“

SOME OF THE WORK HIS FATHER TIMOTHY HACKWORK WAS INVOLVED WITH.

Timothy’s first great event was the delivery of Engine No 1. The Stockton and Darlington Railway was launched on Tuesday September 27th 1825. Hackworth was not only the Superintendent of the locomotives but the manager of the line. It was the working of the inclined planes at Etherley and Brusselton that gave him the greatest trouble. The machinery was complicated and cumbersome. Eventually Pease and Stephenson agreed that a change was needed. It was left to Hackworth to deal with this. In 1831 Hackworth designed a compact 80 horse power engine. Robert Young’s book gives more details on this. Locomotion No 1 which launched the S & D line was rebuilt and remodelled at least 3 times by Timothy”

The S & D Railway, in its origin, was a plain proposition to open up the rich coalfields of the Auckland district of Durham by communication with the port of of the Tees and estimates showed that it might reasonably return a steady dividend of 5% to shareholders. It was not clear at the outset whether this would be by rail or canal. Little progress had been made on the locomotive during the years Timothy was resident in Walbottle and the 1st Railway Act authorising the construction of the S & D railway never even mentioned a locomotive. Railways were progressing but the locomotive stood still. A system of conveying waggons by fixed steam engines and ropes, patented by Benjamin Thompson 1821 and called the reciprocating system was in favour.

The credit of initiating the S & D Railway goes largely to Edward Pease, a Darlington Quaker and George Stephenson was appointed surveyor in 1822 and his son Robert Stephenson assistant surveyor. The demand for coal was growing and ‘necessity became the mother of invention‘. New schemes were being explored.

The Royal George 

The building of  The Royal George was no small part of Timothy’s work and Robert Young tells us on page 155 of his book Timothy Hackworth and the Locomotive “..the Royal George was the first locomotive constructed with six wheels coupled and the arrangement, not only of two cylinders, but of every important detail,was entirely novel.” It had a double flue of malleable iron shaped like the letter U and traversing the whole length of the boiler.