Richard Trevithick (1771-1833), was a British inventor and engineer. He contributed to the development of the steam locomotive. Trevithick was born on April 13, 1771, in England in the county of Cornwall, a tin-mining region known as lllogan. Richard spent much of his youth at Illogan and attended the village school. The schoolmaster described him as “disobedient, slow and obstinate.” His father, who was a mine manager, considered him a loafer, and throughout his career Trevithick remained scarcely literate. However, he displayed an extraordinary talent in engineering. Because of his intuitive ability to solve problems that perplexed educated engineers, he obtained his first job as engineer to several Cornish ore mines in 1790 at the age of 19. He was also very interested in the steam engines that pumped water from the mines.
Because Cornwall has no coalfields, high import costs obliged the ore-mine operators to exercise rigid economy in the consumption of fuel for pumping and hoisting. Cornish engineers, therefore, found it imperative to improve the efficiency of the steam engine. The massive engine then in use was the low-pressure type invented by James Watt. Inventive but cautious, Watt thought that “strong steam” was too dangerous to harness; Trevithick thought differently. He soon realized that, by using high-pressure steam and allowing it to expand within the cylinder, a much smaller and lighter engine could be built without any less power than in the low-pressure type.
As technology during that time advanced so did Trevithick. Based on Watt’s low pressure steam engine, Trevithick though and built his own engine, that was better and had more power. In 1797 Richard Trevithick constructed high-pressure working models of both stationary and locomotive steam engines that were so successful that he built a full-scale, high-pressure engine for hoisting ore. In all, he built 30 such engines; they were so compact that they could be transported in an ordinary farm wagon to the Cornish mines, where they were known as “puffer whims” because they vented their steam into the atmosphere. By the early 1800's, he had developed a new engine that was soon used in most of the local mines. This high-pressure engine was the model for most, later steam engines. Trevithick's steam engine could generate significant power because of its design. The steam exhausted from the boiler to drive the piston was directed up the chimney, creating a powerful draft in the firebox. The result was more pressure—and more speed. But Trevithick's locomotive was simply too heavy. It only made three successful trips because every time, the seven-ton engine broke through the cast iron rails.
In 1801, Trevithick designed and built a steam-powered carriage that ran on the road, known as the puffing devil. In 1804, he built the first steam locomotive to run on rails. It pulled a load of iron along a railway for horse-drawn cars. In 1808, he exhibited a large locomotive in London. None of his locomotives were financially successful, because they were too heavy for the roads and railways of his time. But Trevithick did prove that steam-powered locomotives could be built. By 1804 Trevithick had produced his first railroad locomotive, able to haul 10 metric tons and 70 people for 15 km/9.5 mi on rails used by horse-trains at the Penydarren Mines, near Merthyr Tydfil in south Wales. A few years later he hired some land near Euston, London, where he set up his money-making novelty ride. He also applied his inventive genius to many other machines, including steamboats, river dredgers, and threshing machines. But he will always be best remembered for his steam locomotives.
Impetuous, reckless and eternally hopeful, Trevithick was always so bursting with new ideas that he failed to carry projects patiently through and turned eagerly away to fresh challenges.
In 1816 he sailed for Peru, to install his engines in the silver mines, but the war of independence broke out and South American patriots began destroying his machines. After years of ups and downs, in 1826 he went to Costa Rica, where he proposed to build a railway from the Atlantic across to the Pacific. He was broke and close to starving when he was rescued by Robert Stephenson, who paid for his voyage home to Falmouth. There is no question that Trevithick was a gifted engineer and inventor. He was a failure as an entrepreneur, however. He died penniless in Dartford on April 22, 1833.But because of all his contributions to the steam engine and locomotive, it paved the way to our future today. Without him many things would not exist including our railroad systems. And to the Cornish, he is somewhat of a hero to them and to us he was a great inventor in history.
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