George Heald
[1] He was a colleague and friend of Robert Stephenson and also worked with other notable railway engineers such as Joseph Locke and Thomas Brassey.
George was educated from a young age in this environment and achieved a high competence in maths as his published material demonstrates.
Richard Price-Williams an honorary fellow of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, who in 1866 persuaded the railway companies to use steel rails, cited George Heald on more than one occasion.
In an interview given in 1894 Price-Williams said he began his career with 'the eminent engineer George Heald who was responsible for the construction of so many of the great British railways'.
On 14 July 1841 a celebration in honour of the resident engineers was held by the contractors at the Strafford Arms Hotel in Wakefield.
Two of Heald’s long-term associates, both contractors, are also listed: Taylor Stephenson (who reported his death in 1858) and George Mould.
[9] From the mid-1840s Heald was active in the construction of the main line between Lancaster and Carlisle in conjunction with Joseph Locke, Thomas Brassey, William Mackenzie and John Stephenson.
His reactions to the technological and "picturesque" incursions of man on his beloved, wild landscape most famously include the following sonnet: Is then no nook of English ground secure From rash assault?
Schemes of retirement sown In youth, and 'mid the busy world kept pure As when their earliest flowers of hope were blown, Must perish;—how can they this blight endure?
Baffle the threat, bright Scene, from Orresthead Given to the pausing traveller's rapturous glance: Plead for thy peace, thou beautiful romance Of nature; and, if human hearts be dead, Speak, passing winds; ye torrents, with your strong And constant voice, protest against the wrong.
He argues for the democratising influence of the railway and the cultural and social benefits it will bring rather than the economic reasons that might be expected from a railway engineer: Baffle the Rail, bright scene from Orrest Head, Somewhere in Wordsworth I this line have read; Who calls on Winds and Torrents fierce and strong In sound and fury to forbid the wrong.
They heard the call in vain; – on "English ground" "No sacred nook" has ever yet been found To scare the dead, when enterprise could throw A fair surmise, that "flowers of hope" might grow.
Our "earliest flowers" we offer to the Bard, Although his compliments were rather hard; "Round his paternal fields at random throw" No "false" enchantments; but a kindly glow;- "Utilitarian lures?"
To feast upon the "beautiful romance" "Given to the pausing traveller's rapturous glance," Shall be the lot of thousands who shall feel The vast advantage of a road of steel; Who 'mongst its pleasing features shall recount, An easy pilgrimage to Rydal Mount,
"Retirement" "from the busy world, kept pure" They may admire, but could not well endure; The Bard need not "the ruthless change bemoan" When Art flings double charms round Nature's throne.
The Train has stopped it buzzing, roaring wheels, But the Lake's ripples follow at its heels: For gliding down its bosom, smooth and clear, Steamers on Windermere itself appear:- How shall the Poet's soul "this blight endure!"
"Are humans so dead" To all that fills a poet with such dread; As to commit such outrage, and such wrong In spite of protests which though vain were long?
– or crumble into sand The Rail and Barge both glory in the deed, To the impeachment gladly Guilty plead, But conscious of the bounties they dispense They offer this, a short and firm defence.
Not to disturb the pure and classic fount That graceful, flows in ink from Rydal Mount, But to unite the ground with tamer scenes, And show to each, that each with beauty teems: To give the hamlets of the mountain dells The Arts in which the busy South excells; To give the South to view the peaks sublime, That bid defiance to the scythe of time; To give to town-cramp'd souls the power to soar, And taste of pleasures never known before:- We won our way – through rocks – o'er waters grand, Opening, (we trust) the beauties of the land.
And for the Bard, – (as Off'ring for our crimes) We'll give the world to appreciate his rhymes, The mind will surely place his beauties higher When read 'mid scenes that did the thoughts inspire, We'll spread his fame: – what more can he require?
Heald's answer suggests that this figure is too low and impossible to achieve: I have calculated the differences that would be made in the masonry supporting all the bridges were square instead of a good number being skew, and taking the lengths of all culverts as being adapted to embankments where the slopes are one and a half to one instead of two to one.
Being unmarried his only surviving relatives consisted of just two siblings; his sister Eliza who was a spinster and his step-brother Charles who had been estranged from the family having gone to sea as a ship's captain and had led a disreputable life that included bigamous marriage and a spell in a debtors' prison in Calcutta.
Notable among these is the northern part of the West Coast Main Line that is still a key element of British railway infrastructure 170 years after its construction.
Techniques like these enabled the railways to be built along scientific principles rather than the frequently rough and ready measures used in the earliest days.
