Esquire Theme by Matthew Buchanan
Social icons by Tim van Damme

23

May

Photographed in 2013, this bronze statue of George Stephenson (1781-1848) stands on Neville Road junction by Westgate Road, close to Newcastle Central Station. Stephenson was an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer, who built the first...

Photographed in 2013, this bronze statue of George Stephenson (1781-1848) stands on Neville Road junction by Westgate Road, close to Newcastle Central Station. Stephenson was an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer, who built the first public railway line in the world to use steam locomotives, and is known as the “Father of Railways”.

Sculptor John Graham Lough (1798-1876) was a blacksmith’s son, who developed a passion for clay modelling, and was apprenticed to a stonemason, before developing a reputation as a renowned and eccentric sculptor. On 3rd October 1862, the monument was inaugurated at a ceremony attended, it was claimed, by over 100,000 spectators. It shows Stephenson in late middle age with pensive expression, rolled-up plan in hand and a huge toga-like ‘Northumbrian plaid’ scarf over his shoulder.

  1. statuesihaveknown reblogged this from statuesihaveknown