53 Facts About Richard Trevithick

Richard Trevithick was a British inventor and mining engineer.

The son of a mining captain, and born in the mining heartland of Cornwall, Trevithick was immersed in mining and engineering from an early age.

Richard Trevithick was an early pioneer of steam-powered road and rail transport, and his most significant contributions were the development of the first high-pressure steam engine and the first working railway steam locomotive.

Richard Trevithick was extremely strong and was a champion Cornish wrestler.

Richard Trevithick was born at Tregajorran, between Camborne and Redruth, in the heart of one of the rich mineral-mining areas of Cornwall.

Richard Trevithick was the youngest-but-one child and the only boy in a family of six children.

Richard Trevithick first went to work at the age of 19 at the East Stray Park Mine.

Richard Trevithick was enthusiastic and quickly gained the status of a consultant, unusual for such a young person.

Richard Trevithick was popular with the miners because of the respect they had for his father.

Richard Trevithick's company became famous worldwide for building huge stationary "beam" engines for pumping water, usually from mines.

Richard Trevithick became engineer at the Ding Dong Mine in 1797, and there he pioneered the use of high-pressure steam.

Richard Trevithick worked on building and modifying steam engines to avoid the royalties due to Watt on the separate condenser patent.

Richard Trevithick lived next door to Murdoch in Redruth in 1797 and 1798.

Richard Trevithick reasoned that his engine could now be more compact, lighter, and small enough to carry its own weight even with a carriage attached.

Richard Trevithick built a full-size steam road locomotive in 1801, on a site near present-day Fore Street in Camborne.

Richard Trevithick did not consider this a serious setback, but rather operator error.

In 1802 Richard Trevithick took out a patent for his high-pressure steam engine.

Richard Trevithick built another steam-powered road vehicle in 1803, called the London Steam Carriage, which attracted much attention from the public and press when he drove it that year in London from Holborn to Paddington and back.

In 1831, Richard Trevithick gave evidence to a Parliamentary select committee on steam carriages.

Also in 1803, one of Richard Trevithick's stationary pumping engines in use at Greenwich exploded, killing four men.

Richard Trevithick's response was to incorporate two safety valves into future designs, only one of which could be adjusted by the operator.

Richard Trevithick added a fusible plug of lead, positioned in the boiler just below the minimum safe water level.

Richard Trevithick introduced the hydraulic testing of boilers, and the use of a mercury manometer to indicate the pressure.

In 1802 Richard Trevithick built one of his high-pressure steam engines to drive a hammer at the Pen-y-Darren Ironworks in Merthyr Tydfil, Mid Glamorgan.

In 1803, Richard Trevithick sold the patents for his locomotives to Samuel Homfray.

Richard Trevithick's was probably the first to do so; however some of the short cast iron plates of the tramroad broke under the locomotive as they were intended only to support the lighter axle load of horse-drawn wagons and so the tramroad returned to horse power after the initial test run.

Christopher Blackett, proprietor of the Wylam colliery near Newcastle, heard of the success in Wales and wrote to Richard Trevithick asking for locomotive designs.

In 1808 Richard Trevithick publicised his steam railway locomotive expertise by building a new locomotive called Catch Me Who Can, built for him by John Hazledine and John Urpeth Rastrick at Bridgnorth in Shropshire, and named by Davies Giddy's daughter.

Richard Trevithick ran it on a circular track just south of the present-day Euston Square tube station in London.

Richard Trevithick was disappointed by the response and designed no more railway locomotives.

The tunnel was flooded; Richard Trevithick, being the last to leave, was nearly drowned.

Richard Trevithick went on to research other projects to exploit his high-pressure steam engines: boring brass for cannon manufacture, stone crushing, rolling mills, forge hammers, blast furnace blowers as well as the traditional mining applications.

Richard Trevithick built a barge powered by paddle wheels and several dredgers.

Richard Trevithick saw opportunities in London and persuaded his wife and four children reluctantly to join him in 1808 for two and a half years lodging first in Rotherhithe and then in Limehouse.

In 1808 Richard Trevithick entered a partnership with Robert Dickinson, a West India merchant.

In 1809, Richard Trevithick worked on various ideas on improvements for ships: iron floating docks, iron ships, telescopic iron masts, improved ship structures, iron buoys and using heat from the ships boilers for cooking.

Richard Trevithick's engine comprised a boiler feeding a hollow axle to route the steam to a catherine wheel with two fine-bore steam jets on its circumference.

Richard Trevithick bought one for 20 guineas, transported it back and found it to work quite satisfactorily.

Richard Trevithick's home was just a few miles from Falmouth so Uville was able to meet him and tell him about the project.

On 20 October 1816 Richard Trevithick left Penzance on the whaler ship Asp accompanied by a lawyer named Page and a boilermaker bound for Peru.

Richard Trevithick was received by Uville with honour initially but relations soon broke down and Trevithick left in disgust at the accusations directed at him.

Richard Trevithick travelled widely in Peru acting as a consultant on mining methods.

Uville died in 1818 and Richard Trevithick soon returned to Cerro de Pasco to continue mining.

Richard Trevithick arrived in Costa Rica in 1822 hoping to develop mining machinery.

Richard Trevithick spent time looking for a practical route to transport ore and equipment, settling on using the San Juan River, the Sarapiqui River, and then a railway to cover the remaining distance.

Whilst Stephenson and Gerard booked passage via New York, Richard Trevithick took ship direct to Falmouth, arriving there in October 1827 with few possessions other than the clothes he was wearing.

Richard Trevithick lodged at The Bull hotel in the High Street, Dartford, Kent.

Richard Trevithick was penniless, and no relatives or friends had attended his bedside during his illness.

Richard Trevithick was buried in an unmarked grave in St Edmund's Burial Ground, East Hill, Dartford.

In Camborne, outside the public library, a statue by Leonard Stanford Merrifield depicting Richard Trevithick holding one of his small-scale models was unveiled in 1932 by Prince George, Duke of Kent, in front of a crowd of thousands of local people.

The active Richard Trevithick Society is not to be confused with the former Richard Trevithick Trust, registered by the Charity Commission in 1994 and removed in 2006.

The Richard Trevithick Trust attracted grants and did work at various sites in Cornwall, including King Edward Mine.

Harry Turtledove's alternate history short story "The Iron Elephant" has Richard Trevithick inventing his steam engine in 1782 and subsequently racing a mammoth-drawn train that it would in time come to supplant.