Stockton and Darlington Railway]

Of this railway Edward Pease was the projector. A thoughtful and
sagacious man, ready in resources, possessed of indomitable energy and
perseverance, he was eminently qualified to undertake what appeared to
many the hopeless enterprise of obtaining an Act for a railway through
such an unpromising district. One who knew him in 1818 said, "he was a
man who could see a hundred years ahead."

[Picture: Edward Pease]

When the writer last saw him, in the autumn of 1854, Mr. Pease was in his
eighty-eighth year; yet he still possessed the hopefulness and mental
vigour of a man in his prime. Hale and hearty, and full of reminiscences
of the past, he continued to take an active interest in all measures
calculated to render men happier and better. Still sound in health, his
eye had not lost its brilliancy, nor his cheek its colour; and there was
an elasticity in his step which younger men might have envied. {125}

In getting up a company for surveying and forming a railway, Mr. Pease
had great difficulties to encounter. The people of the neighbourhood
spoke of it as a ridiculous undertaking, and predicted that it would be
ruinous to all concerned. Even those most interested in the opening of
new markets for their coal, were indifferent, if not actually hostile.
The Stockton merchants and shipowners, whom it was calculated so greatly
to benefit, gave the project no support; and not twenty shares were
subscribed for in the whole town. Mr. Pease nevertheless persevered; and
he induced many of his friends and relations to subscribe the capital
required.

The necessary preliminary steps were taken in 1818 to apply for an act to
authorise the construction of a tramroad from Witton to Stockton. The
measure was however, strongly opposed by the Duke of Cleveland, because
the proposed line passed close by one of his fox covers; and the bill was
rejected. A new survey was then made, avoiding the Duke's cover; and in
1819 a renewed application was made to Parliament. The promoters were
this time successful, and the royal assent was given to the first
Stockton and Darlington Railway Act on the 19th April, 1821.

The projectors did not originally contemplate the employment of
locomotives. The Act provided for the making and maintaining of
tramroads for the passage "of waggons and other carriages" "_with men and
horses_ or otherwise," and a further clause made