ROCKET, THE LIVERPOOL & MANCHESTER RAILWAY AND ‘PUBLIC RELATIONS’

Rocket, the prototype of the modern railway locomotive, is one of the most famous and recognisable railway locomotives. Indeed the name Rocket has become synonymous with early locomotives and this author has heard both Planet (1830), Locomotion (1825) and even Steam Elephant (1815) referred to as Rocket. Rocket appears in the ‘Thomas’ stories both as itself and as the character ‘Stephen’. Rocket even appears on bank notes, albeit erroneously in conjunction with George Stephenson. This fame and recognisability is perhaps thanks on the one hand to Samuel Smiles’s biography of the Stephensons, but on the other to the excellent 190-year-old ‘PR’ of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway. The L&MR, and its own success, did much to publicise not only the Rainhill Trials but the winning entry Rocket and its builder ‘Mr. Stephenson’ and Rocket in turn did much to publicise the L&MR.

Rocket to Rainhill

Thanks to the writing of Samuel Smiles, Rocket is traditionally said to have been built by George Stephenson alone, but this is not correct. The idea to build an entry for the Rainhill Trials of October 1829 came not from George or Robert Stephenson but instead from Henry Booth, the Secretary, Treasurer and later General Manager of the L&MR. Having made the suggestion, George “took a day or two to look in to the merits of the plan I proposed and then told me it would do, and join me in the venture”. The actual construction of Rocket was down to Robert and his team at Forth Street, and after much pressure from George, Henry Booth consented to accepting Robert into the partnership, each men taking one third of the risk and the profit.¹ Henry Booth was prominent and vocal in local Radical politics and an experienced writer of political pamphlets. So too Joseph Sandars, one of the co-founders of the railway company.² It is tempting to see Booth’s hand in much of the ‘PR’ work organised by the railway; certainly much of the press reportage reads as if it is written from what would now be described as a ‘press release’. Indeed, Henry Booth’s own book describing the L&MR would certainly fall into the category of publicity and public relations.

The promotion of George Stephenson, both man and machine, was not new. George Stephenson originally had had an excellent marketing machine in the shape of Edward Pease of Darlington, the Quaker businessman behind the Stockton & Darlington Railway. Pease manipulated the image of Stephenson, recommending he “should always be a gentleman in his dress” and his speech and that he appear smart and clean every day.³ George also found an excellent ally and publicist in Nicholas Wood, with Pease and Wood promoting both the man and the machine in the contemporary technical and domestic press.

Wood’s seminal 1825 Treatise on RailRoads and Interior Communication also played its part in promoting Stephenson. Whilst it is arguably a fundamental text on early railways and locomotives, prior to publication Michael Longridge, a partner in Robert Stephenson & Co., warned Pease that “Wood’s Book must undergo a strict censorship before it is published and I fear this will be a work of considerable delicacy, but it must be done.” A fortnight later Wood wrote to Edward Pease that the book would be worthwhile and necessary “if it only be done judiciously and without injuring my friends”, in particular George Stephenson. Probably as a result of this editorial policy, Wood carefully omits his own knowledge of the possible nullification of Stephenson’s 1816 Patent. He fails to mention the experiments by others after 1815 or the explosion of Brunton’s mechanical horse, which had done much to turn public opinion against the locomotive.

Importantly George Stephenson was becoming well-known not just as a locomotive engineer but engineer not just on the home but also international stage. The association of with George, rather than Robert, Stephenson began early. Although attributed to Robert at Rainhill, thereafter things become a bit blurred. The contemporary press was always careful to mention the deliberately vague ‘Mr. Stephenson’ in association with . Whilst both George and Robert were ‘Mr. Stephenson’, to the public reading about the progress of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway in their newspapers or technical journals, and the marvels being wrought by its engineer, there could be only one ‘Mr. Stephenson’: George. Although unfavourable to Robert, George Stephenson was a far more familiar name, thanks to his success with the Stockton & Darlington Railway of 1825. It was good ‘PR’ on the part of the L&MR to associate the success of the locomotive, and in particular the victory of Rainhill, with its Chief Engineer.