The British Empire was the largest the world has ever seen. At its height, during Victoria’s reign, every continent was occupied and one quarter of the world and its population was under British rule. It was an empire founded upon the commercial might of the Industrial Revolution. Military power went fist in glove with economic wealth: the machine invented to bore out cannons was also used to grind cylinders for steam engines. A number of factors contributed to the Industrial Revolution including the abundance of coal and minerals, the availability of cheap iron from the blast furnace, a disenfranchised labour force that could easily be exploited, and steam power.

Before steam was harnessed, Britain was entirely dependent on muscle and water power to drive her machines. Horses trudged eternal circles, hauling coal to the surface and lowering men to the depths, while restless feet in countless homes treadled spinning jennies to make woollen yarn. The mills where wool was woven into fabrics - like the flour mills, blast furnaces, foundries and sundry other manufactories - were built beside rivers so waterwheels could drive the machinery.

The first practical steam engine, built in 1712, was invented by Thomas Newcomen, a humble ironmonger. It ran at a steam pressure of only one or two pounds per square inch, and worked by condensing the steam inside the cylinder. This formed a partial vacuum, causing the atmospheric pressure to push the piston down. Since atmospheric pressure is only 15 pounds per square inch, the cylinder had to be large. Later engines became progressively bigger - each behemoth stood several stories high, with a gigantic cylinder, more capacious than a slum tenement.

But that all changed with the invention of the high-pressure steam engine, where the piston was driven by the direct action of the steam. It was small and powerful, and its inventor, a maverick Cornishman named Richard Trevithick, soon adapted it to drive a road carriage. But early nineteenth-century roads were so atrocious that it was impossible to travel any distance without serious mishap. He therefore built another one to run on rails.
And so was born the world's first steam locomotive. The engine ran successfully for a while, but was too heavy for the rails, which kept breaking, and was abandoned.

The Rainhill Trials
The Rainhill trials were initiated by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, which was just nearing completion. Manchester, the world's first industrial town, was at the entrepreneurial heart of the nation that was leading the world in the pell-mell dash toward industrialization. The city's booming economy was centred upon the cotton industry, the nearby seaport of Liverpool being the major gateway for raw cotton from the Americas. The Railway was the most ambitious engineering project of the age and its directors had to decide upon the best motive power.

Could a locomotive be built capable of hauling goods 35 miles, the distance between the two cities, at 10 mph or better? This might seem a modest requirement considering that locomotives had been in existence for a quarter of a century. But they had not lived up to their high expectations. They were notoriously unreliable, spending much of their time in the engine shed. Sometimes reluctant to start, they often ran so low on steam they had to be coaxed along by their ambulatory crews. They often caused fires from flying sparks, but the most devastating damage was inflicted when their boilers blew up, which happened from time to time. Aside from the £500 prize, the Rainhill victor would win a contract to supply the Company with locomotives. The stakes were high and the competition fierce.

There were five entries, though Cycloped turned out to be powered by a horse and was dismissed by the judges. And Timothy Burstall's Perseverance was damaged in transit, and spent most of its time in repair - just reward for a man who had spied on the Stephensons' workshop. This left Timothy Hackworth's Sans Pareil, as stolid and conservative as the man; Robert Stephenson's Rocket, considered by many to have an unfair advantage (among other things his father was the Railway Company's chief engineer); and Novelty, entered by Messrs. Braithwaite and Ericsson. Novelty, a racy little engine of a radically new design, was the peoples' favourite, thrilling the crowds with speeds never before witnessed. It was anyone's race, right down to the last day of the competition.

- Chris McGowan