Richard Trevithick |
Richard Trevithick was born in
Illogan village
between Camborne and Redruth in 1771. The Trevithick family moved to Penponds
shortly after Richards birth and he spent is childhood there and
was educated at
nearby Camborne School.
He picked
up his engineering knowledge by wandering around the mines where
his father worked, and learned so quickly that, by the age of
19, he was being employed as a consulting engineer.
In 1797 the same year his
father died, he married Jane Harvey, daughter of the Hayle
engineering family Harveys. |
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Following his marriage to Jane,
Richard Trevithick worked with Harveys of Hayle and his drawing
office still remains attached to the rear of the refurbished 24
Foundry Square, now renamed John Harvey House. Richard
Trevithick and Jane moved to Moreton House in Plain an Gwarry,
Redruth.
Richard's pioneering engineering saw him inventing and
developing highly efficient high pressure steam engines and the
Cornish Boiler. He went on to
develop the Railway locomotive which first carried
passengers in 1804 - many years ahead of Stevenson, and steam
driven road vehicles. Many of his designs came from his drawing
office in Hayle and parts for many of his revolutionary engines
were cast and fabricated in Harvey's foundry.
Trevithick developed many
revolutionary ideas and travelled increasingly wide in order to
develop them. However, although he had unrivalled engineering
and inventive skills, his commercial skills left a lot to be
desired and unlike Stevenson and Watt, he never made any money
from his inventions.
| While Trevithick was travelling
the world his wife Jane made was left to earn a living running
the original White Hart in Foundry Square, Hayle. Trevithick had
a particularly disastrous excursion to Peru, where he had hoped
to make money from providing steam engines to the recently
opened silver mines, only to get caught up in the revolution and
being forced to return to Britain.
Trevithick died penniless on
22nd April, 1833 in Dartford, Kent aged 66. The workers at the
foundry he was working organised a whip-round to pay funeral
expenses. Trevithick was
commemorated on the a British £2 coin minted in 2004
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The commemorative £2 coin |
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