Portrait of Richard Trevithick by John Linnell, 1816 (Science Museum, London)
These pages have been created by the Trevithick Society, one of the oldest industrial preservation societies in the UK, using Google maps to locate the most important places in the life of Richard Trevithick – an inventor of brilliance and one of the great pioneers of the Industrial Revolution.
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Places in the life of Richard Trevithick
London and southeast England
Dartford Map
1832. Trevithick works for John Hall, a manufacturing engineer at Dartford. He designs a new ‘reaction’, or turbine, engine for a ship Hall is building.
1833. 22 April 1833, Trevithick dies at the Bull Hotel, Dartford and is buried locally
Margate
1809. Trevithick raises a sunken ship at Margate by means of evacuated iron boxes, the first use of hollow metal buoys. After a financial dispute he cuts the lines and the ship falls back to the bottom.
London
Leather Lane Map
1803. Trevithick demonstrated his steam powered road carriage by plying for hire on the streets of London. The engine had been patented in 1802 and the chassis and engine built in Cornwall before the carriage body was built at Felton’s Carriage Works in Leather Lane. This was the first self-propelled vehicle in the capital and the first London ‘bus’.
East & West India Docks
1804. Trevithick installed one of his steam engines on a boat on the River Thames to dredge the river bed with a bucket and chain. He subsequently had three dredgers at work lifting ballast for Trinity House.
The River Thames at Rotherhithe & Limehouse Map
1806. Trevithick used his engines to pump water and raise material when he undertook the construction of a tunnel under the River Thames between Rotherhithe and Limehouse for the Thames Archway Company. In 1809, after digging about 1,000 feet, water entered the tunnel and the enterprise was abandoned within 100 feet of its objective. Reports of these distances vary slightly.
Gower Street, Euston Map
1808. Trevithick constructed a circular railway track to demonstrate his ‘Catch-me-who-can’ locomotive. This was the world’s first passenger railway, the first in the capital and Trevithick sold the first passenger railway tickets. The project attracted little public attention and, after the locomotive broke some rails and became derailed, it was discontinued.
London
1809. Trevithick worked with Dickinson and patented rectangular iron tanks to contain liquids on board ship, the beginning of containerisation.
Westminster
1828. Trevithick unsuccessfully petitions Parliament for an award for the high-pressure steam boiler and engine, the basis for the expansion of travel and the development of the Industrial Revolution.
St Katherine's Dock
1828. Trevithick devises a hydraulic system to operate the machinery and locks at the docks. He also invents a method of refrigeration.
Lauderdale House, Highgate
1830 Trevithick leaves Hayle after a dispute at Harveys and, lodges at Lauderdale House suffering from asthma or bronchitis.
1832. Trevithick proposes the building of a 1,000 foot iron tower to commemorate the passing of the ‘Reform Act’ of 1832.
List of places
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