To settle a bet
Between industrialists.
On 21st February 1804,
Cornishman Richard Trevithick demonstrated the world’s first working steam locomotive,
and he did it on the tramway at the Penydaren Iron Works near Merthyr Tydfil,
South Wales. The purpose was to settle a bet between the iron works’ owner,
Samuel Homfray, and his fellow iron master from nearby Cyfartha, Richard Crawshay.
Trevithick’s locomotive worked, and Homfray won the bet, even though the locomotive’s
weight broke many of the cast iron rails. To put this into perspective, this
was 21 years before George Stephenson’s Locomotion worked the world’s first
ever steam railway, the Stockton and Darlington, and 25 years before the Rocket
inaugurated the first ever passenger railway between major cities, the
Liverpool and Manchester Railway.
