by Sprake:
Above the portrait is the word "Past" woven in red with pictures of the "First Locomotive" and "The Rocket". Below is a modern train with "Present" woven in red. Regd. No. 72397 printed twice on the front of the mount.
by Godden:
George Stephenson was born on 9 June 1781, the son of a colliery-engine fireman. At the age of fourteen he assisted his father at the colliery; and in 1812 he was appointed engine-wright at the Killingworth High Pit, near Newcastle in Northumberland. In the following year, he began building an engine to travel the primitive rails between the colliery and a port nine miles away. This 'travelling engine' proved successful; and in September 1825 George Stephenson's locomotive 'Active' pulled the world's first public passenger train on the Stockton-Darlington railway.
Stephenson's famous engine 'The Rocket' was running in 1829 and subsequently worked on the new Liverpool-Manchester line. The father of modern railway engineering died in August 1848.
This attractive upright Stevengraph shows a portrait of George Stephenson with, above, a representation of the 'First Locomotive' and 'The Rocket', and below, a train emerging from a tunnel. The word 'Past' is woven at the top of the picture and 'Present' at the bottom.
The card-mount includes, on each side of the credit, the registration number 72397, denoting that this subject was officially registered on 22 April 1887.
The title was included in a Stevens advertisement published in May 1887.
The title GEORGE STEPHENSON first appears on printed label 22+17+2, and specimens of this scarce subject are normally in type D card-mounts.
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