It was long before the late Duke of Wellington would trust himself behind a locomotive. The fatal accident to Mr. Huskisson, which had happened before his eyes, contributed to prejudice him strongly against railways, and it was not until the year 1843 that he performed his first trip on the South-Western Railway, in attendance upon her Majesty. Prince Albert had for some time been accustomed to travel by railway alone, but in 1842 the Queen began to make use of the same mode of conveyance between Windsor and London. Even Colonel Sibthorpe was eventually compelled to acknowledge its utility. For a time he continued to post to and from the country as before. Then he compromised the matter by taking a railway ticket for the long journey, and posting only a stage or two nearest town; until, at length, he undisguisedly committed himself, like other people, to the express train, and performed the journey throughout upon what he had formerly denounced as “the infernal railroad.” [Picture: Coalville and Snibston Colliery] [Picture: Tapton House, near Chesterfield] CHAPTER XV. GEORGE STEPHENSON’S COAL MINES—APPEARS AT MECHANICS’ INSTITUTES—HIS OPINION ON RAILWAY SPEEDS—ATMOSPHERIC SYSTEM—RAILWAY MANIA—VISITS TO BELGIUM AND SPAIN. While George Stephenson was engaged in carrying on the works of the Midland Railway in the neighbourhood of Chesterfield, several seams of coal were cut through in the Claycross Tunnel, and it occurred to him that if mines were opened out there, the railway would provide the means of a ready sale for the article in the midland counties, and as far south as even the metropolis itself. At a time when everybody else was sceptical as to the possibility of coals being carried from the midland counties to London, and sold there at a price to compete with those which were seaborne, he declared his firm conviction that the time was fast approaching when the London market would be regularly supplied with north-country coals led by railway. One of the greatest advantages of railways, in his opinion was that they would bring iron and coal, the staple products of the country, to the doors of all England. “The strength of Britain,” he would say, “lies in her iron and coal beds; and the locomotive is destined, above all other agencies, to bring it forth. The Lord Chancellor now sits upon a bag of wool; but wool has long ceased to be emblematical of the staple commodity of England. He ought rather to sit upon a bag of coals, though it might not prove quite so comfortable a seat. Then think of the Lord Chancellor being addressed as the noble and learned lord _on the coal-sack_! I am afraid it wouldn’t answer, after all.”