The children of the Stephenson family were now growing apace, and several of them were old enough to be able to earn money at various kinds of colliery work. James and George, the two eldest sons, worked as assistant-firemen; and the younger boys worked as wheelers or pickers on the bank-tops. The two girls helped their mother with the household work. Other workings of the coal were opened out in the neighbourhood; and to one of these George was removed as fireman on his own account. This was called the “Mid Mill Winnin,” where he had for his mate a young man named Coe. They worked together there for about two years, by twelve-hour shifts, George firing the engine at the wage of a shilling a day. He was now fifteen years old. His ambition was as yet limited to attaining the standing of a full workman, at a man’s wages; and with that view he endeavoured to attain such a knowledge of his engine as would eventually lead to his employment as an engineman, with its accompanying advantage of higher pay. He was a steady, sober, hard-working young man, but nothing more in the estimation of his fellow-workmen. One of his favourite pastimes in by-hours was trying feats of strength with his companions. Although in frame he was not particularly robust, yet he was big and bony, and considered very strong for his age. At throwing the hammer George had no compeer. At lifting heavy weights off the ground from between his feet, by means of a bar of iron passed through them—placing the bar against his knees as a fulcrum, and then straightening his spine and lifting them sheer up—he was also very successful. On one occasion he lifted as much as sixty stones weight—a striking indication of his strength of bone and muscle. When the pit at Mid Mill was closed, George and his companion Coe were sent to work another pumping-engine erected near Throckley Bridge, where they continued for some months. It was while working at this place that his wages were raised to 12s. a week—an event to him of great importance. On coming out of the foreman’s office that Saturday evening on which he received the advance, he announced the fact to his fellow-workmen, adding triumphantly “I am now a made man for life!” The pit opened at Newburn, at which old Robert Stephenson worked, proving a failure, it was closed; and a new pit was sunk at Water-row, on a strip of land lying between the Wylam waggon-way and the river Tyne, about half a mile west of Newburn Church. A pumping engine was erected there by Robert Hawthorn, the Duke’s engineer; and old Stephenson went to work it as fireman, his son George acting as the engineman or plugman. At that time he was about seventeen years old—a very youthful age at which to fill so responsible a post. He had thus already got ahead of his father in his station as a workman; for the plugman holds a higher grade than the fireman, requiring more practical knowledge and skill, and usually receiving higher wages.