One of his favorite 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 wagon-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 engine-man 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. George's duties as plugman were to watch the engine, to see that it kept well in work, and that the pumps were efficient in drawing the water. When the water-level in the pit was lowered, and the suction became incomplete through the exposure of the suction-holes, it was then his duty to proceed to the bottom of the shaft and plug the tube so that the pump should draw: hence the designation of "plugman." If a stoppage in the engine took place through any defect which he was incapable of remedying, it was his duty to call in the aid of the chief engineer to set it to rights.