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Richard Trevithick
(13 Apr 1771 - 22 Apr 1833)
English mechanical engineer and inventor who successfully harnessed high-pressure steam and constructed the world's first steam railway locomotive (1803).
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Science Quotes by Richard Trevithick (1 quote)
I have been branded with folly and madness for attempting what the world calls impossibilities, and even from the great engineer, the late James Watt, who said ... that I deserved hanging for bringing into use the high-pressure engine. This has so far been my reward from the public; but should this be all, I shall be satisfied by the great secret pleasure and laudable pride that I feel in my own breast from having been the instrument of bringing forward new principles and new arrangements of boundless value to my country, and however much I may be straitened in pecuniary circumstances, the great honour of being a useful subject can never be taken from me, which far exceeds riches.
— Richard Trevithick
From letter to Davies Gilbert, written a few months before Trevithick's last illness. Quoted in Francis Trevithick, Life of Richard Trevithick: With an Account of his Inventions (1872), Vol. 2, 395-6.
See also:
- 13 Apr - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Trevithick's birth.
- Richard Trevithick - Biography from Memoirs of the Distinguished Men Of Science (1862).
- Richard Trevithick: The First Project For a One Thousand Foot Tower - from Scientific American Supplement (1887).
- Richard Trevithick: Giant of Steam, by Anthony Burton. - book suggestion.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
