Richard Trevithick’s Puffing Devil
The Trevithick Society website would not be complete with a reference to the great man himself: Cap’n Dick Trevithick.
Richard Trevithick (13 April 1771 – 22 April 1833) was a giant of a man (he was also tall for the time at 6ft 2in); an esteemed British inventor and mining engineer.
The son of a mining captain, and born in the mining heartland of Cornwall, Trevithick was immersed in mining and engineering from an early age. He was an early pioneer of steam-powered road and rail transport, and his most significant contributions were the development of the first high-pressure steam engine and the first working railway steam locomotive.
Trevithick built a full-size steam road locomotive in 1801, on a site near present-day Fore Street in Camborne. Trevithick named his carriage Puffing Devil and on Christmas Eve that year, he demonstrated it by successfully carrying six passengers up Fore Street and then continuing on up Camborne Hill, from Camborne Cross, to the nearby village of Beacon. The journey inspired the popular Cornish folk song Camborne Hill.
The world’s first locomotive-hauled railway journey took place on 21 February 1804, when Trevithick’s steam locomotive hauled a train along the tramway of the Penydarren Ironworks, in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales.
Turning his interests abroad Trevithick also worked as a mining consultant in Peru and later explored parts of Costa Rica. Throughout his professional career he went through many ups and downs and at one point faced financial ruin, also suffering from the strong rivalry of many mining and steam engineers of the day.
During the prime of his career he was a well-known and highly respected figure in mining and engineering.
Trevithick was extremely strong and was a champion Cornish wrestler.
