The principles upon which a safety lamp might be constructed I stated to several persons long before Sir Humphrey Davy came into this part of the country.

Six months after his wedding George contracted pleurisy and died aged 67 on 12 August 1848 at Tapton House in Chesterfield Derbyshire. He became an expert in steam-driven machinery. The Stephenson lamp was used exclusively in the North East England whereas the Davy lamp was used everywhere else.

His rail gauge of 4 feet 8+1⁄2 inches (1435 mm) sometimes called "Stephenson gauge" is the world's standard gauge. George Stephenson (9 June 1781 – 12 August 1848) was an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer who built the first public inter-city railway line in the world to use steam locomotives the Liverpool and Manchester Railway which opened in 1830.