Timothy Hackworth

Timothy Hackworth (22 December 1786 to 7 July 1850) was an English steam locomotive engineer who lived in Shildon, County Durham, and was the first locomotive superintendent of the Stockton and Darlington Railway. Born at Wylam in Northumberland, he trained as a blacksmith at Wylam Colliery, where he worked with William Hedley and helped produce Puffing Billy, the oldest surviving steam locomotive. His work ties the colliery tramroads of north east England to the first public steam railway, and shows how the people who kept early locomotives running shaped steam traction as much as those who first designed them.