Edward Pease (railway pioneer)

Edward Pease (31 May 1767 – 31 July 1858), a woollen manufacturer from Darlington, England, was the main promoter of the , which opened in 1825. He is sometimes referred to as the "Father of the Railways".

Pease was born on 31 May 1767, the eldest son of the Darlington woollen manufacturer Joseph Pease (1737–1808) and his wife, Mary Richardson. The family were prominent Quakers: his brother Joseph Pease (1772–1846) was a founder of the Peace Society in 1817 and involved in the second, 1839 Anti-Slavery Society, for which he wrote tracts. Edward boarded at a school in Leeds run by Joseph Tatham the elder, and then joined his father's woollen business at the age of 15. On 30 November 1796, he married a fellow Quaker, Rachel (died 1833), daughter of John Whitwell, of Kendal. They had five sons and three daughters.

In 1809, Pease became involved (like his grandfather before him) in longstanding aspirations to improve navigability on the lower Tees, so that County Durham collieries could compete more effectively with those of Tyneside to supply coal to London. This was abandoned in favour of a railway. Meanwhile, Pease introduced into the scheme the steam engine maker George Stephenson, and an initial act of Parliament for a horse-drawn railway was immediately superseded by one for a steam-hauled line. Also prominent was a cousin of his, the Darlington banker Jonathan Backhouse, and in promoting steam, Nicholas Wood, the engineer and manager of Killingworth Colliery.

Pease, described at the time as "a man of weight, of prudence, of keen commercial instincts" was charged with showing that steam would be a sound investment, and his young son Joseph drew up the company prospectus. The scheme was approved by Parliament in 1821. Stephenson was put in charge of the project and the line opened on 27 September 1825.

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