It was 210 years ago this month that Richard Trevithick of Dartford introduced the first steam locomotive to be employed on a permanent track railway.

James Watt and George Stephenson may be the names that come to mind but Trevithick was the real pioneer of high pressure steam with a wonderful machine known at the time as “Captain Dick’s Puffer”.

In September 1804 it carried 10 tonnes of iron, 70 men and five oak wagons nine-and-a-half miles at a rate of nearly five miles an hour on a track in South Wales.

Trevithick, buoyed by his success, constructed a railway track on a parcel of land at Euston and invited paying customers to enjoy a circular ride in wagons pulled by an engine called Catch me if You Can. It attained speeds of 12mph and James Watt said he should have been hanged for such a dangerous invention.

The enterprise bankrupted him and he emigrated to Peru where, years later, he accidentally met Robert Stephenson (George’s son) who gave him the passage money home.

Trevithick, anxious to continue his experiments with steam turbines, came to work for J and E Hall at Dartford and his colleagues soon realised his genius.

In his workshop at Dartford he adapted steam power to agricultural machinery and to ships by both paddle and screw. He died penniless in 1833 at the age of 62.

His mates were devastated by the loss of the man they knew as the “Cornish Giant” because of his superhuman strength. They carried his body from the Bull Hotel, where he had been lodging, to the churchyard of St Edmund, King and Martyr.

In order to thwart the body snatchers, who were then active in north Kent, long pieces of timber were placed at right angles to the coffin above and two pieces below.

The coffin was then bolted and clamped.

There was no stone to mark the spot where the most prolific brain in Britain was buried.