Stephenson, Rowland Macdonald (1808-?) was the pioneer in promoting British railway technology in Eastern India. He was a civil engineer by profession and at the same time was an entrepreneur of rare brand. Born in England, he witnessed the beginning of the railway age in the 1820s and its craze in the 1830s when everybody was running for buying a share of any railway company. Stephenson's realisation was that investment in railways in England had reached its limit and an entrepreneur like him must move to colonies and introduce railways there to reap the first fruit. He chose India. Many of his ancestors including his own brothers and cousins worked in Bengal as east india company's officers and traders. His ancestor, Edward Stephenson, went to Mughal Court as a member of the Surman Embassy (1717) for securing privileges for the company. Later, he became the president and governor of fort william (1728). Thus Rowland M Stephenson's close family connection with Bengal had definitely influenced him to move to Calcutta for realising his railway dream.

Stephenson came to Calcutta in 1841 to make preliminary study of his plan. He noticed that coals from Raniganj in Burdwan were transported to Calcutta by tardy and expensive country boats. He felt that it could be shipped costing less time and money by railway as it was done in England. He also pointed out to the authorities about the commercial and military benefits of a railway line stretching from Calcutta to Delhi via Benares.

The Calcutta Government outright rejected his proposal as a 'wild project'. Stephenson went home and met the leading people of the East India Company circle and East India lobby in parliament and tried to impress on them his ideas. He was asking from them a charter of rights and a commitment for government support. He also tried to gather support from the Anglo-Indian mercantile interests in Calcutta. Being encouraged by them all he submitted his railway plan to the court of directors on 13 December 1844. The Court of Directors sent its Railway Dispatch to Calcutta on 7 May 1845. To facilitate formal negotiation with the government, Stephenson had then established a company called East India Railway Company with thirteen persons on its Board of Directors and with an initial capital stock of 4,000,000 pound sterling divided into 16000 shares of 250 pound sterling each. Stephenson became the first Managing Director of the company.

Stephenson came to Calcutta to expedite a reply to the Court of Directors from the government at Calcutta. But the government, which was sceptic about the prospects of railways in India, took too long a time, two years, in assessing his plan and make a reply to the Court of Directors' dispatch, which was made in February 1847. From May 1847, negotiations on the railway question began in London and finally an agreement was signed between the two parties -East India Railway Company being one party and the East India Company and Board of Control, the other. Under the agreement the East India Railway Company got from the Calcutta government a guaranteed profit of 5% on the actual railway investment and the right to acquire land for railway construction. The actual construction began in 1851.

The first railway line laid was the Calcutta-Raniganj line with the name the east indian railway. Thus was inaugurated the railway age in India. Soon the East Indian Railway was followed by other railway companies such as, Great Indian Peninsula Railway, Great Southern Railway of India, Indus Valley State Railway, North Western State Railway and so on. But all of them remembered with admiration the role played by the railway pioneer entrepreneur in India, Rowland Macdonald Stephenson. [Sirajul Islam]