Edward Woods (engineer)
| Edward Woods | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | 28 April 1814 London |
| Died | 14 June 1903 (aged 89) London |
| Nationality | English |
| Education | private schooling |
| Spouse(s) | Mary Goodman |
| Children | Three sons and two daughters |
| Engineering career | |
| Discipline | Civil |
| Institutions |
Institution of Civil Engineers (president), Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers (president), British Association (president of mechanical science) |
| Projects | Wapping Tunnel, Victoria Tunnel |
Edward Woods (28 April 1814 – 14 June 1903) was a British civil engineer.
Woods was born in London on 28 April 1814, the son of Samuel Woods, a merchant. After education at private schools, and some training at Bristol, he became in 1834 an assistant to John Dixon, recently appointed chief engineer of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Woods was placed in charge of the section, 15 miles in length, between Liverpool and Newton-le-Willows, including Wapping Tunnel, then under construction, between Crown Street and Park Lane goods stations; and in 1836 he succeeded Dixon as chief engineer, taking also charge of the mechanical department. The Liverpool and Manchester railway was amalgamated with the Grand Junction Railway in 1845. Woods remained until the end of 1852 in charge of the works appertaining to the Liverpool and Manchester section, including the construction of the Victoria Tunnel (completed 1848) between Edge Hill station and the docks, a large goods station adjoining the West Waterloo Dock, and a line between Patricroft and Clifton, opened in 1850. In 1853 he established himself in London as a consulting engineer.
During his eighteen years' work on the Liverpool and Manchester line Woods took a prominent part in various early experimental investigations into the working of railways. In 1836 he made observations on the waste of fuel due to condensation in the long pipes conveying steam a quarter of a mile to the winding engines used for hauling trains through the Edge Hill tunnel, the gradient of which was then considered too steep for locomotives. He was a member of a committee appointed by the British Association in 1837 to report on the resistance of railway trains. In 1838 he presented to the Institution of Civil Engineers a paper ‘On Certain Forms of Locomotive Engines,’ which contains some of the earliest accurate details of the working of locomotives, and for which he was awarded a Telford Medal in silver. The consumption of fuel in locomotives was the subject of a paper presented by him to the Liverpool Polytechnic Society in 1843 (published in 1844), and of a contribution to a new edition of Thomas Tredgold's Steam Engine in 1850.
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