Bromley-by-Bow Gasworks Memorial Garden - statue of Sir Corbet Woodall - 2022-03-28

Sir Corbet Woodall (27 August 1841 – 17 May 1916) was an English gas engineer. He was Governor of the

Gas Light and Coke Company The Gas Light and Coke Company (also known as the Westminster Gas Light and Coke Company, and the Chartered Gas Light and Coke Company), was a company that made and supplied coal gas and coke. The headquarters of the company were located on Ho ...

from 1906 to 1916.

Early life

He was born in

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

, where his father William Woodall (died 1871) was the manager of Liverpool gasworks. He was educated at the Congregationalist Crescent School in Liverpool, and followed his father and two older brothers in the coal gas industry. His eldest brother

William Woodall William Woodall (Shrewsbury 15 March 1832 – Llandudno 8 April 1901), was a British Liberal politician, philanthropist and supporter of women's suffrage. Life He was the elder son of William Woodall, of Shrewsbury, and his wife Martha (née B ...

was

Liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...

MP for Stoke-on-Trent and then Hanley.

Career

Woodall moved to

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

to work for the

Woolwich Woolwich () is a district in southeast London, England, within the Royal Borough of Greenwich. The district's location on the River Thames led to its status as an important naval, military and industrial area; a role that was maintained thr ...

Equitable Gas Company in 1859. Approximately 6 years later, he became manager of the municipal gas works in Stockton-on-Tees. The small Stockton-on-Tees gasworks was substantially expanded under his management, and he also started providing his expertise as a consulting engineer to other gasworks in the north east of England. He returned to London in 1869 to become manager of the Phoenix Gas Company gasworks in

Vauxhall Vauxhall ( ) is a district in South West London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. Vauxhall was part of Surrey until 1889 when the County of London was created. Named after a medieval manor, "Fox Hall", it became well known for ...

, and became its chief engineer in 1872. He was in charge of the construction of the gas holders in

Kennington Lane The London Inner Ring Road, or Ring Road as signposted, is a route with an average diameter of formed from a number of major roads that encircle Central London. The ring road forms the boundary of the London congestion charge zone, although t ...

, near

The Oval The Oval, currently known for sponsorship reasons as the Kia Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, located in the borough of Lambeth, in south London. The Oval has been the home ground of Surrey County Cricket Club since ...

in 1878. He continued to work as a consulting engineer, and became a full-time consultant in private practice after the Phoenix Gas Company was acquired by the South Metropolitan Gas Company in 1880. In 1889 he bought Marle Hall in north Wales. Recognized as a leading gas engineer, Woodall became a director of the

in 1897; it was the rival of Sir George Livesey's South Metropolitan Gas Company. Woodall helped the company become competitive through its efficiency, He succeeded Sir William Thomas Makins, Governor of the Gas Light and Coke Company in 1906: at this point it was the largest gas company in the world. Woodhall tried to foster good industrial relations, introducing a co-partnership scheme. Woodall was honorary colonel of the 12th Battalion, the London Regiment ("the Rangers"), a

Territorial Force The Territorial Force was a part-time volunteer component of the British Army, created in 1908 to augment British land forces without resorting to conscription. The new organisation consolidated the 19th-century Volunteer Force and yeomanry ...

battalion mainly composed of gas company employees. He was also a partner of Edward B. Ellington in devising schemes for hydraulic power networks in various cities in the UK and Australia, including the

London Hydraulic Power Company The London Hydraulic Power Company was established in 1883 to install a hydraulic power network in London. This expanded to cover most of central London at its peak, before being replaced by electricity, with the final pump house closing in 1977. ...

Honours

He was a member of the Gas Institute (later the Institution of Gas Engineers and now the Institution of Gas Engineers and Managers), the

Institution of Civil Engineers The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) is an independent professional association for civil engineers and a charitable body in the United Kingdom. Based in London, ICE has over 92,000 members, of whom three-quarters are located in the UK, whi ...

and the

Institution of Mechanical Engineers The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) is an independent professional association and learned society headquartered in London, United Kingdom, that represents mechanical engineers and the engineering profession. With over 120,000 member ...

. He was elected president of the Institution of Gas Engineers three times, in 1877, 1897 and 1912. He became a justice of the peace in Bromley in 1911, received an honorary DSc from the

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

in 1912, and was knighted for services to the gas industry in 1913. He retired to the south of France in 1914, after he started to suffer from heart problems, and died in 1916. He was followed as Governor of the Gas Light and Coke Company by John Miles. His Grade II listed statue stands in the gas employees' war memorial garden in Twelvetrees Crescent. Originally it was erected at

Beckton Gas Works Beckton Gasworks was a major London gasworks built to manufacture coal gas and other products including coke from coal. It has been variously described as 'the largest such plant in the world' Winchester C (Ed), ''Handling 2,000,000 tons of coa ...

before 1926; it was moved to its present location in a garden at Twelvetrees Crescent, Bromley by Bow, near Bromley Gas Works, north of the London Gas Museum (closed in 1998), and close to a war memorial to employees of the

Family

Woodall married Anne Whiteman in 1865. They had five daughters and five sons; four of the sons also worked in the gas industry. Henry joined the gas engineering consultancy practice and was also a director of the Gas Light and Coke Company; Harold worked with Arthur Duckham to develop continuous

vertical retort Vertical is a geometric term of location which may refer to: * Vertical direction, the direction aligned with the direction of the force of gravity, up or down * Vertical (angles), a pair of angles opposite each other, formed by two intersecting s ...

for manufacturing

gas Gas is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, liquid, and plasma). A pure gas may be made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon), elemental molecules made from one type of atom (e.g. oxygen), or ...

from

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

, and they founded Woodall-Duckham.

References

OBITUARY. SIR CORBET WOODALL. 1841–1916
Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Volume 203, Issue 1917, 1 January 1917, pages 421–422
Listing for statue of Sir Corbet Woodhall, Newham
British Listed Buildings
Listing for War Memorial, Newham
British Listed Buildings (adjacent to statue)
Memorial Garden, Bromley by Bow Gasworks
London Parks and Gardens Trust {{DEFAULTSORT:Woodall, Corbet 1841 births 1916 deaths Engineers from Liverpool