Ebenezer Goddard (10 March 1816,

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line ...

–19 October 1882, Ipswich) was an Ipswich engineer, businessman and politician. He worked for Ipswich Gas Company for many years and was Mayor of Ipswich three times: 1857-1858, 1865-1866 and 1872-1873.

Early life

Ebenezer was the son of Daniel Poole Goddard and his wife Lucy Haill. His father joined the committee of the Ipswich Gas Company in 1826, and subsequently became secretary and engineer of this organisation. Ebenezer attended school in

Halesworth Halesworth is a market town, civil parish and electoral ward in north-eastern Suffolk, England. The population stood at 4,726 in the 2011 Census. It lies south-west of Lowestoft, on a tributary of the River Blyth, upstream from Southwold. T ...

, Suffolk before starting an

apprenticeship Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a ...

with J R and A Ransome. After successfully completing this he moved to

Deptford Deptford is an area on the south bank of the River Thames in southeast London, within the London Borough of Lewisham. It is named after a Ford (crossing), ford of the River Ravensbourne. From the mid 16th century to the late 19th it was home ...

where he worked for the

General Steam Navigation Company The General Steam Navigation Company (GSN), incorporated in 1824, was London's foremost short sea shipping line for almost 150 years. It was the oldest shipping company in the world to begin business with seagoing steam vessels. Foundation ...

. However, when his fellow workers complained that his apprenticeship was not appropriate for the work involved – and threatened a strike unless he was dismissed, he was transferred to their locomotive repair workshop in Maidenhead. After expanding his experience there, he then moved to Maudslay, Sons and Field, where it was planned he would run a piece of machinery being sold to the

Turkish government The Government of Turkey ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Hükûmeti) is the national government of Turkey. It is governed as a unitary state under a presidential representative democracy and a constitutional republic within a pluriform multi-party ...

to be used to print banknotes in their

mint MiNT is Now TOS (MiNT) is a free software alternative operating system kernel for the Atari ST system and its successors. It is a multi-tasking alternative to TOS and MagiC. Together with the free system components fVDI device drivers, XaA ...

at the beginning of the Tanzimât Era. However the plan fell through and Goddard remained in England.

Ipswich Gas Company

He moved to Ipswich in 1842, where his father was ill. On his father's death in November of that year, he took over as Secretary and Engineer at Ipswich Gas Company. Here he proved to be an effective businessman, the company yielding a 7% dividend in 1851 at a time when the vast majority of gas companies yielded no profits. Goddard was responsible for the company expanding its range of products to include domestic gas appliances, such as

gas cooker A gas stove is a stove that is fuelled by combustible gas such as syngas, natural gas, propane, butane, liquefied petroleum gas or other flammable gas. Before the advent of gas, cooking stoves relied on solid fuels such as coal or wood. The first ...

s, which were manufactured at the Ipswich Gas Works. Goddard was responsible for the design of much of these, and held their patents.

Patents

* 1850: Patent for gas stove * 1852: Patent No. 2556 "improvements in gas burners"

Family life

Ebenezer married Annie Ford, daughter of Thomas Ford. His son Daniel Ford Goddard succeeded him as Secretary and Engineer of the Ipswich Gas Company and pursued a successful career as a politician.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goddard, Ebenezer 1816 births 1882 deaths Engineers from Ipswich 19th-century British engineers Mayors of Ipswich, Suffolk