Sir Martin Francis Wood,
CBE
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
,
FRS,
HonFREng (19 April 1927 – 23 November 2021) was a British
engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...
and
entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values t ...
. He co-founded
Oxford Instruments
Oxford Instruments plc is a United Kingdom manufacturing and research company that designs and manufactures tools and systems for industry and research. The company is headquartered in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England, with sites in the United Ki ...
, one of the first spin-out companies from the
University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
and still one of the most successful. He created this business out of his research into magnets, and went on to build the first commercial MRI scanner, an invention that has saved millions of lives throughout the world.
Life
Martin Wood was educated at
Gresham's School,
Holt and
Trinity College Trinity College may refer to:
Australia
* Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales
* Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...
,
Cambridge University
The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III of England, Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world' ...
, where he read
engineering
Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...
, and
Imperial College,
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 ...
. In 1945 he joined the Coal Board as a Bevin Boy for his National Service, working underground at the coal face first in South Wales and later in the Midlands. From 1955 to 1969, he was a Senior Research Officer at the
Clarendon Laboratory
The Clarendon Laboratory, located on Parks Road within the Science Area in Oxford, England (not to be confused with the Clarendon Building, also in Oxford), is part of the Department of Physics at Oxford University. It houses the atomic and ...
at the
University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
. He used the knowledge he acquired on high field magnets to form Oxford Instruments in 1959, at his home in
Northmoor Road,
North Oxford
North Oxford is a suburban part of the city of Oxford in England. It was owned for many centuries largely by St John's College, Oxford and many of the area's Victorian houses were initially sold on leasehold by the College.
Overview
The le ...
. Two years later new superconductors were developed in the USA, and he soon acquired some material and made the first superconducting magnet outside the USA in 1962. Oxford Instruments has since developed these magnets for research and NMR analysis and eventually developed the whole-body superconducting magnets which made possible the development of
magnetic resonance imaging.
Sir Martin Wood and his wife, Audrey, have many philanthropic achievements, including donating £2m for the building of the Sir Martin Wood Lecture Theatre at the Clarendon Laboratory. He also founded the
Earth Trust to promote
nature conservation at
Little Wittenham
Little Wittenham is a village and civil parish on the south bank of the River Thames, northeast of Didcot in South Oxfordshire. In 1974 it was transferred from Berkshire to the county of Oxfordshire and from Wallingford Rural District to the ...
and the
Wittenham Clumps
Wittenham Clumps are a pair of wooded chalk hills in the Thames Valley, in the civil parish of Little Wittenham, in the historic county of Berkshire, although since 1974 administered as part of South Oxfordshire district.
The higher of the two ...
, The Oxford Trust for the promotion of scientific education and science-based enterprise, and the
Sylva Foundation to support
sustainable forest management. In 2005, Oxford Innovation, a company that came out of the Oxford Trust, launched the Martin and Audrey Wood Enterprise Awards for entrepreneurship.
Wood was
knighted by
the Queen
In the English-speaking world, The Queen most commonly refers to:
* Elizabeth II (1926–2022), Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 1952 until her death
The Queen may also refer to:
* Camilla, Queen Consort (born 1947), ...
at
Buckingham Palace in 1986. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1987, was a recipient of the
Order of the Rising Sun, and received honorary degrees from eight British universities. He was President of
Farm Africa, a development charity co-founded by his late brother
Sir Michael Wood.
He died after a short illness on 23 November 2021, at the age of 94. His work pioneering the development of superconducting magnets facilitated Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), leading to millions of lives being saved every year.
Honours
Wood received a number of honours:
* Honorary doctorate from
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...
*
Royal Society Mullard Award
*
Fellow of the Royal Society
Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemat ...
, 1987
*
Commander of the Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...
*
Order of the Rising Sun
*
Knighthood
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the ...
*
Honorary Fellow
Honorary titles (professor, reader, lecturer) in academia may be conferred on persons in recognition of contributions by a non-employee or by an employee beyond regular duties. This practice primarily exists in the UK and Germany, as well as in m ...
of the
Royal Academy of Engineering in 1994
*
President's Medal of the IOP, 2002
References
Further reading
* Audrey Wood — ''Magnetic Venture: The Story of Oxford Instruments'' (
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, 2001). .
External links
The Oxford TrustOxford Instruments plcHonorary degrees: University of Oxford Annual Review 2003–4Martin and Audrey Wood Enterprise AwardsSylva FoundationOxford Innovation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wood, Martin
1927 births
2021 deaths
People educated at Gresham's School
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
Alumni of Imperial College London
People associated with the University of Oxford
English electrical engineers
English businesspeople
English philanthropists
Fellows of the Royal Society
Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Knights Bachelor