William Valentine Wood

William Valentine Wood
William Valentine Wood
Born	14 February 1883; Northern Ireland
Died	26 August 1959 (aged 76)
Education	Methodist College Belfast
Known for	President of the LMS 1941–1948

William Valentine Wood worked for much of his life on the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS), rising to become its President. He was known for his ability with numbers.

Biography

William Wood; Willie Wood to his railway colleagues and Val to his family, attended Methodist College, Belfast before joining the Northern Counties Committee (NCC) as an accountant.[1] Here he expanded his interest to all matters relating to the railway. During World War I he worked for the government, and when the Ministry of Transport was created in 1919 he became its first director of finance. He later returned to railway work on the LMS, successor to the Midland Railway which had owned the NCC, where he became vice president (finance and services). When Josiah Stamp was killed in 1941, Wood was asked to take over as President, a post which he held until the nationalisation of the Railways in 1948. He then worked for 5 years with the British Transport Commission (BTC) whose Chairman, Sir Cyril Hurcombe, he had come to know during his time in the Ministry of Transport.[1]

gollark: Closer to a coilgun maybe, but not that close still.

gollark: No, I'm pretty sure the operating principles are very different.

gollark: This could not* go wrong.

gollark: The rockets are quite expensive, though, so the obvious solution is to have cheaper externally propelled vehicle things launched from the ground.

gollark: But several hours to go across the country is still quite significant, and if your passenger transport system cannot be used as a weapon of mass destruction it is not very good, so the obvious solution is ridiculously expensive rocket-based travel.

References

Jones, Kevin P. "Biographies of chairmen, managers & other senior railway officers". SteamIndex. Retrieved 23 March 2009.

Business positions
Preceded by Sir Josiah Stamp	President of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway 1941–1948	Company nationalised and merged into British Railways

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[steamindex-1] Jones, Kevin P. "Biographies of chairmen, managers & other senior railway officers". SteamIndex. Retrieved 23 March 2009.