Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 62.djvu/393

 Valadon, & Co., are modifications of Woodburytype. He also invented a method of water-marking, to which he gave the name ‘filigrane.’ A subscription was started among photographers in March 1885 to enable him to develop his stannotype process. The prospect of wealth unsettled the inventor, and he moved restlessly from Craven Cottage on the Thames to Croydon, and then to Brighton; he died suddenly at Margate, from the effects of an overdose of laudanum, on 5 Sept. 1885. He was buried on 12 Sept. in Abney Park cemetery, his grave being near that of two other photographic pioneers, George Wharton Simpson and Henry Baden Pritchard [see under ], both of whom had been intimate friends. He contributed a number of papers on optical lantern experiments to the ‘English Mechanic’ and to ‘Science at Home.’

[Harrison's Hist. of Photography, 1888, pp. 112, 135 (with portrait); Photographic News, 11 Sept. 1885 (portrait); British Journal of Photography, 18 Sept. 1885; Brothers's Photography, its History and Processes, 1892; Werge's Evolution of Photography, 1890, p. 82; Robottom's Travels in search of New Trade Products, 1893, pp. 113–20; Routledge's Discoveries and Inventions of the Nineteenth Century, 1891, pp. 536–9; Athenæum, 1885, ii. 407; Nature, 24 April 1873; Davanne's La Photographie, 1886–8, i. 37, 142, ii. 223, 239, 244, 313.] 

WOODCOCK, MARTIN, alias (1603–1646), Franciscan martyr, born in 1603 at Clayton-le-Wood, Lancashire, appears to have belonged to the Lancashire families of Farington or Woodcock, though it is not clear which was his real name, nor has his parentage been traced. He was educated first at St. Omer and then at Rome. He began his novitiate with the Capucins of Paris, but left within a year and was admitted among the Franciscans at Douai in 1631, and was professed in 1632. Towards the end of 1643 he was sent on the English mission, and landed at Newcastle, but was seized almost immediately while on a visit to his relatives in Lancashire. After more than two years' imprisonment he was tried at Lancaster in August 1646, condemned on his confession of being a Roman catholic priest, and executed at Lancaster on the 7th. Granger mentions a small quarto portrait of Woodcock (Biogr. Hist. ii. 207).

[Certamen Seraph. Provinciæ Angliæ, Douai, 1649, 4to; Dodd's Church Hist. iii. 109; Baines's Lancashire, iv. 802.] 

WOODCROFT, BENNET (1803–1879), clerk to the commissioners of patents, born at Heaton-Norris, Lancashire, on 29 Dec. 1803, was the son of John Woodcroft, merchant and silk and muslin manufacturer, who carried on business at Manchester and Salford. His mother, named Boocock, came of a Sheffield family. At an early age he learnt weaving at Failsworth, a village about four miles from Manchester, subsequently studying chemistry under John Dalton (1766–1844) [q. v.], and becoming a partner in his father's business about 1828. In 1826 he took out a patent for propelling boats, and in 1827 he patented an invention, of great commercial value, for a method of printing yarns before being woven. These were succeeded by his ingenious increasing-pitch-screw propeller, 1832; improved methods of printing certain colours in calico and other fabrics, 1836 and 1846; improved ‘tappets’ for looms, his most successful invention, 1838; and his varying-pitch screw propellers, 1844 and 1851. The pecuniary return of these patents was extremely small to the inventor, though several of the inventions were of considerable profit to others. During his residence at Manchester he became intimate with the eminent mechanicians of the town, including (Sir) Joseph Whitworth [q. v.], James Nasmyth [q. v.], Richard Roberts [q. v.], Eaton Hodgkinson [q. v.], and (Sir) William Fairbairn [q. v.] In 1841 he was in business as a patent tappet and jacquard manufacturer, and about 1843 started as a consulting engineer and patent agent, removing in 1846 to London, where he carried on the same business at No. 1 Furnival's Inn. He was appointed in April 1847 as professor of machinery at University College, London, and held the post until July 1851, though without conspicuous success. Upon the passing of the Patent Law Amendment Act of 1852 he was chosen for the post of superintendent of specifications, and on 1 Aug. 1864 was appointed clerk to the commissioners of patents, with sole charge of the department. His administration was marked by remarkable ability and liberality, and he may be said to have originated and carried out the whole existing system. In the space of five years he printed and published the whole of the specifications from 1617 to 1852–14,359 in number. Copies of these, and the current specifications, together with his elaborate indexes and other publications, including an admirable series of classified abridgments of specifications with historical introductions, were presented to every considerable town in the country, as well as to many