William Hedley

William Hedley ( born July 13, 1779 Newburn, † January 9, 1843 in Durham ) was an English mine manager.

Already in 1800, ie 21 years, Hedley pit director at the Walbottle - mine, but soon changed to Wylam Colliery. There you already tried in 1804 to replace the horse business on the eight -kilometer-long sliding distance by the use of coal-fired steam locomotives. Although the employees for Richard Trevithick built a working locomotive, but not satisfied.

Hedley was 1813 known by its own development of the first steam locomotive, the Puffing Billy, which he built together with Timothy Hackworth, who later became engineer of the Stockton and Darlington Railway. The machine proved that you could only move by wheel-rail friction a train, but the former tracks of the axle load of the machine were no match and therefore two additional axes have been added. This left the machine to about 1860 in operation. The machine is preserved and is in the London Science Museum.

In 1828, Hedley made ​​independently and rented the Southmoor Colliery on. For this mine, he developed a good working steam pump, which could be soon sell well and has been used in many mines of northern England.

• Engineer, inventor, engineer
• Briton
• Born in 1779
• Died in 1843
• Man