Sir Daniel Gooch, 1st Baronet (24 August 1816 – 15 October 1889) was an English railway locomotive and transatlantic cable engineer.

[1] In 1831 his family moved to Tredegar Ironworks, Monmouthshire, South Wales, where his father had accepted a managerial post, and it was there that Daniel would begin training under Thomas Ellis senior, who together with Ironmaster Samuel Homfray and Richard Trevithick pioneered steam railway locomotion.

Gooch wrote in his diaries "Large works of this kind are by far the best school for a young engineer to get a general knowledge of what he needs in after life."

At the age of 20 he was recruited by Isambard Kingdom Brunel for the Great Western Railway, under the title "Superintendent of Locomotive Engines", taking office on 18 August 1837.

When working at Robert Stephenson and Company, he had helped design two 5 ft 6 in (1,676 mm) gauge locomotives for the New Orleans Railway, which had never been delivered.

At the end of September 1864, he resigned from his post of Locomotive Superintendent,[8] though he continued as a member of the GWR Board.

[12][13] On completion of the cable, on 27 July 1866, Gooch, who was on the Great Eastern, sent a cable message to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Stanley, saying "Perfect communication established between England and America; God grant it will be a lasting source of benefit to our country.

[20] Gooch married Margaret Tanner in 1838; they had six children: Anna (1839), Emily (1849), Henry (1841), Charles (1845), Alfred (1846) and Frank (1847).

His grandson, also named Daniel, briefly served as dog handler on Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition.