Edgar Wood

Edgar Wood (17 May 1860 – 1935) was a British architect, artist, and draftsman who practised from Manchester at the turn of the 20th century and gained a considerable reputation in the United Kingdom.

Although he was active in Manchester for over twenty years, most of his work is in nearby towns, such as Rochdale, Oldham and Middleton (of which he was native), and in outlying districts such as Bramhall and Hale.

The family lived in Middleton and Wood's father was a mill owner, a Unitarian, a Liberal, and had a reputation as a strict disciplinarian.

Perhaps the best way to judge how Wood felt about his years as a pupil can be gleaned from his own comments in a lecture he delivered in 1900 in Birmingham, "My earliest architectural years were passed in an atmosphere where beautiful creative powers as applied to building, and life in design generally, were drowned in the solemnity of commerce, tracing paper and the checking of quantities.

Ever the artist he would arrive at work wearing a large black cloak, lined with red silk, a flat, broad-brimmed hat, and brandishing a silver-handled cane.

"[1] Wood was instrumental in saving the colonnade of Manchester's first town hall, designed by Francis Goodwin, which stood in King Street and was demolished c. 1911.