Nicholas Wood FGS FRS (24 April 1795 – 19 December 1865) was an English colliery and steam locomotive engineer.

[4] By 1825, he had gained sufficient reputation and expertise in the design and testing of locomotives that in 1825 he was able to publish his influential book A Practical Treatise on Rail-roads and Interior Communication, in which he analysed the various types of 'motive power' then in use: self-acting planes, fixed steam-engine planes, horses and steam locomotives.

Wood was also given an opportunity to display his geological knowledge of Northumberland by giving a paper when the British Association for the Advancement of Science held its annual meeting in Newcastle in 1838.

He campaigned for a College of Physical Science in Newcastle but without success because of funding difficulties and problems in the planned relationship with Durham University.

[1][2][11] His four sons all made names for themselves in the coal industry; the youngest, Sir Lindsay Wood, becoming chairman of Hetton Collieries after his father's death and a baronet.

The Hall was successfully reopened on 2 July 1872, and was considered by many of the members to be a worthy testimonial to the memory of Nicholas Wood.

[12][13] Within the building, there is a monumental statue of Nicholas Wood presiding over the library, mounted on the top of a throne in the setting of an iconostasis.