Thomas Longridge Gooch

Gooch was born on 1 November 1808. He was the eldest son of John and Anna Gooch; John was from Bedlington, Northumberland, and Anna was the daughter of Thomas Longridge of Newcastle. John and Anna had ten children, and of their five sons, four became railway engineers: Thomas Longridge Gooch;[1] John Viret Gooch;[2] Daniel Gooch[3] and William Frederick Gooch.[4]

On 6 October 1823, Gooch was apprenticed for six years to George Stephenson; with Stephenson, he surveyed the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway and for 2+1⁄2 years from 1826 acted as Stephenson's secretary and draughtsman on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR), living in Stephenson's house in Liverpool. In January 1829, Gooch became Resident Engineer for the Liverpool end of the L&MR, but in April the same year he took a temporary appointment as Resident Engineer of the Bolton and Leigh Railway.[1]

In 1830, Stephenson was appointed to survey the route of the proposed Manchester and Leeds Railway,[5] and Gooch was appointed his assistant. Gooch carried out most of the actual surveying for the new line, and was in charge of the construction.[1]

• Marshall, John (1969). The Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, volume 1. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0-7153-4352-1.
• Marshall, John (1978). A Biographical Dictionary of Railway Engineers. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0-7153-7489-3.