Graham Wood was born in Farnborough, Kent, England and became a towering figure in corrosion science. Graham’s parents had met at Down House, the former home of Charles Darwin, while it was being run as a school. Graham later ascribed his interest in science to childhood visits to Down House after it had become the Darwin museum. He obtained a state scholarship to attend Christs’ College, Cambridge University, where he graduated in Natural Sciences. He subsequently undertook a Ph.D. with T.P. (Sam) Hoar, collaborated with Ulick Evans, and continued as a postdoctoral researcher with Alan Cottrell. He moved to the then University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) in 1961 as Lecturer in Corrosion Science in the Dept. of Chemical Engineering.
The UMIST Chemical Engineering department was run by Professor T.K. (Ken) Ross, who recognized early in his career that corrosion and materials degradation of chemical plant was...
