Hedley, William

William Hedley, (born July 13, 1779, Newburn, near Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland, Eng.—died Jan. 9, 1843, near Lanchester, Durham), English coal-mine official and inventor who built probably the first commercially useful steam locomotive of the adhesion type (i.e., dependent on friction between wheels and rails, as are almost all modern railway engines). He patented his design on March 13, 1813, and in that year his locomotive “Puffing Billy” began to pull coal trucks about five miles from a mine at Wylam, Northumberland, to dockside at Lemington-on-Tyne.