page_title: W. G. T. Goodman
section_title: Municipal Tramways Trust
hierarchical_section_title: W. G. T. Goodman / Municipal Tramways Trust
caption_attribution_description: English: An informal image by a professional photographer of two men wearing bowler hats, with a grandstand in the background. One wears a bow tie and is smoking a pipe. The other man (left) is W.G.T. (William, later Sir William) Goodman, general manager and chief engineer of the Municipal Tramways Trust (of Adelaide, South Australia). A thin leather strap, of the type associated with binoculars, is over his shoulder. A young man in a cloth flat cap is in the background.
context_page_description: Sir William George Toop Goodman KBE MICE MIEE MIEAust, until his knighthood invariably referred to as "W.G.T. Goodman", was an engineer and administrator who supervised the installation of New Zealand's first electric tramway and went on to oversee the foundation and growth of the Municipal Tramways Trust in Adelaide, South Australia.
context_section_description: In 1907 Goodman take up the position of electrical engineer with Adelaide's Municipal Tramways Trust at £1,500 per annum. 
  Adelaide had an extensive network of horse-drawn trams, all privately owned, but Adelaide, usually in the vanguard of social reform, had fallen badly behind the other colonies in the modernisation of its public transport. After a referendum on 8 February 1902 which decisively opted for a private enterprise, as against a Municipal or Government, takeover and electrification of the lines, a Tramways Purchase Act was passed. It enabled businessman Francis Hugh Snow to buy out these operators and to convert to electric traction, giving him a time limit of three years. After Snow failed to raise the required capital an Electric Traction Act of 1904 authorised the Government to make offers to these seven companies for the purchase of their leases and assets, which if rejected would be put in the hands of an arbitrator.
  Eventually a takeover price of £280,000 was agreed upon and the Municipal Tramways Trust Act was passed in 1906. The Trust consisted of eight members: two nominated by the Governor, and two each from the Adelaide City Council, the Suburban Corporations, and the District Councils (those further out, which included Burnside and Mitcham). The Trust appointed the State's Engineer in Chief, Alexander Bain Moncrieff CMG (c. 1845–1928) as chairman, and advertised for a tramways engineer. Goodman was their unanimous choice; he started on the job in May 1907; one of his first appointments was his assistant John Bowman (1867–1951), a graduate of Sydney University who had worked with him in Sydney and in Dunedin. Within twelve months Goodman had called for contracts to the value of £457,000.
  The following year he was further appointed chief engineer and general manager. The progress of the MTT under his management, and subsequent dismantling, is covered in the Wikipedia article Trams in Adelaide.
  Goodman retired from the MTT in 1950 at the age of 78.
  Other highlights of Goodman's professional life included the following.
caption: W.G.T. Goodman (left) with a friend at an Adelaide race meeting, circa 1920.
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