Woodcroft was born in
Heaton Norris, Lancashire, the third of seven children born to John and Ann Woodcroft. He studied chemistry under
Dalton, returning to Lancashire to join his father in business as a
dyer and velvet finisher. In 1843, he began a career as a consulting engineer in Manchester and moved to London in 1846, taking up the chair of Professor of Machinery at
University College London. He retired 12 years later, in March 1876. During his career, he authored over a dozen patents in the fields of
textiles and
naval engineering. He married Agnes Bertha Sawyer (7 September 1833 – 10 March 1903) in Hampstead in the September Quarter of 1866. She was born in
Bosworth, Leicestershire. At this time he was 63 and she 33. They had no children. On the 1871 census they lived alone with servants, on the 1881 census she is widowed living with the cook only. No biographies or obituaries make any reference to Bennet Woodcroft's personal life and children conceived prior to his marriage. In fact, he had two children with an unmarried woman Matilda Hammond, who lived close to him in Manchester. His son Henry Woodcroft Hammond (1839–1893) also became an engineer and emigrated to San Francisco, where he became President of the Anglo-Pacific Steel Company. His daughter Eleanor Woodcroft Hammond (1844–1918) married a Frenchman, Joseph Pierre Emmanuel Theogene Cluzel (1835–1885) and moved to France, where her descendants survive to this day. Documents show clearly that Bennet Woodcroft kept in touch with his children. One of Henry Woodcroft Hammond's daughters, Frances Mary Hammond (1872–1949), married Master Mariner Charles Henry Cross (1869–1923), a grand uncle of
George Cross, FRS, in San Francisco. Woodcroft died on 7 February 1879, at his residence in South Kensington, and is buried in
Brompton Cemetery, London. His portrait is in the
National Portrait Gallery. == Work ==