Sir Matthew Wood, 1st Baronet

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Sir Matthew Wood, 1st Baronet, wearing the chain of Lord Mayor of London. Portrait by Arthur William Devis
Arms of Woode of Hareston: Argent, on a mount in base proper an oak tree vert fructed or[1]
Moments of Pleasure - a satirical engraving by Theodore Lane showing Lady Anne Hamilton; Sir Matthew Wood, 1st Baronet and Caroline of Brunswick

Sir Matthew Wood, 1st Baronet (2 June 1768 – 25 September 1843)[2] was a British Whig politician and was Lord Mayor of London from 1815 to 1817.

Early life

Matthew Wood was the son of William Wood (died 1809), a serge maker from Exeter and Tiverton both in Devon, by his wife Catherine Cluse (died 1798).[3] He was descended from the Wood family of Hareston[4] in the parish of Brixton in Devon, which the family had inherited by marriage to the heiress of the Carslake family.[5] The present Page-Wood baronets quarter the arms of Carslake Argent, a bull's head erased sable.[6]

Career

He was educated briefly at Blundell's School in Tiverton, before being obliged to help his ailing father. He was apprenticed to his cousin, an Exeter chemist and druggist, but moved to London in 1790 to set himself up in business.[7]

He was a member of the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers,[8] of which he became Prime Warden, a member of the Court of Aldermen of the City of London, and served as Sheriff of the City of London for 1809 and as Lord Mayor of London from 1815 to 1817.[9] He was elected unopposed[10] as a Member of Parliament for the City of London at a by-election in June 1817,[8] following the resignation of Harvey Christian Combe MP.[8] He held the seat until his death in 1843.[11][12]

Wood was a prominent partisan and adviser of Queen Caroline on her return to England in 1820, a controversial role. Greville noted acerbically in his diary on 7 June 1820:[13]

"The Queen arrived in London yesterday at seven o’clock… She travelled in an open landau, Alderman Wood sitting by her side and Lady Anne Hamilton and another woman opposite. Everybody was disgusted at the vulgarity of Wood in sitting in the place of honour, while the Duke of Hamilton’s sister was sitting backwards in the carriage".

Wood's radicalism belied his very 19th century propensity for improving his and his family's lot. The brush with royalty may have given him ideas about fixing his status and his family's inheritance prospects. In 1836 the 'Gloucester millionaire', banker James 'Jemmy' Wood, and one of the richest men in the country, died, and the Alderman became one of his heirs. Matthew Wood was actually no relation to the millionaire despite their shared surname. It seems Jemmy Wood's feeble-minded sister was an admirer of Queen Caroline and had taken a shine to the Alderman, to the extent of leaving property to him when she died. Gaining more knowledge of the Gloucester Woods by living in his newly acquired property, the radical MP must have soon realized the vulnerability of the old banker and his fortune. In 1833, Jemmy gave the Alderman rent-free use of Hatherley House which the bank had acquired through a bankruptcy. The mutual back scratching led to Wood allowing Jemmy to send all his mail under parliamentary franked cover. Soon, the Alderman was setting his sights on a baronetcy not only for himself, but also for the old millionaire as a kind of backstop.

The story of the will is a very complex one, but it involved leaving the entire estate valued at nearly £1,000,000, to Alderman Wood and three other executors. Eventually, after a long court case against Wood and the other three executor-beneficiaries, on 20 Feb 1839 Judge Jenner in an extremely long and detailed verdict at the Arches Prerogative Court, London, 'decided that the terms were made by conspiracy and fraud, and ordered that the whole of the immense property should be divided amongst two relations'. And yet, within a couple of years, this verdict was overturned on appeal by Lord Lyndhurst, and the four men (or family in the case of John Chadborn, Jemmy's lawyer, who had hanged himself in the interim) who had been accused of fraud were awarded what money and property was left after court costs were allowed for. The inheritance formed the basis of the Wood family fortunes (now the Page Woods) and also that of John Chadborn's daughter's family, the Prices.

Alderman Wood was finally made a Baronet in 1837, of Hatherley House in Gloucestershire,[2][14] the name of his country seat.[3]

Marriage and children

On 5 November 1795 Wood married Maria Page, the daughter of John Page of Woodbridge in Suffolk,[3] by whom he had six children:

  1. John-Page Wood (1796–1866), who became a Church of England vicar in Essex[3] His daughter Katharine Wood (1846–1921) was better known by her married name of Katharine O'Shea.[15] Popularly known as Kitty O'Shea, her relationship with the Irish leader Charles Stewart Parnell led to a political scandal which caused his downfall. John's son Evelyn Wood (1838–1919) was a Field Marshal and a recipient of the Victoria Cross.
  2. Maria-Elizabeth Wood (born 1798)
  3. Catharine Wood (born 1799)
  4. William Wood, 1st Baron Hatherley (1801–1881), a barrister and Liberal MP who served as Lord Chancellor from 1868 to 1872
  5. Western Wood (1804–1863), MP for the City of London 1861–63
  6. Henry-Wright Wood (born 1806), died an infant

References

  1. ^ Vivian, Lt.Col. J.L., (Ed.) The Visitations of the County of Devon: Comprising the Heralds' Visitations of 1531, 1564 & 1620, Exeter, 1895, p.801; Pole, Sir William (d.1635), Collections Towards a Description of the County of Devon, Sir John-William de la Pole (ed.), London, 1791, p.508)
  2. ^ a b Leigh Rayment's list of baronets – Baronetcies beginning with "P" (part 1)
  3. ^ a b c d Collen, G. W. (1840). Debrett's baronetage of England. revised, corrected and continued by G.W. Collen. Vol. 3. London. p. 593.
  4. ^ "Manor House Wedding Venue Devon".
  5. ^ Risdon, Tristram (d.1640), Survey of Devon, 1811 edition, London, 1811, with 1810 Additions, pp.194-5
  6. ^ Vivian, Lt.Col. J.L., (Ed.) The Visitations of the County of Devon: Comprising the Heralds' Visitations of 1531, 1564 & 1620, Exeter, 1895; quartering illustrated in: Montague-Smith, P.W. (ed.), Debrett's Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage and Companionage, Kelly's Directories Ltd, Kingston-upon-Thames, 1968, p.875
  7. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 5 June 2011. Retrieved 7 December 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  8. ^ a b c "No. 17259". The London Gazette. 14 June 1817. p. 1339.
  9. ^ "Lord Mayors of The City of London From 1189" (PDF). City of London Corporation. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 December 2010. Retrieved 7 December 2010.
  10. ^ Stooks Smith, Henry. (1973) [1844-1850]. Craig, F. W. S. (ed.). The Parliaments of England (2nd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. pp. 211–2. ISBN 0-900178-13-2.
  11. ^ Craig, F. W. S. (1989) [1977]. British parliamentary election results 1832–1885 (2nd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. p. 4. ISBN 0-900178-26-4.
  12. ^ Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "L" (part 3)
  13. ^ Charles C. F. Greville, A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, volume I (London, Longmans Green & Co, 1874), at page 28
  14. ^ "No. 19558". The London Gazette. 14 November 1837. p. 2921.
  15. ^ Fargnoli, A. Nicholas; Gillespie, Michael Patrick (2006). Critical companion to James Joyce: a literary reference to his life and work. New York: Facts on File, Inc. ISBN 9781438108483.

External links

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Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament for the City of London
1817–1843
With: John Atkins to 1818
Sir James Shaw, Bt to 1818
Sir William Curtis, Bt to 1818
John Thomas Thorp 1818–20
Robert Waithman 1818–20
Thomas Wilson 1818–26
Sir William Curtis, Bt 1820–26
George Bridges 1820–26
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Robert Waithman 1826 – March 1833
William Ward 1826–31
William Venables 1831–32
George Grote 1832–41
Sir John Key, Bt 1832 – August 1833
George Lyall March 1833–1835
William Crawford August 1833–1841
James Pattison 1835–41
George Lyall 1841–47
John Masterman 1841–57
Lord John Russell 1841–61 		Succeeded by
Civic offices
Preceded by Lord Mayor of London
1815–1817 		Succeeded by
Baronetage of the United Kingdom
New creation Baronet
(of Hatherley House, Gloucestershire)
1837–1843 		Succeeded by
John Page Wood
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