Thomas Wood (British Army officer)

Last updated October 17, 2019

Lieutenant-General Thomas Wood (1804 – 24 October 1872) was a British Army officer and a Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1837 to 1847.

The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of British Armed Forces. As of 2018, the British Army comprises just over 81,500 trained regular (full-time) personnel and just over 27,000 trained reserve (part-time) personnel.

The Conservative Party, officially the Conservative and Unionist Party, known informally as the Tories, and historically also known as the Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom. The governing party since 2010, it is the largest in the House of Commons, with 288 Members of Parliament, and also has 234 members of the House of Lords, 4 members of the European Parliament, 31 Members of the Scottish Parliament, 11 members of the Welsh Assembly, 8 members of the London Assembly and 7,445 local councillors.

The House of Commons, officially the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled, is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster. Owing to shortage of space, its office accommodation extends into Portcullis House.

Wood was born the son of Thomas Wood MP for Breconshire.^[1] He was educated at Harrow School. He lived at the family estates of Littleton, Middlesex, and Gwernyfed Park, Breconshire, Wales. He became an officer in the Grenadier Guards.

Breconshire or Brecknockshire was a constituency in Wales which returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the English Parliament, and later to the Parliament of Great Britain and of the United Kingdom, between 1542 and 1918.

Harrow School is public school for boys in Harrow, London, England. The School was founded in 1572 by John Lyon under a Royal Charter of Elizabeth I, and is one of the original seven public schools that were regulated by the Public Schools Act 1868. Harrow charges up to £12,850 per term, with three terms per academic year (2017/18). Harrow is the fourth most expensive boarding school in the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference.

In 1837 he was elected Member of Parliament for Middlesex. He held the seat until 1847.^[2] Also in 1841 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.^[3]

Middlesex is a former constituency. It was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of England, then of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800, and finally of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1885. It returned two members by various voting systems including hustings.

Fellowship of the Royal Society is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of London judges to have made a 'substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathematics, engineering science, and medical science'.

He commanded the 3rd Battalion Grenadier Guards in the early stages of the Crimean War (1853–56) and reached the rank of Lieutenant-General.^[1]

Grenadier Guards infantry regiment of the British Army

The Grenadier Guards is an infantry regiment of the British Army. It can trace its lineage back to 1656 when Lord Wentworth's Regiment was raised in Bruges to protect the exiled Charles II. In 1665, this regiment was combined with John Russell's Regiment of Guards to form the current regiment, known as the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards. Since then, the regiment has filled both a ceremonial and protective role as well as an operational one. In 1900, the regiment provided a cadre of personnel to form the Irish Guards; while later, in 1915 it also provided the basis of the Welsh Guards upon their formation.

The Crimean War was a military conflict fought from October 1853 to February 1856 in which the Russian Empire lost to an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, Britain and Sardinia. The immediate cause involved the rights of Christian minorities in the Holy Land, which was a part of the Ottoman Empire. The French promoted the rights of Roman Catholics, while Russia promoted those of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The longer-term causes involved the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the unwillingness of Britain and France to allow Russia to gain territory and power at Ottoman expense. It has widely been noted that the causes, in one case involving an argument over a key, have never revealed a "greater confusion of purpose", yet they led to a war noted for its "notoriously incompetent international butchery".

He died aged 68. He had married Frances Smyth, daughter of John Henry Smyth and Lady Elizabeth Anne FitzRoy, on 6 July 1848.^[4]

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References

1 2 National archives
↑ Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "M" (part 2)
↑ "Library and Archive Catalogue". Royal Society. Retrieved 1 November 2010.
↑ the Peerage.com

External links

Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Thomas Wood

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Joseph Hume George Byng	Member of Parliament for Middlesex 1837 – 1847 With: George Byng to Feb 1847 Lord Robert Grosvenor from Feb 1847	Succeeded by Ralph Bernal Osborne Lord Robert Grosvenor

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[archives-1] 1 2 National archives

[2] Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "M" (part 2)

[3] "Library and Archive Catalogue". Royal Society. Retrieved 1 November 2010.

[4] the Peerage.com