Nationality British Spouse Charlotte Moor | Succeeded by The Lord Selborne Role British statesman Preceded by The Lord Cairns Name William 1st | |
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Born 29 November 1801London ( 1801-11-29 ) Died July 10, 1881, London, United Kingdom Books Letter from the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Orleans to M. Minghetti, Minister of Finance to King Victor Emmanuel: On the Spoliation of the Church at Rome and Throughout Italy ; Together with the Brief of the Pope to the Bishop of Orleans on the Occasion of this Letter Similar People Henry Liddon, Victoria - Lady Welby, Felix Dupanloup, Christopher Wordsworth, Edward Benson | ||
William Page Wood, 1st Baron Hatherley, PC (29 November 1801 – 10 July 1881) was a British lawyer and statesman who served as a Liberal Lord Chancellor between 1868 and 1872 in William Ewart Gladstone's first ministry.
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Background and education
Wood was born in London, the second son of Sir Matthew Wood, 1st Baronet, a London alderman and Lord Mayor who became famous for befriending Queen Caroline and braving George IV. Sir Evelyn Wood and Katharine O'Shea were his nephew and niece respectively.
He was educated at Winchester, from which he was expelled after a revolt against the headmaster, Woodbridge School, Geneva University, and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he became a fellow after being 24th wrangler in 1824.
Legal and political career
Wood entered Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the Bar in 1824, studying conveyancing in John Tyrrell's chambers. He soon obtained a good practice as an equity draughtsman and before parliamentary committees. In 1845 he became a Queen's Counsel, and in 1847 was elected to parliament for the city of Oxford as a Liberal. In 1849 he was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the County Palatine of Lancaster, and in 1851 was made Solicitor General for England and Wales and knighted, vacating the former position in 1852. When his party returned to power in 1853, he was raised to the bench as a Vice-Chancellor.
In 1868 he was made a Lord Justice of Appeal, but before the end of the year was selected by Gladstone to be Lord Chancellor and was raised to the peerage as Baron Hatherley, of Down Hatherley in the County of Gloucester. He retired in 1872 owing to failing eyesight, but sat occasionally as a law lord.
Family
Wood married Charlotte, daughter of Edward Moor, in 1830. They had no children. Charlotte's death in 1878 was a great blow to Wood, from which he never recovered, and he died in London on 10 July 1881, aged 79. Both are buried in the churchyard in Great Bealings, where Charlotte's brother was rector. The title became extinct on his death.