Researching Harry Wood

Harry Edwin Wood (3 February 1881 – 27 February 1946) was an English astronomer, director of the Union Observatory in Johannesburg, and discoverer of minor planets.

Wood was born in Manchester, graduating from Manchester University in 1902 with first class honours in physics, going on to gain an M.Sc in 1905. In 1906 he was appointed the Chief Assistant at the Transvaal Meteorological Observatory, which soon acquired telescopes and which became known as the Union Observatory and later Republic Observatory. In 1909, he married Mary Ethel Greengrass, also a physics graduate of Manchester University. Wood served as the observatory's director from 1928 to 1941, succeeding Robert Innes. He also served as the president of the Astronomical Society of South Africa from 1929 to 1930.

Wood is credited by the Minor Planet Center with the discovery of 12 numbered asteroids during 1911–1932.

He died in Mortimer, near Cradock, Eastern Cape, South Africa, in 1946. The asteroid 1660 Wood, discovered by his colleague Jacobus Bruwer at Johannesburg, is named in his honor .

Harry Wood was born 21 June 1882 in Newton on Derwent, Yorkshire, the son of John Wood, an agricultural labourer, and Maria Nichol Dey.

At 37 years old, Harry was a corporal in the 2nd Battalion, Scots Guards, British Army during the First World War when the deed for which he was awarded the VC took place. On 13 October 1918 at Saint-Python, France, when the advance was desperately opposed and the streets of the village were raked by fire, Corporal Wood's platoon sergeant was killed and he took command of the leading platoon. The River Selle had to be crossed and the ruined bridge gained, although the space in front of it was full of snipers, so the corporal carried a very large brick into the open space, lay down behind it and, firing continuously on the snipers, covered his men while they worked their way across. Later in the day he repeatedly drove off enemy counter-attacks.

He later achieved the rank of Lance-Sergeant.

His nerves were badly affected by his wartime experiences. He died 15 August 1924 whilst on holiday; he was walking with his wife when a car mounted the pavement and headed towards them. His wife pushed him out of the way but she was pinned against the wall. She suffered minor injuries but her husband was so shocked that he collapsed and fell into a coma from which he died several days later. He was buried at Arnos Vale Cemetery, Bristol, England, at Soldiers' Corner, grave number 1738.

For his career, he collected no hits in three at bats with one walk. At 18, he was the second-youngest player in the National League during the 1903 season.

An alumnus of the University of Maryland, he was born in Waterville, Maine and later died in Bethesda, Maryland at the age of 70.