Researching William Wood

As BUMED Chief, Wood was instrumental in increasing the stature of the naval surgeon, championing a bill eventually passed by Congress increasing the rank and compensation of physicians in the Navy, enabling the Navy to attract and recruit more qualified physicians. (The Appropriations Bill of 3 March 1871 created the titles of "Surgeon General of the Navy" and "Medical Director" and "established" a formal corps of Medical Officers. Ever since, the Navy Medical Corps has celebrated this day as its anniversary.) During Wood's tenure at the top of BUMED the Naval Hospital at Mare Island, California was completed and opened. Earlier in his career Wood was the personal consulting physician of President Zachary Taylor.

Wood is most remembered in U.S. Naval history for his daring journey through Mexico in 1846 at the onset of the Mexican–American War, where he eluded detection and capture as a U.S. spy in enemy territory and successfully provided vital intelligence leading to the possession of California by the Pacific Squadron, as well as providing intelligence information to the Secretary of the Navy in Washington regarding Mexican fortifications and military operations.

Wood was an accomplished writer, and authored three books chronicling his voyages and missions with the Pacific and East India Squadrons, and his ideas and recommendations on reforming the U.S. Navy, as well as many literary articles for notable publications of his day.

Wood was born in Veira, Orkney, Scotland, the son of William Wood and Margaret Robertson, and came to Canada in 1887. He was educated in Scotland and at Port Elgin High School, at Toronto University and at Knox College in Toronto, graduating in 1904. In the same year, he married Margaret Workman. Ordained as a Presbyterian minister, he served in Dunbarton, Ontario from 1904 to 1908, in Claremont, Ontario from 1908 to 1913, and in Franklin, Manitoba after 1913. He continued to work as a minister after winning election to the legislature. From 1916 to 1917, he was secretary of the Free Trade League of Canada. In 1917, he became secretary of the Manitoba Grain Growers' Association. In 1919 Wood received a D.D. from Bates College.

He first ran for the Manitoba legislature in the 1914 provincial election, losing to Conservative cabinet minister James H. Howden by 32 votes in the Beautiful Plains constituency. Howden did not seek re-election in the 1915 election, and Wood defeated his Conservative opponent J.H. Irwin by 197 votes. The Liberals won a landslide majority in this election, and Wood served as a backbench supporter of Tobias Norris's government.

He did not seek re-election in 1920. Wood became secretary of the United Farmers of Manitoba serving until 1925. In that year, he became chairman of the Manitoba Prohibition Alliance.

In 1928, he became principal of the Ahousat Indian School on Vancouver Island and later, of the Indian School at Portage la Prairie. From 1943 to 1946, Wood was chaplain for the Stony Mountain Penitentiary.

He died in Portage la Prairie as the result of injuries sustained in a fall in Poplar Point.

He was born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland in 1848, the son of Alexander Wood, and came to Canada West in 1854 with his family. He was educated in Perth and London. He entered business as a sawmill and gristmill owner in St. George and was also a grain merchant. In 1874, Wood married Ellen Malcolmson. He served on the councils for South Dumfries Township and Brant County. Wood later served as government whip. In 1895, Wood introduced a bill to allow women to be admitted as barristers to the Law Society of Upper Canada. He retired due to poor health later that year and was named registrar for Brant County, serving in that post until 1905. Wood served as mayor of Brantford from 1909 to 1910. Soon afterwards, he moved to Montreal, where he served as president and general manager of Dominion Flour Mills.

He died in Montreal in 1928.

His brother David Beattie also served as mayor of Brantford.

William B. Wood presented his credentials on April 16, 2007, to the President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, and was received as the U.S. Ambassador to that nation, replacing the former US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Ronald E. Neumann. Ambassador Wood was the US Ambassador to Colombia from 2003 to 2007, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and Acting Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, with responsibility for all aspects of U.S. foreign policy at the United Nations and a number of other multilateral organizations from 1998 to 2002. Immediately before that assignment, Mr. Wood was Political Counselor at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, where he was the chief U.S. negotiator in the Security Council.

He was born in Kendal, Westmorland and trained in surgery at St Bartholomew's Hospital. He practised for several years as a surgeon at Wingham, near Canterbury and in London, but left the medical profession to become a natural history bookseller, publisher and naturalist. He was the author of several natural history books, especially on the Mollusca. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Society (elected 1812) and a Fellow of the Linnean Society.

He died in Ruislip, Middlesex.

Born at Wallhollow, Victoria, to storekeeper Henry Gibson Wood, he attended schools in Victoria and Sydney before completing his secondary education at Sydney Grammar School and studying law at the University of Sydney. He entered his father's business and became an accountant. In 1894 he was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly as the member for Eden-Bombala; he was a Protectionist from 1895 to 1901, an Independent from 1901 to 1904 and a Liberal thereafter. He was a captain in the 1st Australian Light Horse Regiment in 1900. Eden-Bombala was abolished in 1904 and split between Monaro and Bega and Wood chose to contest Bega, which he represented until 1913. Wood served as Minister of Justice in the Lyne ministry from 1899 to 1901 and Colonial Secretary in the Wade ministry from 1907 to 1910, concurrently holding the portfolios of Minister for Labour and Industry from 1907 to 1908 and Secretary for Mines from 1908 to 1910.

On 18 March 1909 he married Lillian Young French at St James' Church, Sydney, and they divorced in 1924.

Wood died at Rydalmere in 1953 (aged 83).

Wood was born in Bolton, Lancashire. He left school at the age of 11, and began working half-time at a cotton mill. He joined the Bolton and District Operative Cotton Spinners' Provincial Association, and began working for the union in 1905. In 1914, he became its assistant secretary, then its secretary in 1920.

Wood became a magistrate in 1923, and was also involved with the Trustee Savings Bank, and sat on the executive of the United Textile Factory Workers Association.

In 1926, Wood was elected as vice-chairman of the Amalgamated Association of Operative Cotton Spinners, to which the Bolton Spinners were affiliated. In 1936, he became its president, and was also elected for two years to the General Council of the Trades Union Congress. However, in 1940, he was suffering with poor health, and decided to retire.