Joseph Wood

Joseph Wood MVO (1841 – 19 June 1923) was an English clergyman and schoolmaster, headmaster successively of Leamington College, Tonbridge School, and Harrow School, and while in London a prebendary of St Paul's Cathedral. He was headmaster of his three schools for forty years and in retirement was a Canon of Rochester Cathedral. Early life Born in 1841, the second son of John Wood, gentleman, of Manchester, Wood was educated at Manchester Grammar School and matriculated at Balliol College, Oxford, on 13 April 1861, aged 18. He was an exhibitioner from that year until 1865, when he graduated BA, and was then Fereday Fellow of St John's College until 1868. He married in 1868, which meant that he had to give up his college fellowship, as there was then a rule of celibacy for dons at Oxford, except for the heads of colleges, which was not lifted until 1877. Wood's younger brother Llewellyn Wood followed him to Oxford and also became a clergyman. Career In 1870, Wood secured his first headmastership, at Leamington College, a position he held for twenty years, to 1890. He was then appointed to take charge at Tonbridge, where he stayed until 1898, when he was chosen to succeed James Welldon as Head Master of Harrow. The Spectator reported on the appointment "Dr Wood goes to Harrow with the reputation of an energetic and successful organiser... a brilliant scholar, an ardent patron of cricket."