Richard Wood, Baron Holderness

Richard Frederick Wood was born in London on 5 August 1920, the youngest son of Edward Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax, and Lady Dorothy Evelyn Augusta Onslow. Lady Onslow was a daughter of the 4th Earl of Onslow. He was educated at St Cyprian's School in Eastbourne, Eton College and New College, Oxford. He became honorary attaché at the British Embassy in Rome in 1940, and in 1941 he gained the rank of lieutenant in the King's Royal Rifle Corps. He fought in the Middle East between 1941 and 1943. His elder brother Peter was killed in action in Egypt in 1942. He was fitted with artificial limbs and spent the next three years meeting and speaking with disabled veterans at hospitals in the United States. Wood returned to Britain in 1945 and resumed his studies at Oxford, reading politics, philosophy and economics. With Tony Benn, he ran the junior common room. ==Political career==

Wood became MP for Bridlington in 1950 and held the seat until 1979. In 1959 Wood was appointed a Privy Counsellor (P.C.) and was Minister of Pensions and National Insurance from 1963 until the Conservative Party lost power in 1964. From 1987 to 1991 he was an energetic chairman of the Disablement Services Authority, charged with the improvement of artificial limb services: he then served as a junior Minister on services for disabled people. ==Other work==

Wood was a director of Hargreaves Group between 1974 and 1986 and also a director of FJC Lilley & Company. He sat on the Yorkshire and Humber regional board of Lloyds Bank from 1981 to 1990. From 1983 to 1986, he was president of Queen Elizabeth's Foundation for the Disabled. ==Honours==

Wood became Honorary Colonel of the Queen's Royal Rifles in 1962 and Honorary Colonel of the 4th (Volunteer) Battalion, Royal Green Jackets between 1967 and 1969. He held the office of Deputy Lieutenant (D.L.) of the East Riding, Yorkshire in 1967. He was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Law (LL.D.) by Sheffield University in 1962, by Leeds University in 1978 and by Hull University in 1982. ==Personal life==

In 1947, Wood married Diana Kellett, daughter of Colonel Edward Orlando Kellett. The couple had a daughter and a son. Wood died in Bishop Wilton, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, on 11 August 2002, at the age of 81. ==Arms==

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