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 1854, Wood was appointed to the
Royal Commission for Consolidating the Statute Law, a
royal commission to consolidate existing statutes and enactments of
English law. In 1868 he was made a
Lord Justice of Appeal, but before the end of the year was selected by Gladstone to be
Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain 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==