A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Wood, James (c)
WOOD. (Lieutenant, 1815. f-p., 9; h-p., 32.)
James Wood (c) was born 29 Dec. 1792. He is nephew of the late Retired Commander Geo. Wood, R.N.
This officer entered the Navy, in Feb. 1806, as Midshipman, on board the Aimewell 14, commanded by his uncle Lieut. Geo. Wood, and at the time lying in Horseley Bay. In the following May he removed to the Rifleman 12, Lieut.-Commander Wm. Napier; and in July, 1807, after having served in that vessel off Boulogne, where he came into repeated contact with the enemy’s flotilla, he was received on board the Leyden 64, Capt. Wm. Cumberland. In her he accompanied the ensuing expedition against Copenhagen. In May, 1808, he was again placed under the command of his uncle in the Turbulent 14; and on 9 of the following month he had the misfortune, while in escort of convoy, to be captured, after a gallant defence of two hours and a half, by a Danish flotilla, near the south end of Saltholm. In July of the same year, having regained his liberty, he joined the Orion 74, Capt. Sir Arch. Collingwood Dickson, on the Baltic station, where we find him present in an attack made upon the island of Eastholm. During the subsequent operations in the Walcheren, he assisted in landing the troops, and was employed, in command of the ship’s pinnace, in supplying the gun-boats with ammunition in the attack upon Camvere. From the Leyden Mr. Wood was transferred, in May, 1811, to the Goshawk 16, Capt. Jas. Lilburn. On 7 Sept. following the latter vessel, in company with the Barbadoes 24, chased into Calvados seven French gun-brigs (one of which was driven on shore), mounting 3 long 24-pounders and a mortar each, and manned with 75 men. She was in company, the next day, with the Hotspur 36, Capt. Hon. Josceline Percy, when two more of the same vessels were compelled to run on shore, and one of them sunk. From Dec. 1811 until Oct. 1814, Mr. Wood served in Basque Roads and the Mediterranean in the Pompée 74, Capt. Jas. Athol Wood; and from the latter period until presented in March, 1815, with a commission dated 13 of the preceding month, he was employed in the Channel as Master’s Mate in the Cephalus 18, Capt. John Furneaux. In one of the Pompée’s boats he shared in an attack made on a French national schooner in Basque Roads. He was engaged in the same ship In Sir Edw. Pellew’s partial action with the Toulon fleet 5 Nov. 1813; on which occasion she threw several broadsides into the Agamemnon 74.
From the commencement of the peace until Dec. 1839 Lieut. Wood was employed in the Merchant service. He was then appointed Lloyd’s Surveyor of Shipping at Bristol.