Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Wood, Henry Evelyn
WOOD, Sir HENRY EVELYN (1838–1919), field-marshal, the youngest son of the Rev. Sir John Page Wood, second baronet, rector of St. Peter's, Cornhill, London, and vicar of Cressing, Essex, by his wife, Caroline, youngest daughter of Admiral Sampson Michell, of Croft West, Cornwall, was born at Cressing 9 February 1838. He was sent to Marlborough College, and entered the royal navy as a midshipman in 1852. In 1854 he was in the Queen in the Black Sea during the Crimean War. In that war he served ashore with the naval brigade, took part in the battle of Inkermann, was in the trenches before Sebastopol, and was wounded in the assault on the Redan (18 June 1855) while acting as aide-de-camp to Captain Peel, commander of the brigade. Finding service ashore more to his taste, Wood applied to be transferred to the army and received a commission as cornet in the 13th Light Dragoons. During the Crimean War he was twice mentioned in dispatches, and on its conclusion he received the medal with two clasps, became a knight of the legion of honour and a member of the 5th class of the Medjidie, and obtained the Turkish medal—not a bad beginning for a youth of seventeen.
In 1857 Wood transferred to the 17th Lancers, and in the following year went with his regiment to India to take part in the suppression of the Mutiny. From May 1858 until October 1860 he was employed in the operations in central India, chiefly with a regiment of native cavalry which he raised and commanded. He was mentioned in dispatches for great gallantry in the action of Sindwaha (19 October 1858) and received the V.C. for routing, with ten men, a party of eighty rebels at Sindhara (29 December 1859). On becoming a captain in the 17th Lancers (April 1861) he was, after some delay, made brevet major (August 1862) for his services during the Mutiny. In 1862 he passed the entrance examination for the Staff College, but, as another officer of the 17th Lancers had passed above him and only one officer at a time could be at the college from one cavalry regiment, he transferred in October 1862 to the 73rd Foot. On passing out of the Staff College (1864) he obtained a succession of staff appointments. In 1867 he married the Hon. Mary Paulina Anne Southwell, a sister of the fourth Viscount Southwell; there were three sons and three daughters of the marriage. In 1871 Wood purchased a majority in the 90th Light Infantry, being one of the last officers to obtain promotion in this way, and in January 1873 he was promoted brevet lieutenant-colonel in consequence of his seniority as a brevet major. A few months later, when the crimes of Koffee, king of Ashanti, demanded punishment, it was decided to send an expedition under Sir Garnet (afterwards Viscount) Wolseley [q.v.] to the Gold Coast. Wolseley, in his search for officers of ability and energy, had come across Wood, and took him to Ashanti as special service officer. Wolseley desired to expose British troops for as short a time as possible to the fevers of the West coast, and the preliminary work of the campaign fell to the native levies, of whom Wood raised and commanded a regiment. At Amoaful, the chief action in the campaign, he commanded the right attack and was slightly wounded (January 1874); he was also present at the capture of the Ashanti capital, Kumassi. On the conclusion of the campaign he received the C.B. and was promoted brevet colonel. After three years on the staff at Aldershot, he went (1878) with his regiment to South Africa, where he was to make his name, already known in the army, familiar to the general public.
At that time the conflicting interests of Briton, Boer, and native had caused general unrest throughout South Africa. Wood went out with Lieutenant-General Thesiger, afterwards second Baron Chelmsford [q.v.], and their first task was the suppression of a rising of the Gaikas in the north-east of Cape Colony. In this campaign Wood commanded a column with the ability and resolution which the army had learned to expect of him. Hardly was this work completed, when the rising of the Zulus under Cetywayo took place. In the invasion of Zululand Wood was again in command of a column, which escaped the disaster of Isandhlwana (22 January 1879). This disaster to one column made the position of the others precarious, but Wood's resolution was unshaken. Having occupied with his force the Kambula Mountain he sallied out to attack the Zulus in Inhlobana (28 March), and after defeating them returned the next day to Kambula, where he beat off a determined attack. This gave Lord Chelmsford, as Thesiger had now become, time to reorganize and receive reinforcements, and a fresh invasion of Zululand ended in the complete defeat of Cetywayo's army at Ulundi (4 July). During this campaign the Prince Imperial, the only son of Napoleon III, was killed, while on a reconnaissance, in circumstances which were not creditable to the officer in charge of the party. Wood, who had a great affection for the young prince, conducted the Empress Eugénie to Zululand (1880) to see the place where her son had been killed, and so began a friendship which lasted until Wood's death. For his services in the Zulu War Wood was many times mentioned in dispatches and was created K.C.B. (1879).
After a short interval in command at Chatham, Wood was again sent to Natal early in 1881. The Boers of the Transvaal, resentful of the terms of the annexation of 1877, had revolted, and a field force under Sir George Pomeroy Colley [q.v.] was sent to Natal. Wood served as Colley's second in command, but was not present when Colley was killed and a portion of his force driven from Majuba Hill (27 February 1881). Again, as after Isandhlwana, it fell to Wood to retrieve a dangerous situation. The British troops were shaken by the death of their commander and by the losses at Majuba Hill, and Wood informed the government that he could not attack the Boers with success for some weeks. Strong feeling was expressed in England that no settlement should be concluded with the Boers until the disgrace of Majuba had been wiped out; but Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet was not disposed to subordinate peace to the restoration of military prestige, and directed Wood to open negotiations with the Boers. Wood, after pointing out to the government that he could attack the Boers successfully by the middle of March, loyally carried out his instructions, came to terms with the Boers on 21 March 1881, and was thereafter appointed one of the royal commissioners for the settlement of the Transvaal. He was attacked by the parliamentary opposition for being a party to what they termed a disgraceful surrender, but maintained stoutly that in matters of policy a soldier's duty is to carry out the orders of his government unless in his opinion the safety of his troops would be prejudiced by doing so, a question which in this instance did not arise.
On the conclusion of the work of the royal commission, Wood left for good what he termed ‘the land of his fortunes’, and resumed command at Chatham in February 1882. He was promoted major-general and created G.C.M.G. for his work in the Transvaal. During his command at Chatham (Sir) William Robert Robertson, who later was to succeed to Wood's baton as field-marshal, served as a lance-corporal in the 3rd Dragoons in charge of his mounted orderlies. In August 1882, on the outbreak of Arabi Pasha's rebellion in Egypt, Wood went out with Sir Garnet Wolseley in command of the 4th brigade, and had the dull but anxious task of keeping the Egyptian forces around Alexandria occupied, while Wolseley, with the main body, went down the Suez Canal to Ismailia and Tel-el-Kebir. In December 1882 he was appointed first British sirdar of the Egyptian army, which had been disbanded after the rebellion and which it was his task to recreate. This he did in a remarkably short space of time, and the foundations which he laid have endured. The greater part of the force with which (Lord) Kitchener defeated the Mahdi at Omdurman was organized in the main on the lines designed by Wood. While he was still in Egypt, General Gordon was isolated and besieged in Khartoum; and in September 1884, when Lord Wolseley came out to attempt the relief of Gordon, Wood was appointed to the command of the long and difficult line of communications.
On the conclusion of the Nile campaign, Wood came home to be appointed, first, in April 1886, to the Eastern command with head-quarters at Colchester, and later, in January 1889, to the Aldershot command. Both at Colchester and at Aldershot he was busily engaged in giving practical application to Lord Wolseley's plans for modernizing the training of the army by abolishing useless drill and ceremonies and giving much greater attention to exercises in the field. At the same time he did much to improve the conditions of the soldier's life. In 1891 he became lieutenant-general and was created G.C.B. In 1893 he went to the War Office as quartermaster-general, and was responsible for a complete reorganization of the system of transporting troops. He abolished the old transports and instead entered into contracts with the great shipping companies, not only effecting a considerable economy, but adding greatly to the comfort of the troops conveyed overseas. He also made new and more economical arrangements with the railway companies, and incidentally obtained many valued concessions for officers and men proceeding on leave. In October 1897 he became adjutant-general to the forces, and in that position was responsible for the mobilization on the outbreak of the South African War (1899–1901) and for the raising of the large number of new formations which that war required. In October 1901 he was appointed to the command of the Second Army Corps, with head-quarters at Salisbury, and was responsible for organizing that command, which had developed out of the purchase of a great part of Salisbury Plain for military training. This was Wood's last active command. He had been promoted full general in 1895, and in 1903 was created field-marshal.
Throughout his life Wood was a keen and bold rider to hounds and he hunted almost down to his death. On becoming prime warden of the Fishmongers' Company in 1893 he invited thirty-five masters of hounds to dine with the company. He was a regular contributor to the military magazines, and published, among other books, The Crimea in 1854 and in 1894 (1895), Cavalry in the Waterloo Campaign (1896), Achievements of Cavalry (1897), and From Midshipman to Field-Marshal (1906). He died 2 December 1919 at Harlow, Essex.
There is a portrait by W. W. Ouless in the hall of the Fishmongers' Company (Royal Academy Pictures, 1906).
[From Midshipman to Field-Marshal, 1906; J. Morley, Life of W. E. Gladstone, 1903; D. Moodie, History of the Battles and Adventures of the British, Boers, and Zulus in South Africa to 1880, Cape Town, 1888.]