Thomas Wood

Who was Thomas Wood?

Thomas Wood was an English composer and author.

Wood studied at the University of Oxford and the Royal College of Music. In 1919 he was appointed Director of Music at Tonbridge School in Kent, returning to Oxford in 1924 to teach at Exeter College. During this period he composed several choral-orchestral works including Forty Singing Seamen, Master Mariners and The Ballad of Hampstead Heath. He went to Australia in 1930 and spent over two years travelling across the country. This prompted him to write his book Cobbers which the Australian Dictionary of Biography describes as "still the most perceptive and captivating characterization of Australia and its people ever written by a visitor". He continued to compose and wrote several other books, including an autobiography, True Thomas, before his death of a heart attack in 1950.

Miss St Osyth Mahala Eustace-Smith of Wormingford married Thomas Wood in 1924 at Wormingford Church. Before her marriage, on the 7th June 1918 "The London Gazette" reported St Osyth receiving an OBE for her work as "Hon Secretary, Essex Local War Pensions Committee".