WOODD, Basil Thomas (1815-1895), of Thorpe Green, nr. Knaresborough, Yorks.; later of Conyngham Hall, Knaresborough, Yorks.

From a metropolitan commercial background, Woodd became Conservative MP for Knaresborough after acquiring a local country seat. He made a limited impact in the chamber, but became an active and well-respected committee-man.

The Woodds could trace their Yorkshire roots back to 1450, although the family had moved to Shinewood, Shropshire before 1525.1Pedigrees and memorials of the family of Woodd (1875), 3; Burke’s LG (1886), ii. 2032. Their property in Shropshire and Oxfordshire had been lost as a result of their loyalty to the crown during the Civil War.2F.E. Baines (ed.), Records of the manor, parish, and borough of Hampstead (1890), 498. On the morning of his execution Charles I gave his Garter star as a ‘parting memorial’ to Woodd’s great-great-great-grandfather, Captain Basil Woodd, and this passed through the family to Woodd.3Pedigrees and memorials, 5. Captain Basil Woodd’s father was Dr. Basil Woodd, chancellor of Rochester, who died while with the king at Oxford in 1644. Woodd’s father, Basil George Woodd (1781-1872), was born in Croydon, but lived in Yorkshire as a boy. Originally destined for a seafaring career, he instead took a position at the war office, but subsequently refused ‘a good post in the Treasury’ and became a wine merchant.4Baines, Records of Hampstead, 497-8. The ‘father of the London wine trade’, he lived from 1826 in Hampstead,5Ibid., 498. where his wealth enabled him to purchase Hillfield House and Belsize Park in 1841.6F.M.L. Thompson, Hampstead. Building a Borough, 1650-1964 (1974), 97-8. The Belsize estate cost him £4,600. In 1857 he negotiated with the dean and chapter of Westminster to transfer this property to them in exchange for the freehold on Hillfield: Ibid., 279, 287. Woodd, who qualified as a barrister in 1841, but never practised,7The handbook of the court; the peerage; and the House of Commons (1862), 227. became a partner in the family firm, Messrs. Basil Woodd and Sons, of New Bond Street, but it is unclear how practical a role he took, particularly after moving to Yorkshire in the early 1840s.8Yorkshire Herald, 8 June 1895. His younger brothers, Robert Ballard Woodd (1816-1901) and Charles Henry Lardner Woodd (1821-93), appear to have been more active, and inherited their father’s interest in the wine business on his death in 1872.9The Times, 22 Nov. 1872; Thompson, Hampstead, 292. A mortgage document of 1845 relating to property at Adlingfleet, Yorks., listed Woodd as ‘of Great Cumberland Street, esquire’ and his brother Robert as ‘of New Bond Street, Middlesex, wine merchant’: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/A2A/records.aspx?cat=047-ddcl_1&cid=2-22-10#2-22-10

Woodd became a magistrate for the West Riding in 1842 and for the North Riding the following year, giving ‘regular attendance’ on the bench.10H. Speight, Nidderdale and the garden of the Nid: a Yorkshire Rhineland (1894), 314. In 1844, when he declared ‘the necessity of opposing the mischievous designs of the [Anti-Corn Law] League by every legitimate means’, he was recorded as owning ‘considerable property’ around Adlingfleet in the East Riding.11York Herald, 24 Feb. 1844. He was resident at Aldborough in 1845 when he testified before the committee on the Leeds and Thirsk railway bill.12The Times, 24 May 1845. He moved to Thorpe Green, near Boroughbridge, some time before 1850,13Yorkshire Herald, 8 June 1895; Hull Packet, 1 Feb. 1850. He was living at Thorpe Green at the time of his return in 1852. and in September 1856 purchased Conyngham Hall, near Knaresborough.14Leeds Mercury, 13 Aug. 1887; J.H. Coghill, The family of Coghill, 1377 to 1879 (1879), 19. The property was formerly known as Coghill Hall. By the 1880s his Yorkshire estates totalled 2,500 acres.15J. Bateman, The great landowners of Great Britain and Ireland (4th edn., 1883), 488.

Woodd stood as a Conservative at Knaresborough in 1852 after another candidate withdrew. He abandoned his previous stance on the corn laws, stating that he would not support the re-imposition of protection, although he would ‘willingly assist’ any effort to relieve the agricultural interest without injuring another class. He favoured ‘economy and retrenchment’ and ‘all practicable reforms’ in the courts of law and equity.16Huddersfield Chronicle, 17 Apr. 1852. He repeated these sentiments on the hustings, where he also cited his local residence. An Anglican, he wished to uphold the Church ‘against all foreign aggression’ and to see education based on religion, but advocated ‘the enjoyment of civil religious liberty’.17Morning Post, 9 July 1852. The poll ended with Woodd and two Liberals, John Dent and Joshua Westhead, each securing 113 votes. The returning officer made a triple return, leaving the matter to be settled by the Commons.18Hull Packet, 16 July 1852. Woodd subsequently presented one of several petitions against the result.19Bradford Observer, 14 Apr. 1853. Negotiations between the parties resulted in an agreement that the election committee should be asked to strike an invalid vote off Westhead’s total, following which it declared Woodd and Dent duly elected, 23 Apr. 1853.20PP 1852-53 (394), xiv. 73.

Woodd took his seat, 26 Apr. 1853, and cast his first vote in the division lobbies the following day.21Morning Chronicle, 27 Apr. 1853. He later told his constituents that had he been present before this, he would have voted for the further extension of free trade, as ‘any man who could wish to return to the old system of protection must be insane’.22Leeds Mercury, 28 Mar. 1857. Demonstrating his commitment to the new fiscal status quo, he voted for Gladstone’s budget, 2 May 1853. A fairly diligent attender, present for 69 out of 257 divisions in the 1853 session and 99 out of 198 in 1856, he otherwise generally voted with the Conservatives, consistently opposing the abolition of church rates and the ballot.23Daily News, 21 Sept. 1853; J.P. Gassiot, Third letter to J.A. Roebuck: with a full analysis of the divisions in the House of Commons during the last session of Parliament (1857), 23. He divided for Roebuck’s motion for an inquiry into the condition of the army before Sebastopol, 29 Jan. 1855, going to London ‘at great personal inconvenience’ to do so, as he later informed his constituents.24Leeds Mercury, 28 Mar. 1857. Woodd misremembered the date of Roebuck’s January 1855 division, stating that it had been at the end of 1854. He also voted for Disraeli’s critical motion on the Crimean war, 25 May, but was absent from Roebuck’s later motion, 19 July 1855. He divided in the minority for Richard Spooner’s motion against the Maynooth grant, 15 Apr. 1856. Having voted for Richard Cobden’s censure motion regarding the government’s policy on Canton, 3 Mar. 1857, he subsequently denied that his opposition was ‘factious’, and contended that ‘as to the insult to the flag, there were many ample remedies for that without shelling a city’.25Ibid. He does not appear to have served on any select committees during this Parliament, nor did he contribute to debate. He did, however, bring in private bill legislation, such as road bills relating to Knaresborough.26Leeds Mercury, 5 Feb. 1856. He also presented petitions, including one against the unconditional abolition of church rates, 30 Apr. 1856,27Morning Chronicle, 1 May 1856. and joined deputations such as that on the formation of an art union for Yorkshire.28Huddersfield Chronicle, 10 Mar. 1855.

Seeking re-election in 1857, when he was commended to voters as ‘a Conservative of the moderate school’, Woodd declared that ‘all the pledges – pledges they were not, but promises – he had made to them, he had faithfully kept’. Alongside his commitment to free trade, he wished to see national expenditure brought within ‘a reasonable limit’ and income tax reduced. He endorsed the system of education grants, but suggested that larger grants be given to areas where it was difficult to collect school fees. Having voted against the premier on Canton, he observed that ‘he could not say he was a supporter of Lord Palmerston; but he would always support him in measures which he believed were right, – and he was very often right’.29Leeds Mercury, 28 Mar. 1857. He and another local Conservative easily defeated a Liberal outsider.

Woodd initially voted with Palmerston on the conspiracy to murder question, 9 Feb. 1858, but opposed him in the critical vote of 17 Feb. In March 1858 he accompanied a deputation to the home secretary on the licensing of beer-houses.30Leeds Mercury, 27 Mar. 1858. He continued to be a consistent opponent of parliamentary reform, but rallied behind the Derby ministry’s reform bill, 31 Mar. 1859. Once again, he backed Spooner’s anti-Maynooth motion, 29 Apr. 1858. Although he did not break his silence in the chamber, he served on the select committee which considered the use of tribunals of commerce to improve the administration of justice in cases relating to commercial distress.31PP 1857-58 (413), xvi. 513. The committee did not conclude its deliberations. He comfortably topped the poll at the 1859 general election, but he and his Conservative colleague had to make a hasty retreat following the declaration, being ‘caught by the mob and subjected to a course of very rude treatment’. They escaped through a shop, and ‘finally found their way home over the tops of high walls and houses’.32Bradford Observer, 5 May 1859.

Woodd’s voting habits remained unchanged, routinely opposing the abolition of church rates, the Maynooth grant, the ballot and electoral reform. He also divided against the abolition of religious tests at Oxford university, 16 Mar. 1864. He made his first contributions to debate in 1860, defending the interests of wine merchants. He asked questions on the wine duties, 23, 27 Feb. 1860, warning on the latter occasion that the retrospective application of a new level of duties might open the door to fraud, and contending that ‘the wine trade did not ask for any favour, but merely justice’. He again displayed his knowledge of his family business when commenting on the details of the refreshment houses and wine licences bill in May 1860.33Woodd made interventions on this measure on 10, 14 and 17 May 1860. In 1861 a new phase of Woodd’s parliamentary career began when he was appointed to the general committee on railway and canal bills.34PP 1861 (0.97), l. 462. Thereafter he generally chaired the committees on two or three groups of private bills each session, acquiring ‘great experience in engineering questions’.35PP 1865 (393), vii. 170, 176. He spoke in debate on the Great Eastern railway (steamboats) bill, 16 July 1863, on which he had chaired the committee, denying reports that he was the source of opposition, but nonetheless urging the House to think carefully about whether it should abandon its prohibition on railway companies operating steamboats.

In 1863 Woodd became a director of the London and Northern Bank, founded the previous year,36The Times, 22 Nov. 1862; Daily News, 8 May 1863. which suffered ‘a chequered existence’.37R. Welford, Men of mark ‘twixt Tyne and Tweed (3 vols., 1895), iii. 564. Having made a loss of over £53,000, it was wound up in December 1864, at a meeting which Woodd chaired ‘with some feeling of mortification’.38The Standard, 17 Dec. 1864. He was among the directors who each personally offered £10,000 towards the bank’s liabilities. Some of its branches were taken over by the Midland Bank, whose board Woodd joined.39Ibid. He also took 500 shares in the bank. He remained a director of the Midland Banking Company for many years, and was chairman in 1880.40The Times, 21 July 1880. In later life he was also chairman of the Yorkshire Penny Savings Bank.41Yorkshire Herald, 2 Mar. 1891. Alongside these business interests, Woodd took an active part in Knaresborough’s public life, particularly supporting causes connected with the Anglican church.42He laid the foundation stone of Holy Trinity church in 1854 and later donated £20 towards its organ. In 1861 and again in 1872 he gave £100 towards the repair of Ripon cathedral. He also served on the board of management for the diocesan training schools for York and Ripon: Leeds Mercury, 12 Aug. 1854, 26 Apr. 1860, 24 Oct. 1872; Blackburn Standard, 9 Oct. 1861; York Herald, 1 Nov. 1862. He also chaired the committee which oversaw the formation of the local rifle corps in 1860.43Leeds Mercury, 14 Feb. 1860.

Seeking re-election in 1865 Woodd addressed his first public meeting in Knaresborough for six years. Noting that he had had many private opportunities to hear ‘any objections they had’ to his parliamentary conduct, he condemned ‘the system which now so generally prevailed of annual meetings between electors and members, upon the principle that when he was sent to Parliament he went there not as a delegate but as a representative, and not bound to answer at certain intervals as to the course he took’. Although he opposed many of Gladstone’s policies, he was pleased to see the national finances ‘in a flourishing condition’, and unlike many of his party wished to retain the malt tax as a valuable source of revenue. He favoured a non-interventionist foreign policy. He considered lowering the franchise ‘a most dangerous step to take’, both in relation to Baines’s £6 borough franchise bill and Locke King’s £10 county franchise bill, and reiterated his opposition to the ballot. On the thorny question of church rates he professed support for a plan to relieve Dissenters.44Leeds Mercury, 24 June 1865. On the hustings he added that he would consider a government reform measure which would extend the franchise ‘in such a manner as would not degrade the Constitution’ and voiced fears that ‘clever but designing men’ would induce the working classes ‘to send members to Parliament who would do no good there’.45Leeds Mercury, 14 July 1865. He again topped the poll.

Woodd divided against the Liberal ministry’s reform bill, 27 Apr. 1866. He generally followed the Conservative leaders into the division lobby on the major clauses of their reform bill in 1867. He was among 70 Conservatives who divided for Laing’s amendment for the partial disfranchisement of one MP from boroughs with populations under 10,000, 31 May 1867 – thereby depriving Knaresborough of one seat – but resisted the complete disfranchisement of boroughs of under 5,000 people, 3 June 1867, a threshold which Knaresborough only marginally exceeded.46Daily News, 3 June 1867. It had been reported in May that he would bring a motion to add Harrogate to the Knaresborough constituency, but he abandoned this in July: Leeds Mercury, 25 May 1867; York Herald, 13 July 1867. Woodd continued to oppose the abolition of church rates, 7 Mar. 1866, and divided against Gladstone on the Irish church, 3 Apr. 1868. He made only one brief intervention in the chamber, regarding procedures on private bills, 17 Mar. 1868, but remained active in the committee-rooms, particularly on railway bills. He served on and gave expert testimony to the select committee which assessed the merits of the court of referees created to simplify proceedings on private bills.47PP 1865 (393), vii. 170. He was also a member of the committee which considered the provisions made by Parliament to ensure that railway projects were completed on time, as well as those on the assessment of poor rates and on the turnpike trusts bill.48PP 1867 (302), viii. 598; PP 1867-68 (342), xiii. 119; PP 1867 (352), xii. 710.

Woodd’s decision to step down at the 1868 general election was ascribed by later accounts to ‘ill-health’,49The Times, 6 June 1895; The Graphic, 15 June 1895. but his retiring address also cited ‘the want of support in quarters from which I had a right to expect it’.50Daily News, 14 Aug. 1868. Woodd’s father died in 1872, leaving £120,000.51The Times, 22 Nov. 1872. Woodd took on his Hillfield estate in Hampstead,52Thompson, Hampstead, 240. which he continued to develop.53VCH Mdx., (1989), ix. 51-60. He donated the site for a vestry hall in 1878 and built properties fronting Belsize Avenue in 1883. He also inherited properties in Yorkshire, which remained his main sphere of activity.54The Times, 22 Nov. 1872. He retained various business interests, being chairman of the London Central railway company and a director of the Law Life Assurance Society and the Legal and General Insurance Company.55The Times, 4 Dec. 1871, 17 June 1880; Yorkshire Herald, 6 June 1895. He served on the council of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society, and was president in 1884.56Bradford Observer, 16 Dec. 1874; York Herald, 19 Dec. 1883. He was the society’s senior vice-president at the time of his death: Yorkshire Herald, 19 July 1895.

In 1874 Woodd was re-elected for Knaresborough. He was chairman of the general committee on railway and canal bills, 1876-80.57The Times, 19 Jan. 1893. Narrowly defeated at the 1880 general election, he petitioned against the result, unseating the Liberal MP.58York Herald, 24 July 1880. In evidence to a royal commission on Knaresborough’s electoral affairs, he admitted that there had been corrupt practices on his behalf at past contests, observing that ‘in the election of 1852, he would not like to say what amount of money was spent for him in treating’.59Daily News, 18 Oct. 1880. Although he did not stand again, he remained politically engaged, serving as president of the Knaresborough and District Conservative Association.60Yorkshire Herald, 13 June 1895.

Thereafter Woodd took an increasingly significant role in local government. Having previously served as deputy chairman of the West Riding quarter sessions, he became chairman in 1885, reluctantly retiring in 1892 when he began having difficulties hearing witnesses, although he remained a magistrate.61Leeds Mercury, 7 Apr. 1885; Huddersfield Chronicle, 5 Apr. 1892. In 1889 he was elected to represent Knaresborough on the new West Riding county council, and was then selected as an alderman, serving until his death.62The Times, 23 Jan., 9 Feb. 1889. There were moves to appoint him as the council’s provisional chairman, but Lord Ripon was chosen instead: Ibid., 8 Feb. 1889. He chaired the Knaresborough bench, its board of health and (from 1894) its urban district council,63Leeds Mercury, 25 Feb. 1890; Yorkshire Herald, 8, 13 June 1895. and was chairman of the North Riding Asylum at York until 1889.64York Herald, 30 Mar. 1889.

Having been ‘in feeble health’ and suffering from ‘chronic rheumatism’ for some time, Woodd in 1895 spent five weeks at Bath in the hope of alleviating an ‘ailment in his legs’.65Yorkshire Herald, 6, 8 June 1895. He sought further medical advice in London,66Yorkshire Herald, 8 June 1895. but died ‘very suddenly’ that June at his brother Robert’s house at Woodlands, Hampstead,67The Times, 8 June 1895. after being ‘seized with a fit of apoplexy’.68S.M. Kingsford, Psychical research for the plain man (1920), 163. He was buried in the family vault at Knaresborough parish church, where he was also commemorated with an organ screen.69Yorkshire Herald, 13 June 1895; North-Eastern Daily Gazette, 5 Aug. 1895. He left personal estate valued at £61,881.70Morning Post, 21 Dec. 1895. His three sons had all predeceased him, and he was succeeded by his grandson, Basil Aubrey Hollond Woodd (1869-1949), the son of his eldest son, Rev. Basil Kilvington Woodd (1842-1886). His will made generous provision for his three surviving daughters, as well as providing numerous bequests for other relatives.71His only married daughter, Eleanor Jane Mitton, received £2,000, as did his daughter-in-law, Ann Downing Woodd. Woodd’s unmarried daughters, Frances Louisa and Katherine Isabella, received settlements totalling around £20,000 and the residue of the estate. He left several charitable legacies, giving £1,000 to Harrogate Bath Hospital, and £500 each to Harrogate Cottage Hospital, the Ripon Diocesan Societies, the Ripon Diocesan Victoria Society, and to Knaresborough’s vicar and churchwardens to establish a parish hospital.72Morning Post, 21 Dec. 1895. He was remembered as ‘one of the mainstays of Knaresborough’ and ‘a pattern of the fine old English gentleman’.73Yorkshire Herald, 8, 10 June 1895.