Obituary

1920, September 23rd

Sir Lindsay Wood, first baronet, for over 40 years president of the Durham Coalowners' Association, died yesterday at the Hermitage, Chester-le-Street, at the age of 86.

Sir Lindsay Wood came of a family which has held a leading place in the history of the Durham and Northumberland coal trade for nearly a century. His father, Nicholas Wood, was colliery viewer at Killingworth in 1819, when George Stephenson, who was enginewright at the same pit, apprenticed his son Robert to him. The Wood Memorial Hall at Newcastle-on-Tyne is a reminder of the esteem in which Nicholas Wood was held by all classes in the North of England at his death in 1866. Of his four sons, who all made names for themselves in the coal industry, Sir Lindsay Wood was the youngest and last survivor. He was born at Killingworth Hall in 1834, and educated at the Royal Kepier Grammar School, Houghton-le-Spring, and King's College, London. After serving his apprenticeship as a mining engineer at the Hetton Collieries, of which his father was then manager, he received his first appointment in 1858 as viewer at North Hetton Colliery, becoming shortly afterwards assistant manager to his father, and then viewer, at the Hetton Collieries. On his father's death in 1866 he became managing director of the Hetton Collieries, and continued to occupy this position down to the sale of the undertaking to Lord Joicey's firm in 1911. Sir Lindsay Wood was also managing partner of the North Hetton Coal Company and managing director of the Harton Coal Company, and was on the board of John Bowes and Partners, the Netherton Coal Company, the Newcastle Electric Supply Company, the Durham Collieries Electric Supply Company, the Hendon Paper Works, and the north-Eastern Railway Company. He was also mining engineer to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and to the Greenwich Hospital. He rendered useful service on various Royal Commissions, among them that on Accidents in Mines, 1870-86, and that on Coal Supplies, 1903-05. He was president of the Northern Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers from 1875 to 1878. As chairman of the Durham Coalowners' Association, he won the confidence of the miners' leaders as well as of the coalowners. He was also chairman of the North of England United Coal Trade Association and of the Durham Colliery Owners' Mutual Protection Association. Before the passing of the Education Act of 1870 he had himself provided an efficient system of elementary schools in the neighbourhood of his own collieries, and his consideration for the well-being of those dependent on him showed itself in countless ways.

He was an active supporter of the Unionist cause, president of the party organisation in the Houghton-le-Spring Division, and chairman of the Durham County Division of the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations. He was a Justice of the Pease and a Deputy-Lieutenant, and was Sheriff in 1889. He was created a baronet in 1897.

Sir Lindsay Wood married in 1873, Emma, fourth daughter of the late Captain Samuel G. Barrett, of Heighington Hall, near Darlington. She died in 1891, leaving four sons and two daughters. The eldest, who succeeds to the baronetcy, is Mr. Arthur Nicholas Lindsay Wood, born in 1875. Mr. Wood is a mining engineer, and was formerly a captain on the Northumberland (Territorial) Artillery.

Source: The Times