On This Day

29 November 1801

Birth of William Page Wood, 1st Baron Hatherley, Gladstone’s first Lord Chancellor

William Page Wood was educated at Winchester where he was expelled for his involvement in a revolt against the Headmaster, Geneva and Trinity College Cambridge. He was called to the Bar in 1824 and became a QC in 1845. In 1847 Wood was elected as Liberal MP for Oxford. He served as Solicitor General from 1851-2. In 1868 Gladstone appointed him Lord Chancellor in his first administration. Failing eyesight forced his retirement in 1872 but he continued to sit as a Law Lord until his death in 1881.