Author: Wood, Wilton
Biography:
WOOD, Wilton (1805-32: Selection of Scraps)
He was born at Carlisle, Cumberland (now Cumbria), and baptised at St. Mary’s on 17 Dec. 1805, the fifth of nine children of Kelsick Wood (1771-1840), a wealthy Maryport ship builder and shipyard owner, and his second wife Mary Inman (1772-1841), who had married in 1796. (His first wife, Mary Nelson, had died in 1792 just over a year after marrying, probably due to childbirth complications.) He followed his father into the business (K. Wood & Sons) and was on his way to Whitehaven on 2 May 1832 to meet his brother Kelsick, when he died almost instantly when the phaeton he was riding in swerved off the road and crashed into a barn door. A small selection of his poems, including one on the death of his sister Agnes Maria Wood (q.v.), is printed on pp. 28-44. (A Selection of Scraps [1832]; ancestry.co.uk 30 Jul. 2022; Cumberland Pacquet 8 May 1832; Gore’s Liverpool General Advertiser 10 May 1832) AA