Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Reverend William Wood (1773 - 1808)
Minister at Mill Hill
Education and Ministry
Born on 29th May 1745, near Northampton, Reverand Wood was raised as a member of Phillip Doddridge’s nonconformist congregation at Castle Hill. He was educated in nonconformist schools in London but ultimately rejected his father’s strict Calvinist teachings and embraced Unitarianism as his faith. He would become a minister in Stamford in 1767. In 1773 he was invited to become Joseph Priestley’s successor as minister of Mill Hill Chapel. He accepted this position and began his Ministry on the 30 May 1773, and remained so until his death on 1 April 1808.
As Minister of Mill Hill, Wood released several of his sermons for his congregation’s use and studied botany, which he became well known for, contributing articles to Abraham Ree’s Cyclopedia and James Sowerby’s English Botany. He would also marry into the Oates family, a family of landowners, merchants and lawyers, and earn the respect of the Mill Hill Chapel congregation because of his enlightened ideals and his involvement in securing a safer, legal future for Unitarians.
Political Activism
Wood was heavily involved in the petition for the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts (1828). The motion for repeal was a relatively smooth process but this was because the changes were barely perceptible to those who followed the doctrine of the Church of England. The Corporation Act of 1661 and the Test Act of 1673 were designed to stop Catholic and dissenting Protestant influence in politics but also specifically targeted non-trinitarians. The laws extended to anyone who whose faith differed from that of the Church of England and barred entry into politics for those who did not follow this doctrine.
Unitarians were critical of the laws but were also vulnerable to its affects, such as imprisonment for three years if they were caught attacking or denying the doctrine of the Trinity. The extension of the Toleration Act in 1813 led them to adopting the name Unitarian and being more vocal about their beliefs, but this led to open hostilities and Unitarian demands for more legal protection.
Alongside this there were calls for Parliamentary reform to extend the political franchise and for more representation in Parliament. The Test and Corporation Acts acted as an impediment to this which affected Catholics and dissenting Protestants alike. After repeal, dissenters were invited to share in the political power that had previously being held within the Church of England, but this was met with resistance. Referred to as a ‘constitutional revolution’ by William Gladstone, the extension of rights to Catholics and Dissenters in 1828-9 was seen by some as ‘destroying’ the constitution but by others as a restoration of rights that paved the way for Parliamentary reform in 1832.
Wood and Mill Hill
Upon his death Reverend Wood was memorialised by Mrs Catherine Cappe in The Monthly Repository of Theology and General Literature. Mrs Cappe stated that “few persons had more enlightened views” and that “no one admired the English constitution” more than Reverand Wood did (Cappe, 1808, p. 232). This was exhibited in the way he peacefully petitioned for parliamentary reform and through one of his last sermons at Cloth-hall in Leeds, where he delivered a sermon petitioning for peace.
Bibliography
- Image
- Crozier, R. (nd.) William Wood. [Oil on Canvas]. Held at Mill Hill Chapel.
- Primary
- Wood, W. (nd.) A Sermon, Preached at Mill-Hill Chapel, in Leeds, on the Commencement of the Nineteenth Century. Edward Baines: London.
- Cappe, C. (1808) 'Memoir of the Late Rev. William Wood, of Leeds, By Mrs Cappe.' The Monthly Repository of Theology and General Literature. 29 (3) May.
- Secondary
- Ditchfield, G.M (1974). 'The Parliamentary Struggle over the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, 1787-90'. The English Historical Review, 89 (352) July, pp. 551-577.
- Ditchfield, G. M. (1991) 'Anti-trinitarianism and Toleration in Late Eighteenth Century British Politics: the Unitarian Petition of 1792'. Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 40 (1) January, pp. 39-67.
- Holt, R. (1952) The Unitarian Contribution to Social Progress in England. Butler and Tanner: London. 2nd Ed.
- Machin, G (1979) 'Resistance to Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, 1828' Cambridge University Press. The Historical Journal, 22(1), PP 115-139
- Wykes, D (2004). 'William Wood' [online] Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. [Accessed on: 30th November 2023]
- Wykes, D (ND). 'Legislation'. [Online] The Queen Mary Centre for Religion and Literature in English. [Accessed on: 5th November 2023]
