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Sir Richard Wood KCMG CB (1806–1900) was a British dragoman and consul in Syria and Tunisia, at a time when the Ottoman Empire was in retreat and the British were gaining influence in the Middle East and North Africa.

Early life

Wood was born in 1806, the son of a British dragoman in Constantinople, and grew up there and in Exeter, where he was educated at a boarding school, which he left in 1823. Fluent in Turkish, French, Greek, and Italian, and having a good understanding of the Ottoman Empire, he at first followed his father's career by becoming a dragoman.

Career

In 1831, Wood was posted to Syria, to learn Arabic, but with the undercover task of finding ways to undermine the government of Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt. In 1832, during the Egyptian–Ottoman War, he went to observe the siege of Acre, where he saw Ibrahim himself in command, and reported that he had taken him at first sight for a cook.

In 1834, when Egypt gained formal authority in Syria, Wood returned to Constantinople, where he had talks with Lord Ponsonby, the British ambassador, about how Ibrahim might be brought down and the increasing Russian influence over the Ottomans undermined.

In August 1835, during the Syrian Peasant Revolt against Ibrahim, triggered by heavy conscription and taxation, Wood returned to Syria and tried unsuccessfully to persuade Bashir Shihab II, ruler of the Mount Lebanon Emirate, to support it. He then went to Kurdistan to observe a punitive campaign by the Ottomans against the Kurdish Mir Muhammad Bey, who was supported by Russia. Wood had a series of setbacks when he went down with small-pox in Aleppo and in Mosul caught typhoid. He was also wounded in the knee by a tribesman's lance and gained a head wound which permanently damaged his eyesight. In Kurdistan, he met Muhammad, who claimed that he had never heard of England, but agreed to go to Constantinople and negotiate with the Sultan Mahmud II.

In 1840 Wood returned to Syria, this time with both British and Ottoman instructions, in support of a revolt by the Druzes and Maronites against Muhammad Ali of Egypt. A joint naval intervention by Austria, Great Britain, and the Ottomans in September 1840 led to the Ottomans regaining Syria in October, and Wood became a powerful man there. Thanks largely to him, the British had more influence in the region than any other power. In 1841, Wood was formally appointed as British consul in Damascus. He later played a significant part in the Maronite-Druze wars of 1842 and 1845.

In 1857 Wood left Syria take up the post of British consul to Tunis. He was Consul-General to Tunisia until 1879.

Following the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, the prestige of France was badly damaged, and both Britain and the newly-unified Kingdom of Italy wished to strengthen their influence in Tunisia. The Italians failed, but Wood was more successful. To limit the influence of the French, in 1871 he was able to secure the reinstatement of Tunisia as a province of the Ottoman Empire, with the autonomy of the Beys of Tunis guaranteed.

Honours

By 1880, Wood had been created a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George and a Companion of the Order of the Bath.

Personal life

In 1850, Wood married Christina Godfrey, a daughter of Sir William Godfrey, 3rd Baronet. They had one daughter, Helen Isabella.

Notes

1. ^ Ozan Ozavci, "A Forgotten Hero? Sir Richard Wood’s Most Adventurous Decade in the Levant", University of Utrecht, 2023, accessed 31 December 2023
2. J. D. Fage, The Cambridge History of Africa (Cambridge University Press, 1975, ISBN 9780521228039), p. 179
3. ^ Debrett's illustrated baronetage and knightage (and companionage) of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (London: Debrett's, 1880), p. 183

• 1806 births
• 1900 deaths