Nicholas Wood (MP)

Nicholas Wood (1832 – 24 December 1892)[1] was a British industrialist and Conservative Party politician.[2]

He was born in Killingworth, Northumberland, where his father, also Nicholas Wood, was a locomotive engineer. The family subsequently moved to Hetton-le-Hole, County Durham, where they took part in developing the coalfields.[2] Educated at Repton School, he went on to be the proprietor of a number of mines in the Hetton area, as well as having interests in shipping and other industries.[2] In 1881 he married Edith Florence Jervis of Staffordshire.[2] He was a justice of the peace and deputy lieutenant of County Durham.[2][3]

He was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Houghton-le-Spring at the 1886 general election,[4] having contested the seat unsuccessfully in 1885.[5] He was defeated at the 1892 general election.[5] He was believed to have been defeated by the votes of local miners who had been engaged in a lengthy strike and of Irish immigrants due to his opposition to Home Rule.[3] He died from typhoid fever later that year in Half Moon Street, Piccadilly, London, aged 60.[1][6] He was buried in the churchyard at Saltwood near Hythe, Kent on 29 December.[7]