Richard Wood

Sir Richard Wood (1806 – 31 July 1900) was a British dragoman and consul in Constantinople, Damascus, and Tunis.

Wood's career spanned more than forty years of the Eastern question period, when the Ottoman Empire was in decline and the British were gaining power in the Middle East and North Africa. He was a key figure in Anglo-Ottoman co-operation between the 1830s and the 1870s.

Early life Wood was born in Constantinople in 1806, the son of George Wood, a British dragoman, and his wife Lucia Privileggio. He grew up there and in Exeter,

Fluent in Turkish, French, Greek, and Italian, and having a good understanding of the Ottoman Empire, Wood agreed to follow his father's career. He returned home to Constantinople soon after leaving school, and his father was able to secure a position for him with the local factory of the Levant Company as a giovane di lingua, or trainee dragoman.

Wood's mother had died in 1821. His father, who had been born in England in 1780, died in Constantinople in 1834.

Career In 1831, Wood was posted to Ottoman 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 First 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.

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 In 1865, Wood was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath, and in 1879 he was created a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George. a son, Cecil Godfrey Wood (1852–1906), and a daughter Mary Leontine Wood (1862–1917), born in Algeria. In 1883, she married the future Sir Edward Wheler, 12th Baronet.

After his retirement, Wood lived in Nice, a historically Italian city in the south of France, and at Leghorn, in Italy, but also spent summers with a daughter in La Goulette, Tunisia. He died in Bagni di Lucca, a small town in Tuscany, on 31 July 1900, aged 94. His widow died in Paris on 9 March 1902, aged 72.

In 1885, Wood was reported to be a member of the Travellers Club in Pall Mall, Westminster.