Alan Wood (author)

File:(Sydney) Grammar School (2363488510).jpg

Born in Chatswood, New South Wales, a suburb of the Lower North Shore of Sydney, Australia, Wood was the son of George Arnold Wood, a historian, and his wife Madeline Whitfeld. His older brother Frederick Wood later became professor of history at Victoria University College in Wellington, New Zealand.Peter Munz, [https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/5w46/wood-frederick-lloyd-whitfeld Wood, Frederick Lloyd Whitfeld], Dictionary of New Zealand Biography online edition, accessed 3 March 2025

Wood was educated at Sydney Grammar School, then at the University of Sydney, and finally from 1935 to 1938 at Balliol College, Oxford, his father's and brother's old college, where his subject was philosophy. In his final term, he was elected as President of the Oxford Union, defeating the future British prime minister Edward Heath and remaining in Oxford to serve as President in the Michaelmas term. He was the first Australian to be so elected.Bertrand Russell, "Mr. Alan Wood" (obituary), The Times, 5 November 1957, p. 13; republished in Andrew Bone, ed., The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell: Volume 29 Détente or Destruction, 1955-57 (Routledge, 2005)Christopher Hibbert, ed., "Presidents of the Union since 1900", The Encyclopaedia of Oxford (Macmillan, 1988), pp. 527–532Philip Ziegler, Edward Heath: The Authorised Biography (Harper Press, 2010; {{ISBN|978-0-00-724740-0}}), chapter 2

While serving his term as President of the Union, Wood helped to organize the campaign of Sandie Lindsay, the Master of Balliol, for the 1938 Oxford by-election, at which Lindsay argued against Neville Chamberlain's Munich Agreement with Hitler in September.

In January 1939, soon after leaving Oxford, to his family's dismay Wood joined Lord Beaverbrook’s Daily Express as a leader-writer.

In the summer of 1940, after the end of the "Phoney War", Wood enlisted in the Royal Artillery as a volunteer and served as an anti-aircraft gunner during the London Blitz. He did not seek a commission, later noting "I remained happily in the ranks, partly for the reason that I preferred the company there, and partly because I knew I would make a very bad officer, and there are enough bad officers in the Army already." However, in February 1941 he was posted to a military intelligence unit "somewhere in the Middle East" and was commissioned as a Captain."Boomerang", Bless 'em All (1942), introduction

In 1942, under the pen name of "Boomerang", Wood published Bless 'em All: an analysis of the British Army, its morale, efficiency, and leadership, giving his view of the wartime British Army as seen from the ranks. Some readers suspected the book was by George Orwell, and Orwell wrote to B. H. Liddell Hart "No, I didn’t write Bless ’em All. I am not in the army because I am not physically fit... but I have been in the Home Guard from the beginning and could write a rather similar book about that."Peter Davison, ed., George Orwell, A Life in Letters (Harvill Secker), p. 204

Wood's General Staff Intelligence career was ended when it was discovered that he was the author of Bless 'em All, as the result of the unpublished manuscript having been found in his luggage at Singapore in July 1941. From there he had continued to Australia and visited his mother and his brother Bill.Fredric Warburg, All Authors are Equal (Hutchinson, 1973), p. 19Stephen Moline, Red (Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2017, {{ISBN|9781925588521}}), pp. 186–187

In October 1943, Wood was in Sydney again, this time with Sir Walter Layton, chairman of the News Chronicle, and Samuel Storey, a Conservative member of parliament, as part of a "British newspaper mission" to Australia."BRITISH NEWSPAPER MISSION IN SYDNEY", The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 October 1943, p. 9

In the later stages of the war, Wood served as a war correspondent for the Daily Express.[https://www.paradata.org.uk/media/1898 "WAR CORRESPONDENT ALAN WOOD SITS WITH A TYPEWRITER IN GROUNDS OF HARTENSTEIN HOTEL"], paradata.org.uk, accessed 2 March 2025 In June 1944, he was at the Normandy landings, then travelled with Canadian forces on the road to Falaise to capture Caen.Alan Wood, The Falaise Road (Toronto: Macmillan, 1944) He was at the Battle of Arnhem in September 1944."The making of Theirs is the Glory", After the Battle magazine, Issue 58 (1987) Also in 1944, James Proudfoot painted Wood's portrait, and the British Pathé film Art in Chelsea shows the work being done.[https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/79363/ "Art in Chelsea"], britishpathe.com, accessed 13 March 2025

While taking part in the Allied advance into Germany in March 1945, Wood lost a leg from an injury suffered in Operation Varsity. In writing about this some years later, his fellow war correspondent Leonard Gander called him "the bravest war reporter I ever met".Leonard Marsland Gander, After These Many Quests (1949), chapter 16 "Airborne Ballast": "All my colleagues turned up one by one, except Bocca and Wood. Bocca had been captured, but was released after a few days none the worse. Unluckily Wood, the bravest war reporter I ever met, was wounded in the leg and lost the limb."Martin W. Bowman, Air War Varsity (Pen and Sword, 2017), [https://books.google.com/books?id=4gTMDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT330 p. 330] Wood made a cameo appearance playing himself in a movie about the Battle of Arnhem, Theirs is the Glory (1946). He is seen sitting writing and talking in a foxhole.

After the war, with a newly-elected Labour government now in office, Wood approached John Strachey, the Minister of Food, and was hired to help establish a scheme to grow groundnuts in east Africa. He was appointed as an inspector and within a year he was in Kenya and Tanganyika to see the planned plantations.Moline (2017), p. 280 He went on to head the Information Unit of the Overseas Food Corporation, but departed after exposing the Tanganyika groundnut scheme, on which he wrote The Groundnut Affair (1950). In March 1950, in the House of Commons John Boyd-Carpenter asked the Minister of Food to make a statement about attempts by Leslie Plummer, head of the Overseas Food Corporation, to stop the publication of the book.[https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1950-03-20/debates/10819b9c-645b-4be8-bf51-ba7088f54164/BookTheGroundnutAffair Book "The Groundnut Affair"], Hansard Volume 472, debate on Monday 20 March 1950

Wood wrote a biography of his friend the philosopher Bertrand Russell, which was published in May 1957. In his review of this biography, A. J. Ayer found that Wood had been over-awed by Russell and noted that he was then working on a study of Russell's philosophy.A. J. Ayer, [https://archive.today/20250304065205/https://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/31st-may-1957/32/the-freedom-of-genius "The Freedom of Genius"], review of Bertrand Russell: The Passionate Sceptic in The Spectator, 31 May 1957, accessed 4 March 2025 A few months later, Wood killed himself, and the elderly Russell wrote an obituary of him for The Times.

The study of Russell's philosophy by Wood was published as an appendix to My Philosophical Development (1959).[https://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA29720978 My philosophical development, Bertrand Russell; with an appendix, Russell's philosophy by Alan Wood; Simon and Schuster, 1959], nii.ac.jp, CiNii Research, accessed 5 March 2025

Wood's major work The True History of Lord Beaverbrook was published posthumously by Heinemann in 1965, after the death of Beaverbrook in 1964, with a postscript by Sir John Elliot.Gregory P. Marchildon, Profits and Politics: Beaverbrook and the Gilded Age of Canadian Finance (University of Toronto Press, 1996), p. 263 Even then, some parts of the book were suppressed.

At Holborn in September 1946, Wood married a fellow journalist, Winifred Mary Seaton Jones. On 21 September, they boarded RMS Strathmore, bound for Sydney, Australia, giving their address as 12, Ridgmount Gardens, London WC1.UK and Ireland, Outward Passenger Lists, 1890–1960: Ship Name Strathmore / Shipping LinecP and O / Departure Date 21 Septrmber 1946 / Departure Port England /Destination Port Sydney, Australia / Master A Rodger Together, they later wrote Islands in Danger (1955) about the German occupation of the Channel Islands.Alan Wood, Mary Seaton Wood, Islands in Danger: the first full story of the German occupation of the Channel Islands (London: Evans, 1955)

Wood was found to have an incurable brain disorder and died at the Atkinson Morley Hospital, Wimbledon on 27 October 1957, aged 43. Mary Wood wrote to Bertrand Russell that he had had Parkinson's disease and had killed himself.[https://bracers.mcmaster.ca/bracers-notes?page=819 Wood correspondence], Bertrand Russell Research Centre, McMaster University, accessed 5 March 2025"Alliot W. Wood, 43" Surrey North eastern Volume 5g (October 1957), p. 596 At the time of his death, his home address was 8, Queens Gate Place, South Kensington, and probate on his estate valued at £7,492 was granted to his widow on 10 January 1958."WOOD Alliott Alan Whitfield of 8 Queens Gate Place South Kensington London died 27 October 1957 at Atkinson Morley Hospital Wimbledon" in Wills and Administrations (England & Wales) 1958 (1959), p. 686

Mary Wood died on 12 January 1958 at St Mary Abbots Hospital, Kensington,"WOOD Winifred Mary Seaton of 8 Queens Gate Place South Kensington London died 12 January 1958 at St Mary Abbots Hospital Kensington", in Wills and Administrations (England & Wales) 1958 (1959), p. 715 aged 39. In a front page story, the Kensington News reported that the Coroner for Hammersmith had "returned a verdict of suicide whilst under considerable mental stress on Mrs Winifred Mary Wood, 39-year-old widow of author Alliot Allen Whitfield Wood",

Kensington News and West London Times (London), Friday 17 January 1958, page 1 and the Kensington Post added that following the death of her husband in October she had often been depressed. She left behind their two young sons, Jonathan and David.Kensington Post (London), Friday 24 January 1958, page 3

A trust fund for the two Wood boys was organized by R. W. G. Mackay, a fellow-Australian. They were to be brought up by Evanne Garnsey, Alan Wood's sister, and her husband David Garnsey, headmaster of Canberra Grammar School, who in 1959 became the Anglican Bishop of Gippsland. As of 2025, David Wood is an associate professor in the School of Law at the University of Melbourne.[https://law.unimelb.edu.au/about/staff/d-wood "David Wood"], University of Melbourne profile, accessed 6 March 2025

• "Boomerang", Bless 'em All: an analysis of the British Army, its morale, efficiency, and leadership (London: Secker & Warburg, 1942)
• Alan Wood, The Falaise Road (Toronto: Macmillan, 1944)
• Alan Wood, The Groundnut Affair (London: Bodley Head, 1950)
• Alan Wood, Herbert: a complete fiction (London: The Bodley Head, 1951), a novel
• Alan Wood, Mr Rank: a study of J. Arthur Rank and British Films (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1952)
• Mary & Alan Wood, eds., Silver Spoon: Memoirs of Lord Grantley (London: Hutchinson, 1954)
• Alan Wood and Mary Seaton Wood, Islands in Danger: the first full story of the German occupation of the Channel Islands (London: Evans, 1955)
• Alan Wood, Flying Visits (Dennis Dobson, 1956)
• Alan Wood, Bertrand Russell: The Passionate Skeptic (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1957)
• Alan Wood, "Russell's philosophy", in Bertrand Russell, My Philosophical Development (1959)
• Alan Wood, The True History of Lord Beaverbrook (Heinemann, 1965)

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• Alan Wood, [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.114739 Bertrand Russell: The Passionate Sceptic] (1957, full text at archive.org)
• A. J. Ayer, [https://archive.today/20250304065205/https://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/31st-may-1957/32/the-freedom-of-genius "The Freedom of Genius"], review of Bertrand Russell: The Passionate Sceptic in The Spectator, 31 May 1957

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Category:1914 births

Category:1957 deaths

Category:20th-century Australian writers

Category:Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford

Category:British Army personnel of World War II

Category:British war correspondents of World War II

Category:Daily Express people

Category:People educated at Sydney Grammar School

Category:Presidents of the Oxford Union

Category:University of Sydney alumni