Thomas Wood (bishop of Lichfield and Coventry)

The Right Reverend Thomas Wood
Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry
Bishop Wood, by Sir Peter Lely
Diocese	Diocese of Lichfield and Coventry
In office	1671–1692
Predecessor	John Hacket
Successor	William Lloyd
Other posts	Dean of Lichfield (1664–1671)
Personal details
Born	1607 (1607)
Died	1692 (aged 84–85)
Nationality	British
Denomination	Anglican
Spouse	Grace Clavering
Education	Westminster School
Alma mater	Christ Church, Oxford

Thomas Wood (1607–1692) was an English churchman, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry from 1671 to 1692.

Thomas was the third son of Thomas Wood (1565–1649) and Susanna Cranmer (1570–1650). He was baptised on 22 July 1607 in the Church of St. John’s in then fashionable Hackney, where his grandfather Henry had bought land and built a country house at Clapton on the edge of Hackney Downs.

Edmond Chester Waters writes in 1877:

He was educated at Westminster School amongst the King’s Scholars, and was elected in 1627 to a studentship at Christ Church, Oxford, where he proceeded B.A. on 27 April 1631, and M.A. on 24 April 1634. He had in the meantime taken Holy Orders, and was, by the influence of his family at Court, appointed at the age of 28 a chaplain in ordinary to the King, who presented him in the same year, on 2 July 1635, to the Rectory of Whickham in the county of Durham. He proceeded B.D. on 15 May 1641, and was created D.D. by dispensation on 13 March in the next year.

About the same time he obtained from Charles I a royal mandate to the Bishop of Durham to present him on the next vacancy to a prebendal stall in his cathedral, but before this appointment was completed, his course of preferment was interrupted by the Civil War, and he was ejected from his living by the Parliament. He employed this period of compulsory leisure in travelling abroad, and spent some years in Italy. He made a long stay at Rome, where he was confirmed in that strong dislike of Popery and High Church observance which distinguished him through life. After his return to England he lived in retirement on his patrimony at Hackney until the Restoration, when he was restored to the Rectory of Whickham by the House of Commons. At the same time he was reinstated as one of the chaplains in ordinary at Court, and on 15 June 1660 he made petition to the King to give effect to the mandate of Charles I. by bestowing upon him the Prebend at Durham, which had been vacant since the death of the Bishop of Exeter on 7 December 1659. His suit was supported by the powerful influence of his brother Sir Henry Wood, and he was presented on 7 July 1660 to the 11th stall in Durham Cathedral. He was duly installed on 10 December. following, and held this preferment in commendam until his death. In February 1663-4 he was promoted to the Deanery of Lichfield, when Dr. Paul was made Bishop of Oxford.