AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED by the British Lord High Chancellor WILLIAM WOOD, 1ST BARON HATHERLEY, together with his AUTOGRAPH on a slip of paper.

31, Great George Street, March 5, 1866., 1866.. Very good. - Over 30 words penned on both sides of 7 inch high by 4-1/2 inch wide creamy white paper. The first page of the letter is framed by black mourning borders. William Wood, 1st Baron Hatherley writes to apologize as he "cannot leave my court". Signed "W.P. Wood". Folded for mailing, the letter was once mounted into an album with paper remnants still adhering to the bottom edge of the verso. A previous owner has identified the author as "Vice Chancellor Wood, now Lord Chancellor (Hatherley)". Good.

Together with William Wood's autograph signed "Hatherley" on 1-1/8 inch high by 2-1/8 inch wide creamy white paper with his monograph printed in green at the top. The autograph is mounted with glue from the verso onto 2 inch high by 5-1/2 inch wide paper clipped from an album upon which a previous owner has penned the following note identifying the autograph "Lord Hatherley, Lord Chancellor 1870".

The British lawyer and statesman William Page Wood, 1st Baron Hatherley (1801-1881) was called to the Bar in 1824 and became a Queen's Counsel in 1845. Elected to parliament for the city of Oxford, he was subsequently appointed Vice-Chancellor of the County Palatine of Lancaster and then Solicitor General for England and Wales. Made Lord Justice of Appeal in 1868, William Gladstone selected him to be Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain in that same year.