(1717? - 71), archaeologist and traveller, b. Riverstown Castle, co. Meath; Glasgow U. 1732; M.Temple 1736; m. Ann Skottowe; Dilettanti 1763; MP 1761 - 71.
- 1738 - 42 Padua (by 27 Jun. - 15 Jul. 1738); Venice (May 1742)
1744 - 5 - see Joseph Leeson (1711 - 83)
1749 - 50 Rome (Dec. 1749 - 17 Mar. 1750), Naples (Mar. - May 1750)
1754 - 5 see Francis, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater
Between at least 1738 and 1755 Robert Wood travelled extensively in Europe and the Middle East. While he is remembered for reading Homer in Asia Minor and becoming the principal instigator of English Hellenism, it was the subsequent publication of the ruins of Palmyra and Baalbec which brought him European fame. His visits to the more familiar territory of Italy were less momentous and are less well defined; two were incidental to his progress to the East, but he evidently spent many years in Rome where his interests encompassed both architecture and painting.
Between 27 June and 15 July 1738 Robert Wood, listed as an Irishman and son of Alexander Wood, was received at Padua University as a doctor.1 He may have been the Mr Wood whom Richard Pococke had known in Italy in 1737. In May 1742 he sailed from Venice to Corfu, and later that year visited Mitylene and Scio; in 1743 he sailed from Latakia in Syria to Damietta in Egypt (DNB). By 1744 he had spent some time in Rome as secretary to Joseph Leeson, later 1st Earl of Milltown.
Four years later, in December 1749, Wood was back in Rome commissioning four paintings from Joseph Vernet (to be completed in the next eighteen months).2 He was then with John Bouverie and James Dawkins, with whom he had determined on a second voyage of exploration to the East. In May 1750, with an Italian draughtsman, G.B. Borra, they set sail from Naples. They met Stuart and Revett at Athens, but Bouverie died near Smyrna. Wood and Dawkins went on to Palmyra and Baalbec, their arrival subsequently celebrated in a huge canvas by Gavin Hamilton painted in 1757 - 8 (loan to Glasgow U.). Wood was back in England by September 17513 and in 1753 published The Ruins of Palmyra, followed in 1757 by The Ruins of Baalbec. Some of Borra's views in Naples made for Wood (besides many made during their expedition) are in a sketchbook belonging to the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic and Roman Studies in London.
In 1754 Wood accompanied the Duke of Bridgewater to Italy. In Rome he had the distinction of overawing even Robert Adam with his 'parade of learning', but he was received as a member of Adam's 'Caledonian Club' and talked much with him and Allan Ramsay.4 In the summer of 1755 Wood was considering an expedition to Sicily to study Greek remains, and he considerably upset Adam by proposing to take 'his' artist Cl?risseau with him. Wood sat to both Mengs (priv. coll.) and Ramsay (NPG) in 1755, both heads suggestive of that 'superiority' which, said Adam, 'rather struck me with awe than infected me with ease'. Wood and Bridgewater left Rome in August 1755.
In England in December 1756, as he prepared The Ruins of Baalbec for publication together with an essay on Homer, Wood was appointed under-secretary to William Pitt, and his later career became centred on politics.
1. Brown 1985, and Morpurgo, 73, no.138. For his father's christian name, see Commons 2, 3:656n1. 2. Lagrange 93 - 4, 331. 3. Add.41169, f.53 (R. Russel, 24 Oct. 1751). 4. For Wood and Adam, see Fleming, Adam, 148 - 9, 151, 171, 176, 350,