| Honorific-Prefix: | The Right Honourable |
| The Viscount Halifax | |
| Office1: | Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal |
| Term Start1: | 6 July 1870 |
| Term End1: | 17 February 1874 |
| Monarch1: | Victoria |
| Primeminister1: | William Ewart Gladstone |
| Predecessor1: | Earl of Kimberley |
| Successor1: | Earl of Malmesbury |
| Birth Date: | 20 December 1800 |
| Birth Place: | Pontefract, Yorkshire, England, Kingdom of Great Britain |
| Death Place: | Hickleton Hall, Doncaster, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, UK |
| Nationality: | British |
| Spouse: | Lady Mary Grey (d. 1884) |
| Children: | 7, including Charles Wood, 2nd Viscount Halifax |
| Office2: | Secretary of State for India |
| Predecessor2: | Lord Stanley |
| Successor2: | Earl de Grey and Ripon |
| Termstart2: | 18 June 1859 |
| Termend2: | 16 February 1866 |
| Primeminister2: | Viscount Palmerston Earl Russell |
| Office3: | First Lord of the Admiralty |
| Predecessor3: | Sir James Graham |
| Successor3: | Sir John Pakington |
| Termstart3: | 13 March 1855 |
| Termend3: | 8 March 1858 |
| Primeminister3: | Viscount Palmerston |
| Office4: | President of the Board of Control |
| Predecessor4: | John Charles Herries |
| Successor4: | Robert Vernon Smith |
| Termstart4: | 30 December 1852 |
| Termend4: | 3 March 1855 |
| Primeminister4: | Earl of Aberdeen |
| Office5: | Chancellor of the Exchequer |
| Predecessor5: | Henry Goulburn |
| Successor5: | Benjamin Disraeli |
| Termstart5: | 6 July 1846 |
| Termend5: | 21 February 1852 |
| Primeminister5: | Lord John Russell |
| Office6: | First Secretary of the Admiralty |
| Predecessor6: | George Robert Dawson |
| Successor6: | Richard More O'Ferrall |
| Termstart6: | 27 April 1835 |
| Termend6: | 4 October 1839 |
| Primeminister6: | Viscount Melbourne |
| Office7: | Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury |
| Predecessor7: | Edward Ellice |
| Successor7: | Sir George Clerk |
| Termstart7: | 10 August 1832 |
| Termend7: | 14 November 1834 |
| Primeminister7: | Earl Grey Viscount Melbourne |
| Term Start8: | 22 February 1866 |
| Term End8: | 8 August 1885 Hereditary peerage |
| Predecessor8: | Peerage created |
| Successor8: | The 2nd Viscount Halifax |
| Office9: | Member of Parliament for Ripon |
| Predecessor9: | Reginald Vyner |
| Successor9: | Lord John Hay |
| Termstart9: | 11 July 1865 |
| Termend9: | 21 February 1866 |
| Office10: | Member of Parliament for Halifax |
| Predecessor10: | New constituency |
| Successor10: | Edward Akroyd |
| Termstart10: | 10 December 1832 |
| Termend10: | 11 July 1865 |
| Office11: | Member of Parliament for Wareham |
| Predecessor11: | James Ewing |
| Successor11: | John Hales Calcraft |
| Termstart11: | 2 May 1831 |
| Termend11: | 12 December 1832 |
| Office12: | Member of Parliament for Great Grimsby |
| Predecessor12: | William Duncombe |
| Successor12: | John Shelley |
| Termstart12: | 9 June 1826 |
| Termend12: | 25 July 1831 |
Charles Wood, 1st Viscount Halifax (20 December 1800 – 8 August 1885), known as Sir Charles Wood, 3rd Baronet, between 1846 and 1866, was a British Whig politician and Member of the British Parliament. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1846 to 1852.
Halifax was the son of Sir Francis Wood, 2nd Baronet of Barnsley, and his wife Anne, daughter of Samuel Buck. He was educated at Eton and Oriel College, Oxford, where he studied classics and mathematics.
A Liberal and Member of Parliament from 1826 to 1866, Wood abandoned the seat of Great Grimsby and was returned in 1831 for the pocket borough of Wareham, probably as a paying guest, which arrangement enabled him to remain in London in preparation for the reading of the Reform Bill. He confided his views to his father:
the reform is an efficient, substantial, anti-democratic, pro-property measure, but it sweeps away rotten boroughs and of course disgusts their proprietors. The main hope therefore of carrying it, is by the voice of the country, thus operating by deciding all wavering votes ... The radicals, for which heaven be praised, support us ...[1]He voted meticulously for the bill at every stage, and it received the Royal assent in the following year.
Wood served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord John Russell's government (1846–1852), where he opposed any further help for Ireland during the Great Famine there. In his 1851 budget, Sir Charles liberalized trade, reducing import duties and encouraging consumer goods. In the succeeding Tory government, the new Chancellor Benjamin Disraeli, a former protectionist, referred to Wood's influence on economic policy in an interim financial statement on 30 April 1852, setting a trend for the way budgets are presented in the Commons.[2] This reduction in tariffs led to a noticeable increase in consumption. For Wood, Disraeli was 'petulant and sarcastic', qualities he disliked.[3]
Wood later served as President of the Board of Control under Lord Aberdeen (1852–1855), as First Lord of the Admiralty in Lord Palmerston's first administration (1855–1858), and as Secretary of State for India in Palmerston's second government (1859–1866). He succeeded to his father's baronetcy in 1846, and in 1866 he was elevated to the peerage as Viscount Halifax, of Monk Bretton in the West Riding of the County of York. After the unexpected death of Lord Clarendon necessitated a reshuffle of Gladstone's first cabinet, Halifax was brought in as Lord Privy Seal, serving from 1870 to 1874, his last public office.
The Great Famine in Ireland (1845 to 1851) led to the death of 1 million, and over 1 million emigrating from the country to the United States or to the British dominions of Canada, Australia and New Zealand . On 30 June 1846, Peel's Tories were replaced by a Whig government led by Lord John Russell. The government sought to embed free trade and laissez faire economics. Sir Charles Trevelyan, a senior civil servant at the Treasury, in close cooperation with Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Charles Wood, sought to oppose intervention in Ireland.[4] Extreme parsimony of the British Government towards Ireland while Wood was in charge of the Treasury greatly enhanced the suffering of those affected by famine. Wood believed in the economic policy of Laissez-faire and preferred to leave the Irish to starve rather than "undermine the market" by allowing in cheap imported grain.[5] Wood also shared Trevelyan's anti-Irish, moralistic views, with Wood believing the famine should eliminate the "present habits of dependence", and obliging Irish property to support Irish poverty.[6] Wood wrote to the lord lieutenant that the famine was not accidental, but willed, and would bring along a social revolution: "A want of food and employment is a calamity sent by Providence", it had "precipitated things with a wonderful impetus, so as to bring them to an early head".[6] He hoped the famine would clear small farmers, and lead to a "better" economic system.[7]
See main article: Wood's dispatch. As the President of the Board of Control, Wood took a major step in spreading education in India in 1854, when he sent a dispatch to Lord Dalhousie, the Governor-General of India. Wood recommended the following:
In accordance with the Wood's dispatch, education departments were established in every province and universities were opened at Calcutta, Bombay and Madras in 1857, as well as in Punjab in 1882 and in Allahabad in 1887 .
Lord Halifax married Lady Mary Grey (3 May 1807 – 6 July 1884), fifth daughter of Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, on 29 July 1829. They had four sons and three daughters:
Lady Halifax died in 1884. Lord Halifax survived her by just over a year and died in August 1885, aged 84. He was succeeded in his titles by his eldest son Charles, who was the father of Edward Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax.