Clan Wood
Wood in Scotland is a descriptive or territorial name, appearing in Latin record as de Bosco and in Scots as de Wod. The Clan Wood Society’s own research points to William de Bosco, appointed Chancellor of Scotland on 28 June 1211 and Archdeacon of Lothian until his death in 1231, to de Bosco holdings in Kelso Abbey charters, and to William de Wod witnessing an inquest at Cawdor on 10 August 1295. Those are the society’s identifications; treating de Bosco and Wood as one continuous family is an inference rather than a proven descent, and we have not inspected the charters ourselves.
The firm point in the family’s history is July 1488, when James IV confirmed the royal gift of the lands of Largo in Fife to Sir Andrew Wood. Wood was the king’s admiral, and his sea fights are the best-recorded thing about the name: with the Yellow Carvel and the Flower he took five English ships off Dunbar in 1488 or 1489, and around 1490 he fought Sir Stephen Bull’s three English vessels in a two-day running battle off the Isle of May, watched by crowds from Edinburgh, defeating Bull and taking his ships. Henry VII’s reported offer of a thousand pounds a year for life to whoever took Wood belongs to Pitscottie’s narrative rather than to record. On 18 May 1491 James IV licensed Wood to build a castle with iron yetts at Largo; part of Largo Tower still stands at Upper Largo. He was keeper of Dunbar Castle in 1497 and was associated with the Great Michael, launched in 1511. Sources put his death at 1515 or at 1540, and give his knighthood variously as 1482, about 1490 and about 1495 — we are not able to settle any of those. Largo Castle was superseded by Largo House, begun around 1750.
The Wood tartan
A register search for Wood returns sixty-one results, of which only three concern the family; the rest are Westwood, Blackwood, Collingwood, Woodward and fashion names such as Dogwood and Redwood. The Wood clan sett (reference 5069) was designed in March 2005 by Keith Lumsden, at the initiative of Leslie N. Wood of Dartmouth in Devon, and the record states that it incorporates the colours of the Duke of Fife and Angus district tartans. Wood Dress (10359) was registered by the Clan Wood Society on 21 February 2011 and is described by the society as predominantly red; it is a separate registration, though because the register’s detail pages will not load we cannot prove its threadcount differs from 5069 rather than being a recolour.
The third entry, Wood (Personal), reference 4779, is filed in the Corporate category and designed by Michael King. It is not a clan tartan, and is sometimes sold as though it were.
A note on honesty: Wood Modern, Ancient, Weathered and Muted are colourways of reference 5069, not separate tartans, and only Wood Dress is a separate registration. The earliest date any Wood sett can be traced to is 2005. There is no documented pre-twentieth-century Wood tartan: no Wilsons of Bannockburn attribution, no Highland Society of London certificate and no entry in the Vestiarium Scoticum. A family whose admiral beat an English squadron in 1490 does not need an invented ancient tartan.
Clan facts
| Chief | Chief of the Name and Representative of the Ancient Family of Wood of Largo, with the ensigns of a baron of Scotland. Unlike many names in this guide, Wood is not chiefless: Timothy Michael Herbert Fawcett Wood of Largo, 19th chief, was inaugurated at Upper Largo on 21 May 2011 and sat on the Standing Council of Scottish Chiefs. The Clan Wood Society names his successor as Oonagh Elizabeth Susan Fawcett Wood of Largo, but the sources we have checked disagree on both the present holder and the date of recognition, so anyone who needs that settled should ask the society or the Court of the Lord Lyon. |
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| Motto | Tutus in undis — “Safe on the waves” |
| Plant badge | A sprig of oak (darag) |
| Lands | Largo in Fife, Upper and Lower. Largo Castle, fifteenth century, replaced by Largo House from about 1750; Sir Andrew Wood is buried in the Wood aisle at Largo Church |