- Stuart Wood
Stuart Taylor Wood, CMG (
October 17 ,1889 –January 4 ,1966 ) served as the ninthCommissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police , fromMarch 6 ,1938 toApril 30 ,1951 .Early Life and Career
Born in
Napanee, Ontario , Wood's father,Zachary Taylor Wood , served in theNorth-West Mounted Police from 1885 to 1915 and was Acting Commissioner of the Force.Wood attended the
Royal Military College of Canada inKingston, Ontario where he graduated in 1912. Shortly after he secured a commission in the RNW Mounted Police. Wood himself served inWorld War I as a lieutenant in the cavalry inFrance andBelgium . He served in the Yukon upon returning to Canada in 1919 as Justice of the Peace, Coroner, Sheriff, Game Inspector and Customs Officer.Reforms
When Wood became an Acting Royal Canadian Mounted Police commissioner he initiated many changes. Through 1945 and 1946 he established a system of registration for aliens, and dealt with espionage cases. In the North, he recruited new policing detachments. He organized a permanent
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Band, (later disbanded by Commissioner Inkster in 1994). He established the first RCMP scientific laboratory and museum inRegina, Saskatchewan .Wood also established a horse breeding station at Fort Walsh. He improved wireless communication and broadcasting and instituted a preventive policing program for youth. He negotiated provincial policing contracts for Newfoundland and
British Columbia . Under his leadership the RCMP force grew gradually and scientific methods of crime detection improved enhancing law enforcement and crime prevention.Personal Life
Wood was the great-great grandson of U.S. President
Zachary Taylor . Zachary's third daughter, Anne, married Robert C. Wood, a U.S. Regular Army surgeon, who served the Union during the Civil War, though their two sons served the Confederacy. One of their sons,John Taylor Wood , had been an officer in the U.S. Navy, but with the outbreak of the Civil War resigned, later joining the Confederate Marine Corps, and later served as an office in the famed ironclad Virginia/Merrimac during her encounter with the USS Monitor. He afterwards became a lieutenant colonel in the Confederate Army. After the war John Taylor Wood relocated to Canada.Wood's two sons,
Constable sJohn Taylor Wood andHerschel Taylor Wood , also served on the Force. His son Herschel was killed on duty in 1950. Both Herschel and his father are buried in the RCMP Depot inRegina . Wood's son John retired from the RCMP as Superintendent in 1988.Wood retired from the RCMP in 1951 and died in 1966. He was buried in
Regina, Saskatchewan .References
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