Duncan Wood was born on 10th November 1910 into a staunchly Quaker family, his parents being wardens in the early 1900s of the Quaker College, Woodbrooke, on the Bristol Road at Bournville.
Duncan was educated at The Downs School, Colwall, Malvern, and at Leighton Park, the Quaker boarding school in Reading. At The Downs he developed an interest in birdwatching, which was enhanced to their mutual benefit when he met my father, Ralph Barlow, and they both went on to play an active role in the Natural History Society at Leighton Park School. Their keenness on birds was greatly heightened by the help and friendship of Horace Alexander (widely known as HGA) who, aside from being one of the leading ornithologists of his age, was himself a Quaker.
In 1929, W E Groves started the Birmingham Bird Club. Its membership was initially by invitation, for fear of egg-collectors, but HGA persuaded the others to widen its horizons and in 1934 it published its first annual report. As a result of HGA's tuition, Duncan kept detailed records and his name appeared in the Birmingham Bird Club reports as a contributor until his departure abroad in 1952. In one it was noted that on 1st January 1947 he gave a talk on 'The Finer Points of Bird Watching'. That same report included an apology from the then editor and secretary, C A Norris (later president of the British Trust for Ornithology), and Chairman of the West Midland Bird Club for the delay in its production, but 'the fact is that 63 members have sent in a total of nearly 7500 records … and the task of collating so large a mass of data is a formidable one, particularly for any editor who has to earn a living at the same time.' (Nothing changes there, then!)
In 1931, in The Art of Birdwatching, Max Nicholson had called for a national society of birdwatchers. Inspired by this, Duncan, together with J F Wynne, wrote to Max suggesting that this might be formed as a federation of bird clubs and that a commission should be set up to do some background preparation (BTO archives). History does not reveal what then happened, but by the following autumn Max Nicholson had organised a pre-inaugural meeting of an embryonic BTO Council.
After Leighton Park, Duncan went on to Queen's College, Oxford, where he studied Classics and History, returning to Leighton Park in 1934 to teach those subjects. The school wanted him to teach some French, too, and in 1936 he spent a term in France, where he met Katharine Knight. After the war, they married in Bournville in August 1945.
During the war, Duncan had been a conscientious objector and served in The Friends Ambulance Unit in China. On the cessation of hostilities he returned to Leighton Park, where he also ran the school Bird Group. One of its members was Robert Gillmor, who has written of Duncan: 'His running of the Bird Group was inspirational. The meetings were run on traditional Club lines, with Chairman, Secretary, etc. Minutes were kept of each meeting, read, approved and signed at the next. There was a Committee. Speakers were invited, looked after, introduced, and given votes of thanks at the end. All rich education of the best kind, which was a huge help to many of us later. Not to mention the bird recording, and expeditions to London to see Black Redstarts on bomb sites, to Skokholm Island, or to Perry Oaks Sewage Farm. We greatly missed him when he left, but the Bird Group carried on.' Other notable ornithologists fostered by the Leighton Park Bird Group included James Cadbury, Jeremy Sorensen and Humphrey Dobinson.
In 1947, Duncan was one of the prime movers in starting the Reading Ornithological Club and was its first chairman. Two years later, he was appointed assistant editor of British Birds, perhaps as a result of his earlier correspondence and subsequent meetings with Max Nicholson. B W Tucker (BWT), the then editor of BB, recorded in an editorial in January 1949 that: '…I have been fortunate in being able to arrange for the addition of Mr J D Wood BA MBOU to the British Birds staff. Mr Wood is an assistant master at Leighton Park School, Reading, and an excellent field ornithologist, in whom I have the greatest confidence. He will take over most of the routine editorial work and much of the correspondence, but I shall continue to be responsible for all the essential duties of an editor-in-chief and for dealing with the more critical problems of biology and identification. I am confident that this solution of the problem of division of labour will prove a happy and effective one.'
BWT died less than two years later, at the end of 1950, and Max Nicholson became senior editor. BWT's obituary, written jointly by Max and Duncan, was published in BB in February 1951. Duncan Wood remained assistant editor until the middle of 1952, after which he was succeeded by James Ferguson-Lees. An editorial in BB in June 1952 concluded: 'Finally, it is with the utmost regret that we have to announce the impending retirement from the Editorial board of J D Wood, who is taking up a post at Geneva which makes it impossible for him to continue to serve. We are sure that all our readers will join with us in paying tribute to the great contribution which he has made to British Birds during one of the most difficult periods of its existence, and to the pleasant and efficient manner in which he has kept all concerned with its preparation and production in touch. He has not spared himself and he has certainly left his mark.'
Duncan subsequently worked for and then ran the Quaker United Nations Office in Geneva, where he was actively involved in the cause of world peace. The work of the United Nations in Geneva and its associated agencies includes disarmament negotiations, the status of women, the rights of the child, the protection of refugees, and agreements on working conditions, trade and tariffs. All of these are of concern to Quakers with their history of working for peace and justice. Duncan and Katharine jointly undertook lobbying, witnessing, advocacy, mediation, and building relationships. They tried to convey to international representatives the concerns of Quakers and to reflect back to Britain and America both progress and challenges in these areas.
Innate Quaker insights and personal qualities were very important to Duncan and Katharine in gaining the trust of diplomats and NGOs (non Governmental organisations), allowing them access to influential people. Sometimes their role was to express support for the painstaking work being done in committees at the UN, or to offer respite and a meal in their home, with a chance for informal, off-the-record talk. This work continues today and Quakers have earned respect and trust which gives them considerable influence in difficult situations and complex negotiations.
On his retirement in 1977, Duncan moved to Arnside in Lancashire where he continued to pursue his interest in ornithology. He was later asked to contribute a chapter to a biography of Horace Alexander, but found that there was so much to say that he was persuaded by many, myself included, to compose it into a book entitled Horace Alexander 1889 to 1989 — Birds and Binoculars, which was duly published in 2003 by William Sessions Limited of York. It set HGA's involvement into the history of British bird watching in the 20th century. Duncan's early note-taking had been sufficiently good for him to be able to remark, in that book, that the first trip out with HGA was to the two Bittell Reservoirs, south of Birmingham, on 20th January 1924 when, aside from many new wildfowl, HGA identified a Hawfinch for them. Duncan also recalled that he and my father, when still at school in the 1920s, egged on HGA to visit Belvide Reservoir to assess its potential. After HGA's first visit there, he quickly became aware of its attractiveness to birds and lobbied for it to be recognised as a venue for quality Midlands birding, which it remains to this day.
Duncan Wood maintained both his interest in ornithology and his strong religious beliefs to the end. Despite becoming increasingly frail and frustrated by failing sight and hearing, he remained as sharp as ever in mind and conversation. He died on 24th February 2006, just a fortnight after his 96th birthday.
(Thanks to Roger Riddington, Jeremy Greenwood, James Ferguson-Lees, Robert Gillmor and Duncan's daughter, Rachel Malloch, for their help in the preparation of this obituary.)
Nick Barlow
This obituary first appeared in issue 433 of our Bulletin. An abbreviated version appeared in British Birds, July 2006, vol. 99, pp 387–388.