Searls Valentine Woods Senior and Junior

Palaeontologists and a pioneer in the study of glacial drift

Introduction

Searls Valentine Woods Senior and Junior both had a passion for palaeontology, the structure and evolution of forms of life. They were particularly interested in the fossils and shells from the two most recent geological periods, namely the Palaeogene and the Neogene.

In Britain geological layers which were formed during the Palaeogene period started 65 millions ago and ended 23 millions ago. They are only found in the areas shaded orange on this map.

The deposits from the Neogene period started 23 millions ago and ended 2.28 millions ago. They are only found in the areas shaded green. During that period a thick layer of shelly sand was deposited on the seabed. This deposit is now called crag.

The crag has subsequently been covered by material deposited by a glacier which moved slowly down from the north about 400,000 years ago and reached the edge of what is now Woodbridge. When the glacier melted it left a thick layer of clay up to 30m thick.  The area it covered is now known as The Sandlings.

Across The Sandlings farmers dug pits down into the crag layer and used the shelly sand to improve their sandy soils. They also collected phosphate nodules, mistakenly called coprolites, which were used to make the earliest artificial fertilizers.

With 'crag pits' on his door step it is not surprising that Searls Valentine Wood became interested in the shells that the crag contained.   His son also became interested in the subject and he also pioneered the study of the glacial drift - the materials deposited when glaciers melt.

Searls Valentine Wood Snr and Jnr were members of the Woods family who lived in Melton Hall.

Extent of geological layers, in Britain, from

the Palaeogene and Neogene periods

 The Woods of Melton Hall

Richard Wood, the youngest son of the Earl of Halifax, left his native Yorkshire in the sixteenth century and purchased an estate in Melton. The estate was on both sides of what is now Woods Lane and Richard built a hall near where Melton Hall stands today.  In early Georgian times it was given a red brick façade and the drawing on the right shows in 1806.  The drawing appears on a map of the estate.

Shortly after the map was produced the hall burned down and was replaced by the present building. A photograph of it in 2008 is shown below.

Melton Hall in 2008

Melton Hall in 1806

Richard’s great-grandson Francis Wood, began a long family tradition of going into the law.  A succession of eldest sons inherited both the solicitor's practice on Church Street, Woodbridge, and the Melton estate.

The incumbent of the Melton Hall in the last part of the 18th century was Richard Wood who was married to Jane Searles of Melton. In 1786 their eldest son, who was also named Richard, died of small pox when only 30 years old. Thus the younger son John eventually inherited the Melton estate and the Woodbridge practice. This John Wood married Mary Anne Baker and their second son Searles Valentine Wood was born at Woodbridge in 1798. Searles was his grandmother’s maiden name and Valentine was added because he was born on the 14th Feb.

Searles Valentine Wood Snr

Searles Valentine Wood Snr went to sea as a midshipman in the navy of the Honourable East India Company in 1811 and eventually became an officer. In 1821 he married Elizabeth Taylor (1792-1880) the only daughter of Thomas Taylor, solicitor, of London. Four years later he left the East India Co. and, after travelling for a time, settled at Hasketon with his wife and started a bank with his father. This occupation seems to have left him a large amount of spare time to study the fossils and shells in the crag pits of East Anglia.

About 1835, owing to ill health, Wood retired from business. Change and rest cured him, and he went to live in London. In May 1838 he was appointed curator of the Geological Society's museum, but again ill health forced him to retire after a number of months but he and his family stayed in London. The following year he was appointed a Fellow of the Geological Society.

In 1842 Wood published a catalogue of crag shells. He then embarked on a detailed study of the molluscs in the crag. His description of univalves was published in 1848 and his description of bivalves followed in three volumes from 1850 to 55. For this painstaking work he was awarded, in 1860, the Wollaston medal; the highest accolade of the Geological Society. In the previous year the medal had been given to Charles Darwin for his theory of evolution. Wood’s final work A Monograph on the Eocene Bivalves of England was published 1877.

Wood retired, in 1875, to Beacon Hill House, Martlesham. It is just before you cross over the A12 when on the road from The Red Lion at Martlesham to Great Bealings.  From that point, there is a view down Martlesham Creek. Wood died aged 82 and was buried at Melton Old Church. He jokingly once said, 'I was born in sight of one crag pit and shall probably be buried in another.' 

Beacon Hill House, Martlesham

Searles Valentine Wood Jnr. was born at Hasketon in 1830. He studied law at King's College, London and received his articles as a solicitor in 1851. He practised in London and lived in Brentford with his wife and adopted daughter.

As early as 1843 Wood Jnr. was working with his father on the fossils in the Eocene deposits at Hordle Cliff, Hampshire. He was subsequently the sole or joint author of nearly sixty papers and he was a pioneer in the study of glacial drift. In 1864 he was elected a fellow of the Geological Society and produced the first map of the glacial drift in eight counties at a time when the government geological survey ignored them.  He is now considered to be the founder of glacial drift research.

Following the death of a business partner Wood Jnr. was able to retire in 1865 and this allowed him to devote more time to a thorough study of the glacial drift of Suffolk and Essex.  In 1875 his health deteriorated but he continued to work on, and write about, his favourite studies. His major work on the Pliocene deposits at St Erth's, Cornwall, was published posthumously. He died at Beacon Hill House four years after his father and was buried near him at Melton Old Church where there is the memorial plaque to him. Below it there is a memorial to his father.

The Woods family no longer live in this area. By the mid 1930s there was nobody in the family qualified to take over the legal practice in Woodbridge and those who could have lived in the Melton estate were well settled elsewhere. In 1936 the whole estate of 98 acres was auctioned in twelve lots. The legal practice in Church Street was sold to a partner in 1946. It eventually became Hubbard and Co and is now Margery and Miller.

Last edited 21 Aug 23