Although there is no definite proof of this MP’s parentage, the fact that he eventually came into possession of the Worcestershire estates of Sir John atte Wood, who had been five times the county’s representative in Parliament between 1372 and 1381, points to a close kinship between them. Possibly as a consequence of a marriage between a daughter of atte Wood and Sir John Beauchamp† of Holt, 1st baron of Kidderminster, the atte Wood properties in Gloucestershire (and perhaps those elsewhere, too) passed on his death in 1391 to Beauchamp’s 14-year-old son and heir, John. Those in Shropshire were Sir John atte Wood’s for life only, and in 1416 a local jury professed itself ignorant about his rightful heirs. There may then have arisen some dispute over the inheritance, with John Wood making a claim as Sir John’s nearest male relation (perhaps even as his illegitimate son), for it was not until after Beauchamp’s death without male issue in 1420, that the principal atte Wood holdings in Worcestershire were conveyed to him. Significantly, in 1427 one Hamlet Smethwick, esquire, made a formal quitclaim to his ‘cousin’ John Wood of Worcester of the heraldic arms (gules, a lion rampant argent with a forked tail) previously borne by Sir John atte Wood.
Long before then, Wood had made a reputation for himself as a highly competent lawyer and administrator in Worcestershire. His earliest royal appointment, of 1405, and its subsequent renewals, gave him control over the collection of the local cloth subsidies for nearly 30 years, during which period he occasionally found mainprise at the Exchequer for the alnagers of Gloucestershire (while attending Parliament for the first time) and Derbyshire. In July 1406, in association with his then fellow alnager, Henry Wybbe, he secured an Exchequer lease of property in Bromsgrove, and Wybbe subsequently made him an executor of his will. From February 1413 to 1416 Wood also enjoyed a lease from the Crown of land near his home at Northwick.
Phelip’s patronage led to Wood’s appointment before July 1415 as one of the King’s serjeants-at-law, as such receiving a royal grant of a corrody for life from St. Mary’s priory, Worcester (which he was not to resign until some 27 years later). When, in 1420, he delivered the Worcestershire election return to the clerk of the Parliaments he was described as ‘commorans in medio templo’, but how much of his time was spent practicing in the central courts is difficult to discover. Certainly, he was in Worcester for the shire elections to the Parliaments of 1414 (Nov.), 1420, 1422, 1425, 1427, 1431, 1437 and 1449;
Wood’s own landed estate in Worcestershire came to be considerable. His putative father had inherited part of Trimpley in Wolverley, which had long been in the family’s possession, and had obtained by other means lands in Kidderminster, Northwick and Worcester together with the manor of Rushock. According to Thomas Habington, Worcestershire’s 17th-century historian, these properties (excluding Rushock) were all conveyed to John Wood by feoffees in 1424-5, and later on James, Lord Audley, formally released to him and his son, Thomas, all his right of inheritance in the county by virtue of his kinship with the Beauchamps of Holt. The holdings Wood acquired included the advowson of the chapel of St. Mary at Trimpley (built by Sir John atte Wood) and Attwood park, which had originated from a royal licence granted to Sir John in 1362 to enclose 600 acres of his demesne lands.
Wood requested burial in Worcester cathedral between the tombs of his first two wives and beneath a marble slab carved with his and their images and arms. He had previously arranged for masses to be perpetually said there for his soul and now exonerated the priory from arrears of the corrody payments due to him, at the same time bequeathing ornaments, vestments, candlesticks, property and the large sum of £100 to repair the ruinous infirmary—bequests such that Habington later declared ‘I may boldly say noe familie now flourishing in this shire hath byn soe devout to God and so charitable to his Church as the Attewodes’. Legacies to Bordesley abbey, Whistones priory and ‘Redminster’ parish church provided in particular for the remembrance of Sir John Phelip and Sir Hugh Cokesey, and in addition Wood arranged for the sale of certain properties by his feoffees ‘as dere as they maye’ to pay two priests to pray at Worcester for some of his deceased friends, including John Weston. His lands in Kent, too, were to be sold to the highest bidder and the profits disposed in alms for the benefit of Phelip’s soul. Valuable bequests went to Wood’s godson, John Stafford†, esquire, his three sons and his daughters, Eleanor, wife of Richard Perwych, and Anne, wife of Thomas Strange. (A third daughter, Alice, who had married Wood’s ward, Thomas Gower (d.1440), presumably predeceased her father.) Among the executors to the will was Sir Walter Skull, while Ralph, Lord Sudeley, and Master John Stokes, LL.D., chancellor to the archbishop of Canterbury, were named as supervisors. The testator left detailed legal instructions to the feoffees of his Worcestershire estates, who included Archbishop Bourgchier (formerly bishop of Worcester, 1435-43) and several eminent lawyers, and to those of his Warwickshire lands, headed by Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, with regard to future settlements. Indeed, he went to great lengths to ensure the continuance of the estates in the family by tail-male, stipulating that should any of his heirs interfere with his provisions they would be cut off from their inheritance, and if the feoffees were ‘troubled, served or lettyd ... by weye of action reale, personelle or by maintenance’ by any legatee, then they were to dispose of his portion. Should his widow, Lucy, refuse to act as his executrix or in any way frustrated probate, she was to receive nothing; but otherwise she was to have 100 marks from the issues of the estate at Northwick. Wood died before 10 Nov. 1458. His estates passed to his eldest son, Thomas, thereafter remaining in the family until 1592.