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Sir Howard Kingsley Wood (19 August 1881 – 21 September 1943) was an English Conservative politician. The son of a Wesleyan Methodist minister, he qualified as a solicitor, and successfully specialised in industrial insurance. He became a member of the London County Council and then a Member of Parliament. Wood served as junior minister to Neville Chamberlain at the Ministry of Health, establishing a close personal and political alliance. His first cabinet post was Postmaster General, in which he transformed the British Post Office from a bureaucracy to a business. As Secretary of State for Air in the months before the Second World War he oversaw a huge increase in the production of warplanes to bring Britain up to parity with Germany. When Winston Churchill became Prime Minister in 1940, Wood was made Chancellor of the Exchequer, in which post he adopted policies propounded by John Maynard Keynes, changing the role of HM Treasury from custodian of government income and expenditure to steering the entire British economy. One of Wood's last innovations was the creation of Pay As You Earn, under which income tax is deducted from employees' current pay, rather than being collected retrospectively. This system remains in force in Britain. Wood died suddenly on the day on which the new system was to be announced to Parliament. ==Early years== Wood was born in Hull, eldest of three children of the Rev Arthur Wood, a Wesleyan Methodist minister, and his wife, Harriett Siddons ''née'' Howard.〔Peden, G. C. ("Wood, Sir (Howard) Kingsley (1881–1943)" ), ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edition, May 2006.〕 His father was appointed to be minister of Wesley's Chapel in London, where Wood grew up, attending nearby Central Foundation Boys' School.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.centralfoundationboys.co.uk/about/old-pupils )〕〔Jenkins, p. 394〕 He was articled to a solicitor, qualifying in 1903 with honours in his law examinations.〔"The Law Society", ''The Times'', 23 May 1903, p. 5〕 In 1905 Wood married Agnes Lilian Fawcett (d. 1955); there were no children of the marriage, but the couple adopted a daughter.〔 Wood established his own law firm in the City of London, specialising in industrial insurance law. He represented the industrial insurance companies in their negotiations with the Liberal government before the introduction of Lloyd George's National Insurance Bill in 1911, gaining valuable concessions for his clients.〔 Wood was first elected to office as a member of the London County Council (LCC) at a by-election on 22 November 1911, representing the Borough of Woolwich for the Municipal Reform party.〔 His importance in the field of insurance grew over the next few years; his biographer Roy Jenkins has called him "the legal panjandrum of industrial insurance".〔 He chaired the London Old Age Pension Authority in 1915 and the London Insurance Committee from 1917 to 1918, was a member of the National Insurance Advisory Committee from 1911 to 1919, chairman of the Faculty of Insurance from 1916 to 1919 and president of the faculty in 1920, 1922 and 1923.〔 At the LCC he was a member of the council committees on insurance, pensions and housing.〔 He was knighted in 1918 at the unusually early age of 36. It was not then, as it later became, the practice to state in Honours Lists the reason for the conferring of an honour,〔"New Year Honours – The Official Lists", ''The Times'', 1 January 1918, p. 7〕 but Jenkins writes that Wood's knighthood was essentially for his work in the insurance field.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Kingsley Wood」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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