In memoriam: Professor Christopher Wood
BPAIIG are honoured to host the biography below provided by the family of Christopher Wood
Christopher Wood, Emeritus Professor of Child Health, was a prominent paediatrician from the 1960s to the 1990s and a pioneer of paediatric immunology. In 1981 he co-founded what is now the British Paediatric Allergy, Immunity and Infection Group (BPAIIG) an affiliated speciality group of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH).
Christopher Wood was the first Professor of Child Health at the newly formed Joint Academic Department of Child Health of St Bartholomew’s and The London Hospital Medical Colleges. Appointed in 1972, his remit included leadership of the new research centre at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children (QEH), Hackney, then the largest children’s teaching hospital in Britain and part of the Great Ormond Street (GOSH) group. In Christopher’s time, QEH became a leading hub for child health and medical research, pioneering modern paediatric treatments in East London.
Christopher’s research work fundamentally shaped the understanding of the developing immune system and its impact on paediatric health. By focussing on the interplay of immunology with other factors, such as infection, nutrition, inherited conditions and the environment, he contributed to major advancements in the treatment and care of babies and children.
Described by many as a true ‘gentleman’, Christopher was a generous colleague, an inspirational teacher and a calm and empathetic clinician whose work positively impacted numerous individuals and families. He was tirelessly supported throughout his career by his wife, Mary Margaret Wood, a medical microbiologist who also broke new ground, qualifying as a doctor herself in the 1950s. Christopher frequently acknowledged that without Margaret, as confidante, co-parent, homemaker and fellow doctor (working part-time) his many achievements would not have been possible.
The couple are survived by four children and three grandchildren.
---------
East London
Before his 27 years of service as a senior physician in Hackney, Christopher had deep family ties to the area. Though he was born in Bath in 1933, Christopher’s parents were originally from the East End, born in Poplar and East Ham, respectively. Arthur and Phyllis Wood both enjoyed the educational opportunities of the early 1900s, gained degrees and eventually became grammar school teachers. With their eldest son, David, the family were together through the war years, enduring the 1942 ‘Baedeker’ blitz on Bath and the bombing of nearby Bristol in 1940 and 1941. The boys attended City of Bath Boys School, where Arthur taught chemistry, while Phyllis, a modern linguist, progressed to Deputy Headmistress of City of Bath Girls School.
Christopher’s personal association with East London began in 1954 when he came to Barts as a clinical student, keen to learn medicine in the capital. This followed pre-clinical studies at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he had a state scholarship and was awarded a college Prize and an Exhibition. Also at Barts was his future wife, Mary Margaret Addison, who had studied pre-clinicals at Oxford. At Barts, Christopher won the Roxburgh Prize in Dermatology and the Proxime Accessit, Brackenbury Scholarship in Medicine. As at Cambridge, Christopher enjoyed social and rag events and dabbled in sport and singing, at a rudimentary level!
After early training posts at Barts on qualification, Christopher was first employed at QEH in 1959, where he recalled “I felt a great sense of comradeship which I never found in any of the other hospitals in which I trained.” Unlike GOSH, which focused on specialist referrals, QEH was famous for its "open door" policy and operated a busy children’s Accident & Emergency department in the East End. Christopher’s later decision to specialise in child health may have had its roots at this point.
Christopher then completed two years National Service as a doctor in the Royal Army Medical Corps in Germany, where he attained the rank of acting major. The medical work was interesting and varied, supporting the whole military community, including families. Christopher also enjoyed learning to drive and felt privileged to work on post-war reconciliation with Germany. To the disappointment of the army, he returned in 1962 to jobs at the Whittington Hospital and Great Ormond Street. Now pursuing a career in child health, Christopher took Paediatric Registrar posts at The Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital, Brighton, and the then Evelina Hospital for Sick Children in London. This led to his appointment as a Research Fellow at Guys’ Paediatric Research Unit, followed by the position of Lecturer in Child Health at the University of Bristol in 1968.
After four years in Bristol, and less than thirteen years after leaving Hackney, Christopher returned just after his 39th birthday to become Professor of Child Health, at QEH in 1972. The hospital’s new Hayward Building gave East London a major diagnostic, research, and teaching facility for child health. Christopher was very conscious of the huge opportunity and challenge of leading children’s medical services in this complex area, itself a microcosm of the social and economic challenges of the time. Christopher was an advocate of the whole child approach - the concept of ‘child health’ encompassing the child’s whole well-being and development - as well as the treatment of paediatric illness. He saw children’s health and development as inextricably linked to the social and environment context, regarding families and community professionals as critical to the bigger picture.
Research and clinical career
While Christopher was hugely effective in this broad context, he was equally proficient in the detail of paediatric medicine. In his application for the position of Lecturer in Child Health in 1968 Christopher wrote “I see myself as a clinical paediatrician in training with research interests in immunology and immunochemistry in relation to paediatrics and genetics. I enjoy clinical responsibility and teaching…”
His career spanned a period of huge transformation in these fields, culminating with new research into genetics and therapies that would become prevalent in the 21st century.
Christopher’s early work included groundbreaking research on the ontogenesis of immunity, beginning with the foetus. The laboratory findings, together with the team’s clinical work, led to a greater understanding of the immaturity of premature babies' immune systems, their susceptibility to infection, and how to transform care for these vulnerable infants.
Working on asthma, his team found that asthmatic children often exhibit high levels of Immunoglobin E, particularly if presenting with a history of eczema, thereby showing the link between asthma and immunology. This helped define the concept of paediatric ‘atopy’, leading to greater understanding of the allergic ‘march’ and how to limit this progression.
In the early pioneering treatment of severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), Christopher and colleagues studied the clinical outcomes and complications of transplants, such as infection and Graft Versus Host Disease. This contributed to the refined protocols used today, such as the importance of performing transplants within the first three to four months of life and his findings helped justify the eventual implementation of universal newborn screening.
A significant part of Christopher’s later work involved the care of Cystic Fibrosis (CF) patients. Just as SCID was becoming a treatable rather than a fatal condition, so the outcomes for infants with Cystic Fibrosis were starting to improve. QEH had played a pivotal role in CF treatment from the 1950s leading to patients surviving long enough to need care in adult settings. Christopher’s clinical work from the 1970s included care of paediatric CF patients at QEH and all-age CF patients, with colleagues, at the London Chest Hospital in Bethnal Green. His scientific research explored how the immune system interacts with chronic pathogens in the lungs, while his longitudinal studies of East London patients showed how neonatal intensive care and refined surgical techniques were improving long term outcomes. Finally, Christopher advocated for multi-disciplinary care teams to support children with chronic, complex conditions, including physiotherapists to aid lung clearance, specialist nurses, social workers and psychologists.
Teaching and advancement of good practice
As paediatric research and clinical practice progressed rapidly during this period, there followed a need for new specialist forums, teaching materials and training standards for the profession.
With Professor Ronnie MacKeith, Christopher co-wrote the influential textbook Infant Feeding and Feeding Difficulties, first published in 1971, and Christopher and colleagues continued to update and edit this work after MacKeith’s death in 1977. For the Royal Society of Medicine, Christopher reviewed the seminal Textbook of Paediatrics by Professors John Forfar and Gavin Arneil (1974), and a decade later he wrote the foreword for Case Studies in Paediatrics. Christopher contributed to the British Paediatric Association’s (BPA) publication, Archives of Diseases in Childhood, throughout his career.
At the Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, Christopher worked closely with Professor John Soothill, Dr Anthony Hayward and Dr Bill Marshall, pioneering paediatricians specialising in immunology and infectious disease, respectively. Together, these colleagues founded and convened a new group, the British Paediatric Allergy, Immunity and Infection Group (BPAIIG) and Christopher co-authored the foundational textbook, Paediatric Immunology, in 1983.
Remembered as a highly effective teacher, mentor and assessor in child health, Christopher helped shape standards for training and qualifications for aspiring practitioners in the UK. Christopher’s generation oversaw the foundation, in 1996, of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) as separate from the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) and a successor to the British Paediatric Association.
Christopher encouraged training opportunities that were innovative for the time, such as the professional exchange that existed between QEH and the then Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, Sydney. In the mid-1970s, Christopher was featured in a series of training videos The Examination of the Child designed for professionals in child health fields. Regarded as groundbreaking at the time, he demonstrated and explained the techniques needed to put children and carers at their ease and obtain the best clinical and diagnostic information.
As part of his work to advance good practice, Christopher contributed to numerous boards, advisory panels and committees during his career. He served terms on the University of London Senate, the Board of Governors of GOSH and as President of the Association of Clinical Professors of Child Health in Great Britain and Ireland.
Christopher became a Fellow of the RCP in 1973 and of the RCPCH, on its foundation, in 1996. He retired in 1998 having been awarded the title Emeritus Professor of Child Health.
Change and legacy
Increasingly in the late 20th century, the institutions and hospitals that had long provided clinical care in the East End were experiencing enormous administrative, financial and geographical restructuring. Similar changes and mergers were occurring with East London’s medical colleges and teaching facilities.
Christopher provided reassuring and optimistic leadership during a very challenging time for all, not least the local community. As in everything, he approached political and managerial issues calmly and analytically, looking for common sense and compromise wherever possible.
Despite a vigorous campaign, QEH closed in 1998 and its services transferred to the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel. This occurred just as Christopher retired, and while this was undoubtedly very difficult for him, both he and the ‘Queen Elizabeth’ left an enormous legacy.
A former front-line children’s social worker and Chair of the City and Hackney Community Health Council, shared his memories of this time:
“I have strong recollections of you…doing your utmost for children’s services in the East End and campaigning for that wonderful hospital, QEH. I remember one of your final acts for the patients at QEH was a service at a local church where we lit candles to remember children who had died. At the end of the service, you presented a packet of forget-me-not seeds to every child and family. This may have been a small gesture, but it meant so much to many of these families.
I want you to know that your contribution to children and their health in the East End of London, and beyond, has left many positive indelible marks, and has inspired many (professionals) in related child health areas.”
Retirement
On his retirement in 1998 Christopher decided not to continue with clinical or research work, despite his excitement at the new genetics transforming paediatric immunology. He believed that “to be truly effective one should be really immersed in current learning”. Instead, he became a Director and Trustee of The Children’s Trust, based at Tadworth Court Hospital, Surrey. Originally set up by GOSH in 1927 as a retreat for children with respiratory difficulties, Christopher already knew Tadworth from visiting patients with Cystic Fibrosis. The Children's Trust was now developing its facilities and remit to become the UK's leading charity for children with brain injury and neurodisability.
Alongside this work, Christopher served as a church warden in his home parish of Friern Barnet. His skills and knowledge were much needed for the development of safeguarding, H&S and managerial competence, increasingly required for all organisations in the 21st century.
Some years earlier, Christopher had used his technical skills to install the kitchen plumbing for a community space adjacent to the church. He was always very practical, and even as a child he had made valve radios from scratch, maintaining a lifelong fascination for electronics and gadgets. In retirement, Christopher was able to renew other boyhood interests, keenly observing plants, animals, the weather and stars. He taught himself the rudiments of water colour painting, focussing on botany, and returned to basic piano playing after 50 years!
Most importantly, retirement afforded Christopher much more time with his beloved wife, Margaret, their children and grandchildren. Throughout his career, Christopher was always a devoted husband and father, keen to come home to Friern Barnet after overseas conferences or stints as an external examiner.
The family enjoyed memorable camping holidays across Britain and summers in the garden together.
Christopher’s pace of life slowed after treatment for prostate cancer in the late 2000s, but his sharp and curious mind made him ever eager to learn and contribute. With Margaret, he enjoyed going to lectures and continuing their busy voluntary work in the community.
The family was able to spend valuable time together after the pandemic, before Christopher’s health finally declined. He died peacefully in the Royal Free Hospital on 29th July 2022. Christopher’s wit and sense of gratitude were evident till the end of his very full and impactful life.
As a former colleague noted, “Christopher was a charming man... full of warmth and wisdom.... always curious about life with a deep humanity. He was outstanding in his professional career...a man of real calibre but full of quiet humility.”