Sir Joseph Hood, 1st Baronet

Sir Joseph Hood, 1st Baronet, (31 March 1863 – 10 January 1931) was a British businessman and Conservative Party politician.[1][2][3]

Born in Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire, Hood was educated at the local grammar school. He subsequently studied law, and was admitted as a solicitor in 1890, practicing in Liverpool.[1]

In 1902 he was employed as solicitor to act for Imperial Tobacco Company and American Tobacco Company in their formation of the joint venture British-American Tobacco Company Ltd.[1] He was appointed a director of the three companies, and was one of the deputy-chairman of British American Tobacco. He resigned from these positions in 1921.[1] In 1900 he married Katherine Kenny of County Wexford, and the couple had three daughters. She died in 1913.[1] His second marriage was to Marie Robinson of Dublin, with whom he had two sons.[1]

During World War I he served on two committees of the Board of Trade and acted as an assistant controller at the Ministry of Information.[1]

At the 1918 general election he was elected as Coalition Conservative member of parliament for Wimbledon.[1][2] He held the seat at the next two general elections, and in 1922 was created a baronet "of Wimbledon in the County of Surrey".[4] He retired from the Commons at the 1924 general election.[1][2]

Hood was known as a generous benefactor to the area he represented in parliament. He donated a recreation ground at Raynes Park to Merton and Morden Urban District Council and playing fields and woodland in South Wimbledon to the Borough of Wimbledon.[1] Following his death they were named Sir Joseph Hood Memorial Playing Fields, and Sir Joseph Hood Memorial Wood.[5][6] Hood lived at Winkfield Lodge on Wimbledon's Parkside during the 1920s. The house presently serves as the home of the Apostolic Nunciature to Great Britain.[7]

Sir Joseph and Lady Hood were granted the freedom of the borough of Wimbledon in 1924.[1] In 1930 he was elected mayor of Wimbledon by the borough council, an office he held until his death at his Wimbledon home after a short illness in January 1931.[1][8] He was succeeded in the baronetcy by his eldest son Harold Hood, then aged 15.[1][9]