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73
Walter St. John's Trust, the Board of Works for the
Wandsworth District, the Metropolitan Board of
Works, and the Board of Churchwardens and Overseers,
have at different periods claimed Mr. Wood as
a colleague; for six years he occupied the distinguished
position of Churchwarden, having served three years as
the elected representative of the Vestry, and three
years as Vicar's Warden.
The Vestry are further desirous of tendering their hearty
thanks and congratulations to Mr. Wood upon the
admirable manner in which, during the period of his
Wardenship, he has acted as Chairman of the Vestry,
a position to which in the absence of the Reverend
Canon J. Erskine Clarke, M.A., the Vicar, he has
invariably been elected, and the impartiality, tact, and
experience in the conduct of public meetings, which he
has thus displayed, have greatly assisted in the
transaction of the important business which has
devolved upon the Vestry since the transfer of the
Parish from Schedule "B" to Schedule "A" of the
Metropolis Local Management Act, by virtue of the provisions
of the Battersea and Westminster Act, 1887 (50
and 51 Vic., cap. 17). This important change in the Local
Government of the Parish of St. Mary, Battersea, with
a population of upwards of 170,000 persons, whereby
the ratepayers obtained for the first time a direct
control by elected representatives of their local affairs,
being due in a great measure to the instrumentality
of Mr. Wood.
County
Councillors
The Vestry in their last Annual Report, dealing
with the Local Government (England and Wales)
Act, 1888, referred to the great disadvantage under which the
Metropolis, pending the establishment of District Councils,
would labour owing to the severance of all connection between the
Central and the present Local Authorities. Under the provisions