Obituaries Australia

William Hood, n.d.

from Pastoral Review, 16 September 1920

Mr. William Walter Hood, a noted Queensland pioneer, and Brisbane director of Birt and Co. Ltd., the well-known shipping and meat exporting firm, died in Brisbane on 18th August after a long illness. He came to Australia in 1853 from his native town of Berwick, in the north of England, when he was nine years of age, and after being educated at the Geelong Grammar School, Vic., went into an office. When he reached the age of nineteen, however, he went to Queensland to investigate the pastoral industry, going out on to the Paroo and Cooper's Creek, but returned to Victoria, and subsequently bought a property near Ararat. In 1880 he was appointed general manager of the Western Queensland Pastoral Company, which owned Burenda, Authoringa, Mitchell Downs, and several other holdings. Mr. Hood lived at Burenda until 1896, when he moved to Brisbane as manager for Birt and Co. Ltd.

During recent years he had been a director of several pastoral companies, of the Queensland Trustees, and for some time was chairman of the Queensland Turf Club. In 1898 he was returned as member for Warrego in the Queensland Legislative Assembly, and was afterwards in the Legislative Council, but political life did not appeal to him, and he sat in only the one Parliament. The late Mr. Hood was held in the highest respect, and fully merited the esteem with which he was universally regarded.