# Protestant Exiles from France/Book First - Chapter 13 - Section XI

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XI. Mr. Charles Wood.
The fourth son of William Wood was Charles Wood (who died in 1799), assay-master in Jamaica for thirty years, a man remarkable for energy and ability, and of such high moral and religious principles that, notwithstanding the notorious corruption of the age, he never took a perquisite. On his return home he married, and built Lowmill Ironworks, near Whitehaven; and removing from Cumberland into South Wales, he erected the Cyfarthfa Ironworks at Merthyr Tydvil. At Jamaica he signalized himself by a discovery (substances and products, although known to the inhabitants of uncultivated regions, are always said to be undiscovered until made known to the scientific world), as to which Knight, in his Cyclopaedia of Industry, says, “Platina, or Platinum, is an important metal which was first made known in Europe by Mr. Wood, assay-master in Jamaica, who met with its ore in 1741.” I give an abridgement of the statements contained in the “Philosophical Transactions.”
​On 13th December 1750, William Brownrigg, M.D., F.R.S. (through William Watson, F.R.S.), presented to the Royal Society the following specimens:—
1. Platina, in dust, or minute masses, mixed with black sand and other impurities, as brought from the Spanish West Indies.
2. Native Platina, separated from the above-mentioned impurities.
3. Platina that has been fused.
4. Another piece of Platina that was part of the pummel of a sword.
Mr. Watson read several papers “concerning a new semi-metal called Platina” one of which was the Memoir by Dr. Brownrigg, who says:— “This semi-metal was first presented to me about nine years ago by Mr. Charles Wood, a skilful and inquisitive metallurgist, who met with it in Jamaica, whither it had been brought from Carthagena, in New Spain. And the same gentleman hath since gratified my curiosity by making further inquiries concerning this body. It is found in considerable quantities in the Spanish West Indies (in what part I could not learn), and is there known by the name of Platina di Pinto. The Spaniards probably call it Platina, from the resemblance in colour that it bears to silver. It is bright and shining, and of a uniform texture; it takes a fine polish, and is not subject to tarnish or rust; it is extremely hard and compact, but, like bath-metal or cast-iron, brittle, and cannot be extended under the hammer. . . . When exposed by itself to the fire, either in grains or in larger pieces, it is of extreme difficult fusion, and hath been kept for two hours in an air furnace in a heat that would run down cast-iron in fifteen minutes: which great heat it hath endured without being melted or wasted; neither could it be brought to fuse in this heat by adding to it Borax and other saline fluxes. But the Spaniards have a way of melting it down, either alone or by means of some flux; and cast it into sword-hilts, buckles, snuff-boxes, and other utensils.”
Dr. Brownrigg’s paper gave the details of many experiments; as to these, he wrote from Whitehaven, February 13, 1751 (n.s.):— “The gentleman, whose experiments on Platina I mentioned to the Royal Society, was Mr. Charles Wood, who permitted me to make what use of them I pleased; and I did not pretend to have made any new discovery, nor to know so much of that body, as hath long been known to the Spaniards. I might indeed have made use of his authority, but he was not ambitious of appearing in print." One of Charles Wood’s living representatives is his granddaughter, Mrs. Mary Howitt (née Botham), a picturesque poetical authoress, sometimes publishing works entirely her own, and sometimes in partnership with her husband, Mr. William Howitt, who died at the age of eighty-four, on 3d March 1879. She herself has long had an honourable place in the literature of her country, her guiding sentiments being (as she herself avows), “the love of Christ, of the poor, and of little children.” In 1885 she wrote recollections of her life in a well-known periodical. As to those articles, the Spectator said:— “Nothing in Good Words is more interesting than the autobiography of Mrs. Howitt. This venerable lady, now in her eighty-sixth year (an excellent portrait is given of her), writes as pleasantly and as vigorously as ever. Her reminiscences of her education (which was very much her own work) are particularly interesting.”