Mrs. John Wood born Matilda Charlotte Vining, was an English

English people

The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 actress and theatre manager.

Biography

Born into a theatrical

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 family, Vining travelled the country as a child actor

Child actor

The term child actor or child actress is generally applied to a child acting in motion pictures or television, but also to an adult who began his or her acting career as a child; to avoid confusion, the latter is also called a former child actor...

. Over time, she developed a talent for comedy

Comedy

Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...

.

In 1854, Vining married John Wood, an English actor. The couple moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where they became involved in American theatre. Her first part in the United States was Gertrude in A Loan of a Lover on 11 September 1854. The Woods played Boston for three seasons and for the first three months of their third, appeared at the Wallack's Theatre

Wallack's Theatre

Wallack’s Theatre , located on 254 West 42nd Street in New York, United States, was opened on December 5, 1904 by Oscar Hammerstein I. Wallack’s was Hammerstein’s 8th production theatre and was originally known as the "Lew Fields'", a name that Hammerstein gave it in recognition of his favourite...

 in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. New York was already the centre of American theatre, and Mrs. John Wood came to outshine her husband. T. Allston Brown

T. Allston Brown

Thomas Allston Brown was an American theater critic, newspaper editor, talent agent and manager, and theater historian, best known for his History of the American Stage, published in 1872. Brown was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts...

, a contemporary historian of the theatre , offers this explanation for her fame:

Mrs. John Wood was a very pretty woman, possessing a fine figure and an attractive face. Her style was excellent in everything she attempted. She read well, had a melodious voice, was affecting in pathetic scenes and lively in those of a cheerful character, was a graceful dancer, and, although her voice was not very strong, it was melodious and well cultivated. She possessed the artistic talent which satisfied every demand that could be made by the most rigid stickler for a high degree of merit in a theatrical artist.

Mr. and Mrs. John Wood again played Wallack's in the summer of 1857, then moved to San Francisco

San Francisco, California

San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. There they played Maguire's Opera House on 18 January 1858. This season, Mrs. John Wood gained renown for her roles in Hi-a-wa-tha; or, Ardent Spirit and Laughing Waters and Love's Disguises. She may have managed two theatres during this period: the Forrest Theatre

Forrest Theatre

The Forrest Theatre is a live theatre venue in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is managed by The Shubert Organization.The Forrest Theatre was built in 1927. It was designed by architect Herbert J. Krapp and has a seating capacity of 1,851. It was named after the 19th century actor Edwin Forrest, who...

 in Sacramento

Sacramento, California

Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Sacramento County. It is located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River in the northern portion of California's expansive Central Valley. With a population of 466,488 at the 2010 census,...

 for a few weeks in 1858 and the American Theatre in San Francisco from March 1859 to the beginning of summer.

In mid-1859, Mrs. John Wood parted ways with her husband, daughter, and mother and returned to New York. There she joined Dion Boucicault's

Dion Boucicault

Dionysius Lardner Boursiquot , commonly known as Dion Boucicault, was an Irish actor and playwright famed for his melodramas. By the later part of the 19th century, Boucicault had become known on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the most successful actor-playwright-managers then in the...

 troupe at the Winter Garden Theatre

Winter Garden Theatre

The Winter Garden Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 1634 Broadway in midtown Manhattan.-History:The structure was built by William Kissam Vanderbilt in 1896 to be the American Horse Exchange....

. Wood and Boucicault clashed, so Wood decided to tour New York independently for three seasons. She met Laura Keene

Laura Keene

Laura Keene was a British-born American stage actress and manager. In her twenty-year career, she became known as the first powerful female manager in New York.-Early life:...

 in the summer of 1860 while playing at Keene's playhouse, which was renamed the Olympic Theatre

Olympic Theatre

The Olympic Theatre, sometimes known as the Royal Olympic Theatre, was a 19th-century London theatre, opened in 1806 and located at the junction of Drury Lane, Wych Street, and Newcastle Street. The theatre specialised in comedies throughout much of its existence...

 in 1863. She managed Jane English's Theatre from its reopening on 8 October 1863. Soon after, she became manager of the Olympic, which changed its name to Mrs. John Wood's Olympic Theatre. She stayed there three seasons, during which she concentrated on burlesques and comedies

Comedy

Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...

. On 30 June 1866, Mrs. John Wood departed for England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

.

Wood continued her management career at the St. James Theatre

St. James Theatre

The St. James Theatre is located at 246 W. 44th St. Broadway, New York City, New York. It was built by Abraham L. Erlanger, theatrical producer and a founding member of the Theatrical Syndicate, on the site of the original Sardi's restaurant. It opened in 1927 as The Erlanger...

 in London from 1869 until mid-1872. She then returned to the United States for the 1872-1873 season, then returned to England. In 1881, she appeared in Foggerty's Fairy

Foggerty's Fairy

Foggerty's Fairy, subtitled "An Entirely Original Fairy Farce", is a three-act farce by W.S. Gilbert based loosely on Gilbert's short story, "The Story of a Twelfth Cake", which was published in the Christmas Number of The Graphic in 1874, and elements of other Gilbert plays...

by W. S. Gilbert

W. S. Gilbert

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...

. Until her retirement in 1893, she managed a number of English theatres.

Wood died in 1915 at the age of 83.