Thomas Wode

Sir Thomas Wode KS (died 31 August 1502) was a British judge.

His early life and career are unknown, leading to him being described as 'perhaps the most obscure chief justice of the Tudor period'. His Inn, through process of elimination, was Middle Temple (as the Middle Temple records for that period are missing, while the records of the other three Inns do not include him), and his first appointment was as a Justice of the Peace for Berkshire in 1478, the same year being returned for Parliament representing Wallingford. He was made a Serjeant-at-law in 1486, and in 1488 a King's Serjeant; it is supposed he then became a member of Serjeant's Inn after this. On 24 November 1495 he was made a Puisne Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, and on 28 October 1500 he was made Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. His presidency of the Court of Common Pleas was short, with Wode dying in office on 31 August 1502. He had lived at Childrey in North Berkshire (now Oxfordshire) and was buried at Reading Abbey in accordance with his will, leaving a gold ring and two books to Thomas Frowyk, who succeeded him as Chief Justice.^[1]

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