- Wood, Abraham (Abram)
- (?-1799)England. Violinist. He came to Wales from the west of England around 1730 with his wife Sarah and children and set up a base near Monmouth. He is said to have been the first person to play the violin in Wales. Wood had four children: Valentine (John), William, Solomon, and Damaris. They married into other Gypsy families-the Stanleys, Ingrams, and Boswells - and the eldest son, Valentine, was the grandfather of the famous harpist John Wood Jones. Other harpist descendants of Abraham Wood include John Roberts and William Lewis. The former performed before Grand Duke Constantine of Russia at Aberystwyth in 1847 and the king of the Belgians the following year, while the latter played at a Royal Command concert in London in 1932 and later gave performances at the Phoenix Theatre. John Sampson, the great scholar of the Romani language, recorded the dialect, folktales, and songs of the Wood family and identified their dialect as distinct from that of the English Gypsies recorded by Leland, Smart, and Crofton during the 19th century. Sampson learned Romani from harpist Edward Wood, a descendant of Abraham Wood, and other members of the family.
Historical dictionary of the Gypsies . Donald Kenrick.