surfresearch.com.au  wood : uncivilized races, 1874

"WOOD, JOHN GEORGE (1827-1889),
English writer and lecturer on natural history, was born in London on the 2ist of July 1827.
He was educated at Ashbourne grammar school and at Merton College, Oxford; and after he had taken his degree in 1848 he worked for two years in the anatomical museum at Christ Church under Sir Henry Acland.
In 1852 he was ordained a deacon of the Church of England, became curate of the parish of St Thomas the Martyr, Oxford, and also took up the post of chaplain to the Boatmen's Floating Chapel at Oxford.
He was ordained priest in 1854, and in that year gave up his curacy to devote himself for a time to literary work.
In 1858 he accepted a readership at Christ Church, Newgate Street, and he was assistant-chaplain to St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, from 1856 until 1862.
Between 1868 and 1876 he held the office of precentor to the Canterbury Diocesan Choral Union. After 1876 he devoted himself to the production of books and to delivering in all parts of the country lectures on zoology, which he illustrated by drawing on a black-board or on large sheets of white-paper with colored crayons.
These " sketch lectures," as he called them, were very popular, and made his name widely known both in Great Britain and in the United States.
In 1883-1884 he delivered the Lowell lectures at Boston."

"MRS HENRY WOOD." LoveToKnow 1911 Online Encyclopedia. © 2003, 2004 LoveToKnow.
http://75.1911encyclopedia.org/W/WO/WOOD_MRS_HENRY.htm

"As well as being editor of 'The Boys Own Magazine', Wood's numerous publications include 'Bees', 'The boy's own book of natural history', 'Animal traits and characteristics', 'The natural history of man', 'Half hours with a naturalist', 'Common British beetles', 'Illustrated natural history for young people', 'Natural history', his most important work. He was most renowned for the series of books which began with 'Common Objects of the Seashore', many of which are held in the Whipple Library."

This article incorporates public domain text from: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London, J.M. Dent & sons; New York, E.P. Dutton.

http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/library/wood.html

Some of the performers attain to a wonderful degree of skill, and, not content with lying on the board, sit, kneel, and even stand on it as they are hurled shorewards by the giant waves.

The boards are of various sizes, according to the age and stature of the owner.

For adults they are about six feet in length.

They are slightly convex on both sides, and are kept very smooth all surf-swimmers cherishing a pride in the condition of their boards, and taking care to keep them well polished and continually rubbed with cocoa-nut oil.

Such utter mastery of the waves can only be obtained by familiarity with the water from earliest childhood.

A Sandwich island child can swim as soon as it can walk, if not sooner, the mothers taking them from the breast, laying them on the surface of the water and encouraging them to kick about as if lying on their mats ashore."

Wallis McKay : Surf-swimmers, circa 1874. Nat's History (1983) Page 30 Bishop Museum. Highly detailed image denoting  riding positions, stance, duck-diving, waves in sets, off-shore winds  and significant wave height.

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