Ruth Wood, Countess Of Halifax

Ruth Alice Hannah Mary Wood, Countess of Halifax (née Primrose), was born on 18 April 1916 and died on 31 August 1989. She was a British racehorse owner and was notably among the first three women elected as members of the Jockey Club in December 1977, alongside her half-sister Priscilla Hastings and Helen Johnson Houghton.

Her parentage traces to Neil Primrose, who was the son of Archibald Primrose, the 5th Earl of Rosebery. Her mother was Lady Victoria Stanley, who was the third child of Edward Stanley, the 17th Earl of Derby. Ruth was the only child of Neil Primrose. Lady Victoria Stanley married Neil Primrose on 7 April 1915. Neil Primrose died in Palestine in 1917 during World War I. In 1919, Lady Victoria remarried Malcolm Bullock, a Member of Parliament from 1923 to 1953, who was later granted a baronetcy in 1954. Ruth's half-sister, Priscilla Hastings, was born in 1920. Lady Victoria Bullock died in a hunting accident while participating in a Quorn hunt in 1927. Before her death, she left Ruth a collection of paintings of racehorses by George Stubbs.

In 1936, Ruth Primrose married Charles Wood. After her father-in-law’s death in 1959, her husband inherited the earldom, and she became the Countess of Halifax. They had three children: Lady Caroline Victoria Wood (10 September 1937 – 15 November 2014), who married Joe Feilden in 1958, later divorced, and remarried John Gosling in 1970; Lady Susan Diana Wood (born 22 September 1938), who married Brigadier Ian Darsie Watson in 1959; and Charles Edward Peter Neil Wood, the 3rd Earl of Halifax (born 14 March 1944).

The Countess of Halifax and her husband achieved a notable victory in horse racing by winning The Derby in 1978 with the horse Shirley Heights, which was jointly bred by her husband and his son. Her husband served as master of the Middleton Foxhounds for over 30 seasons before his death in 1980. Ruth and Charles Wood are buried together in the churchyard of All Saints, Kirby Underdale.