George Adam Wood was born in 1767. He joined the Royal Military Academy at Woowich and received a commission as a second Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery on 24 May 1781; by 1825 he had risen to be a Major-General. In 1793 and '95 he served in Flanders with the Duke of York, and with Adercromby at the taking of St. Lucia, St. Vincent and Trinidad in the West Indies. He served with distinction in the Mediterranean between 1806 and 1808, and fought at the Battle of Corunna on 16 January 1809. He joined the expedition to Walcheren under the Earl of Chatham, and was at the siege of Flushing. He was knighted on 22 May 1812. He was given the command of the Royal Artillery of the army, under Sir Thomas Graham, and in co-operation with the allies in Holland and Flanders, landed in Rotterdam in December 1813. He was at the action of Merxem, the assault on Bergen-op-Zoom, and the siege of Antwerp, for which services he was made Aide-de-Camp to the King. In 1815 he commanded the whole of the Artillery at Waterloo and in the march to Paris, and he remained in command of the British Artillery in occupied France until 1819. For services in the campaign he was mentioned in dispatches, made a C.B., received the Waterloo Medal and was permitted to accept and wear the Insignia of the Fourth Class of the Order of St. Vladimir of Russia, the Third Class of the Order of Wilhelm of the Netherlands, and the Knighthood of the Order of Maria Theresa of Austria. The following year he was made a Knight Commander of the Royal Hanoverian Guelphic Order. He returned to England in 1819. He was appointed Governor of Carlisle on 18 June 1825. He died in London on 22 April 1831.

This portrait dates to 1816-20 and shows the sitter in a similar uniform to a portrait attributed to S. Cole of C. 1815 in the National Portrait Gallery (no.3990).