Elizabeth Wood-Ellem

Dr Elizabeth Wood-Ellem (10 September 1930 – 8 September 2012) was a Tongan-born Australian historian actively engaged in the life of Tonga and author of the definitive biography of Queen Sālote Tupou III of Tonga.

Born Elizabeth Olive Wood near Nuku'alofa, Tonga, she was often known as Bess or Pesi Wood. She was a daughter of Reverend Dr A. Harold Wood OBE (1896–1989), a renowned Methodist then Uniting Church minister and educator, and medical Dr Olive K. Wood (née O'Reilly), who were Australian missionaries in Tonga 1924-37. She had five brothers and sisters, including Janet Secomb, herself a missionary to Tonga, actor Monica Maughan and Uniting Church minister and hymnologist Rev. Dr H. D'Arcy Wood.

Moving to Australia in 1937, Elizabeth was educated Methodist Ladies' College in Melbourne where, in her final year, she topped the state in Greek and Roman History.

At Melbourne University, she majored in English and History, gaining a BA in 1953, and would later undertake her PhD there.

Wood-Ellem earned her living as a book editor and indexer, initially at Angus & Robertson in Sydney, then London (1960-1972) with Macmillan and Paul Hamlyn, and later worked freelance. She was also appointed an archivist at King's College, Cambridge University, to sort and catalogue the papers of British novelist E. M. Forster after his death in 1970.Churchill College, Cambridge, then engaged her as Assistant Librarian for Archives to catalogue Sir James Grigg's papers and A.V. Alexander's correspondence.

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