Elizabeth Wood-Ellem
Dr Elizabeth Wood-Ellem CCT (10 September 1930 – 8 September 2012) was a Tongan-born Australian historian and author of the definitive biography of Queen Sālote Tupou III of Tonga.[1]
Birth and family
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). They were Australian missionaries in Tonga from 1924 to 1937.[1] 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.
Career
Elizabeth moved to Australia in 1937, and was educated at Methodist Ladies' College in Melbourne where, in her final year, she topped the state of Victoria in Greek and Roman History.
At Melbourne University, she majored in English and History, gaining a BA in 1953. She later received her PhD there in 1982.[2]
Wood-Ellem earned her living as a book editor and indexer, initially at Angus & Robertson in Sydney, then London (1960–72) with Macmillan and Paul Hamlyn. She later worked freelance.[2]
She was 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.[1] Churchill College, Cambridge then engaged her as Assistant Librarian for Archives to catalogue Sir James Grigg's papers and A.V. Alexander's correspondence.
She completed a PhD in Tongan history in 1982 at the University of Melbourne and remained a Senior Fellow there at the time of her death. She published her biography of Queen Sālote of Tonga in 1999. Fairfax’s Pacific correspondent Mike Field said of it was "one of the finest pieces of historical research and insight, anthropology and understanding of Tonga that you’ll ever find."[1]
Notable books she edited include The Songs and Poems of Queen Sālote (2004) and Tonga and the Tongans: Heritage and Identity (2007).
In 2008, King George Tupou V recognised her singular contribution to Tonga by bestowing on her the title of Commander of the Order of the Crown of Tonga.[1]
Publications
- Wood-Ellem, Elizabeth (1999). Queen Sālote of Tonga: The Story of an Era, 1900–1965. Auckland, N.Z.: Auckland University Press. ISBN 978-1-86940-205-1. OCLC 262293605. Archived from the original on 20 February 2012.[3]
Notable books she edited include:
- The Songs and Poems of Queen Sālote (2004)
- Tonga and the Tongans: Heritage and Identity (2007)
Honours
- National honours
Order of the Crown of Tonga, Commander (31 July 2008).[4]
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 Wood, H. D'Arcy; Ball, Olivia (5 October 2012). "Historian lauded for book on Pacific". The Age. Melbourne: Fairfax Media. Retrieved 23 November 2012.
- 1 2 "Historian's turf was Tongan royalty". The Sydney Morning Herald. 18 October 2012. Retrieved 27 April 2026.
- ↑ Newell, William (1 April 2004), "Elizabeth Wood-Ellem. Queen Salote of Tonga: The Story of an Era, 1900-1965.(Book Review)", The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 15 (1), Australian Anthropological Society: 122(2), ISSN 1035-8811
- ↑ "Royal orders presented at Palace". Matangi Tonga. 1 August 2008. Archived from the original on 21 January 2021. Retrieved 2 January 2022.
- University of Melbourne alumni
- Uniting Church in Australia people
- 1930 births
- 2012 deaths
- Commanders of the Order of the Crown of Tonga
- Australian women historians
- 20th-century Australian historians
- Academic staff of the University of Melbourne
- Australian expatriates in Tonga
- Tongan historians
- Historians of Oceania
- Tongan women writers
- 20th-century Tongan writers
- 21st-century Tongan writers
- 20th-century Australian non-fiction writers
- 21st-century Australian non-fiction writers
- 20th-century Australian women writers
- 21st-century Australian women writers
- 20th-century Tongan women
- 21st-century Tongan women
- Indexers