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.

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.

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.

Notable books she edited include: The Songs and Poems of Queen Sālote (2004) Tonga and the Tongans: Heritage and Identity (2007)

Honours National honours