Emily Margaret Wood

Emily Margaret Wood (1865 – 1907) was an English botany teacher and painter of scientific illustrations and Arts and Crafts ceramics.

Life Wood was born 23 August 1865 in Calcutta, India, to Emily Maria (née Riddell) and Charles Bell Wood. She also had three brothers. Her mother was described as an artist and teacher of drawing, while her father's occupation was as a merchant and broker in India from a military family.

Wood died 28 October 1907 after being unwell for some time. The Liverpool Naturalists’ Field Club organised installing a monument on her grave. illustrating C. Theodore Green’s (1902) Flora of the Liverpool District (including ferns as well as flowering plants ), and making over 800 plant drawings.

Wood's contributions to the 1902 Flora of the Liverpool District are considered her major achievement. She produced all the line drawings, which are life-like and show major identification characters. In addition she coloured in a copy of this book that was donated to the local Birkenhead library. She also provided many of the plant records, especially of more uncommon species. She is known to have collected specimens for her personal herbarium but this does not appear to have survived, apart from 2 specimens now in the National Museum of Wales. In addition, she wrote for the Liverpool Mercury (later Liverpool Daily Post) newspaper in long 'country diary' style columns from 1903, and monthly essays for the Wallasey Chronicle during 1906-7. This book had been written to support the (then) new nature study movement. Wood replaced some examples and drawings of American plants with her own of typical UK species, and edited the text for UK usage. She painted Art Nouveau-influenced vases and tiles with botanical and classical scenes, including executing a design by Ford Madox Brown, some of which are now in national museum collections.